My Promotion to Middle School

                I can almost remember the day I got promoted and had to sing that god awful song, “You Raise Me Up”.  That night was something that I will never ever forget. But let’s rewind to the beginning of fifth grade. I was this short, chubby, Asian American kid that always wanted to feel wanted by others. Everything “bad” kids do, I followed.

                I played almost every sport aside from baseball. For some reason I just couldn’t hold on to the bat while I swung. I was even into kickball and football, especially during Field Day. I was a monster during the shuttle races, hurdles and the potato sack race. Around the same time, I was introduced to basketball. Ever since watching Yao Ming debut in the NBA during 2002, I was just inspired by him. That’s when I fell in love with the game. Man, those were the good days. I felt like the Red Ranger; a hero. Sadly, there’s always the arch nemesis. It wasn’t in the shape of any man, woman or creature, but in the form of social society.

                I went to Edward White Elementary school as my eldest sister did five years prior to me being daycare school. A school named after an astronaut doesn’t seem like a bad school at all and it wasn’t. It was just centered in the middle of a densely populated minority community. The ethnic statistics were around 60% Hispanic, 35% African American and 5% other. I felt even more of a minority at my school. It made me realize how small I was compared to the school. Obviously with a more minorities than others, cultures were different and often clashed.

My need for acceptance was my downfall. I was so confused. There were the soccer kids, chill group of kids, dumb bully type kids, and the cool kids. I tried finding a seat in every clique at school during lunch. The soccer kids refused me because I was short and uncoordinated with my feet. The bully type clique only bullied me, and the cool kids just thought I wasn’t cool enough. The only group that I had was the chill group. They accepted me for who I was. This group consisted of some of my closest friends even till this day. I should have recognized that these children were starting to like me, but I was naïve. My ache for acceptance expanded two sizes and I wanted to be friends with more people from different groups.

I started dumbing myself; doing the lesser students’ AR quizzes had me thinking of a wrong way to survive. There was an infamous show that was on the television during my fifth grade life. The show was hosted by Joe Rogan and it was called Fear Factor. Every kid was fascinated by it. Every day, children would talk about last night’s episode and how they ate cockroaches and fell from fifty foot buildings. Ever since then, we have been doing the school version of it. Replacing all the buildings and cockroaches, we used the school lunch and the playground. Quickly I established a huge fan club. I ate the most outrageous things such as: mashed potatoes with chocolate pudding, ketchup and milk, and chicken strips and pumpkin pie. I didn’t mind eating those things because it honestly didn’t taste that bad. It was always one taste of food covering the other tastes. For once I felt cool. But all good things come to an end.

Throughout my journey to find myself, I had a pretty close circle of friends that stuck by me no matter what. And one of them became my crush. A brief history between my crush and I. She was a Vietnamese girl named Kelly and she had a twin sister named Kathy. I met them in third grade because fate decided I would be in the same class as them. I’m just kidding; I recently transferred to third grade and it just so happened they were the first people to greet me. I only liked Kelly because she had played video games, liked wrestling, and sports. We have so much in common and we always ate together. And it’s been like that since the third grade. During fifth grade, she just became more into baseball and I rarely saw her. The only times where I would be able to see her was if we passed by each other in the hallway and we’d do a quick hand wave. We just grew apart.

                 Fifth grade was ridiculous. I felt I was on the top of the food chain on a non-existent social network. I was actually towards the bottom, but my ego wouldn’t let me know I was at the bottom. I would try my hardest to fit in, I would dress nicer, get better haircuts, do more work, but it just didn’t seem to work. Honestly, I wasn’t really that smart, that fashionable, or even good looking. Towards the end, I was a bit hurt. Kelly was going to a different school than I; I was a social outcast and people only wanted to hang out for a couple of minutes. I felt really bad. But for some reason, during the fifth grade promotion ceremony, I was overjoyed. I knew I survived fifth grade. I wasn’t alone either. I still managed to create a handful of open-minded kids to be my friend. So it wasn’t so bad. I found it bittersweet, but I can’t dwell on past grudges. It was time for me to step up and evolve my education. It’s time for Middle School. 

Corruption of a young teen

                Paul Revere Middle School was the name of the first stepping stone that changed my perspective on the world. It has got to be one of the most life-changing time periods of my life. I just felt extremely cool. I thought, “I’m a sixth grader now! I’m so cool!” I may have thought it at first, but things changed quickly.

                I was really reserved in sixth grade. I was at an even bigger school trying to figure out how the social life worked. I was in homeroom class and I just remember sitting at a desk, filling out my personal information, and staring at all the posters in the class. As always, my big ego likes to talk for me. I started lying to see if I could attract any friends. It worked, only with the “nerds”. So I had my little group of friends. I remember this one kid named Mateo. He was my first best friend who accepted me as me in middle school. That moment was so surreal. It was like my dream came true.

                During my sixth grade year, I felt I so cool that I didn’t have to do anything other than socialize. It was really hard to adjust. I have eight different classes spread out throughout the entire school. I was still pretty chubby at the time and I was just lost in a sea of red shirts in the A hall. It was pretty hectic. I lost count of how many times I lost my way around the school. I really didn’t focus too much on women. I was too focused on catching the bus, making sure I always had friends with me and become the center of attention. And then reality sets in.

                I remember it clearly. I was in Mrs. Bailey’s homeroom class and she pulls me to the side. She hushes her voice and tells me, “in all of the magnet students, you were the only one who failed the math TAKS.” Reality just punches me in my face and completely made me sad. How was I going to tell my parents that their son failed? I grew anxious. My mother and father were speechless. They only told me that they were disappointed and that I had to work hard in summer school. I was still very childish; I didn’t understand what summer school was. Why were all the kids playing during the summer while I was at school? Why am I here? I didn’t have a logical answer for that.

                I arrive to school during the month of June. The environment completely changes. Instead of seeing my friends there, I see the “regular” students. I finally realized what this place was. At that time, I felt like my whole world crumbled into trillions of pieces. I felt like I was kneeling in front of God pleading for a second chance at life, and that chance just never came. Once again I felt lonely in a dark space. I had no one. No one to say “good morning”, no one to say “how are you” and no one to share my emotions.

                I understood this environment. Which kind of slang they spoke, and how they interacted with one another; I didn’t know it all at once though. I reverted back to my old ways in elementary school. It was pretty crazy. I have to say, picking up on how they spoke was pretty ridiculous. Imagine this, one Asian kid standing in a huge cafeteria full of Hispanics and African Americans. I was a bit timid. I remember my first interaction with one. His name was Roderick. He sat at my table during a science class and he took notice of me. He noticed that I’d always finish my work first. Roderick started talking to me about how do certain problems or “let me see your paper”. My desperation for survival took over. I would do anything to be successful. I soon realized they did not know me at all. It was my chance to make a name for myself. I started making fun of myself. I even sang a song with blunt sexual innuendoes in it.

                Finally, he thinks I’m cool. He introduces me to the other kids and get along just nicely. In the process of making a fool out of myself, I remembered how to imitate a farting noise using my throat. Once I remembered, I just couldn’t stop it. Every single time, they wanted an encore. I finally felt wanted again.

                After a good couple of days, Roderick and his group accepted me. I was a cool kid now. I felt excited. They all loved me; and so I thought. Towards the last few days of summer school, I found out I was being used all along. All the times where I thought I was accepted was just a wishful thought. How was I so blind? A Hispanic kid draws a derogatory picture of me and passed it around. Reality found me again. I’ll be honest; I attempted suicide in sixth grade. All the pent up emotion just flooded my mind when that boy made fun of me. I snapped my poor pencil four times in half, I almost broke a desk and I just started crying my eyes out. The room was silent. I had morbid thoughts. I even grabbed a pen and to try and slash my throat. I wanted that pain to be gone. It took me two hours to calm down in the dean’s office.

                Summer school was finally over and everyone who cheated off me moved on with me. Seventh grade wasn’t as eventful as sixth grade so I’m skipping it and move onto eighth grade. By the time I was in eighth grade, I grew to 5’8’’ over the summer. Thank God for puberty. I felt so open minded now. With the information learned from summer school, I now knew how to interact with the “ghetto” kids. In sense, I’m grateful for learning this new adaptive way to think and feel. I also kept a good eye on my common sense. To cut short, I was pretty well balanced. I had friends from all over; from the jocks, to even the nerds and to even the teachers. I even had girls like me. I started band and I was announced top saxophone player. I was first picked when playing basketball during PE. I had a good life in eighth grade. Everything was going great, until I found myself in the same predicament as sixth grade.

                I was on the brink of not passing my 8^th grade English class. Of course my parents would talk to me about it in rage, but it all came down to me and my thought process. It was after school and my mom confronts me about it. She goes about how she messed up and wishing she could start over with me. She storms off and starts crying. To make it even worse, my father walked in and just flat out said, “You’re not my son, I don’t know you.” How did I feel? I felt like the untouched first slice of wheat bread when you first open the packaging. Like someone took me, threw me on the curb and pissed on me. On top of all the screaming, all I heard was white noise. It was so white it was almost clear as the air. And then I woke up from an uncomfortable trance, my eyes started to water. I quickly stormed upstairs and climbed out the window from my bedroom. I sat there for two solid hours, contemplating what move I should make in a game of life. And then my mother came in. Still furious, but wanted to know what was going on in my head. We sat down and talked. All she wanted was to care and love me for all my imperfections. Was there any word from the dad? Nope, not even a single “hello.”

                Middle School was a dark time for me. But through all the scariness, intimidation, uneasiness, it was blocked out by the fun my friends and I created. But there was this group of friends that I wish I could see again; a group of friends that I would just sit down and reconnect with and have fun. They were my support and I was theirs.

My Support Group

                I wasn’t a type of person to just have one best friend. I have multiple. Instead of an individual, I had many people support me. I found these people in seventh grade. Some of these friends I still talk to, but not as much as we used to.

                I first met a girl named Darlene. She was a sweet, nice Vietnamese girl that was really friendly. She met me and was astounded about how big I was. We started talking more and she introduced her “twin”. Her name was Angela. They were nearly the same height, same hair style, talked the same and hung around with the same people. Angela was the first girl I liked in middle school. Till this day, I really don’t know why I was even interested in a petite, squeaky voiced Asian girl. I didn’t have the guts to ask her out so I got my friend to do it. Probably one of the biggest mistakes I ever did. He came back and told me she wasn’t interested. I didn’t want it to affect me so I ignored it. It still hurt, but life moves on. And so I got to know more of their group. Then there was Vivian, Cammie and Jessica. Vivian was the second girl that I tried dating. I figured out that she just wasn’t into me. At that time I was still fresh meat to the dating game. I didn’t know what to do and because of that, we broke things off after three days. We still managed to be friends. From there on out, I just decided not to date anyone else. Enter Jessica and Cammie. Both of them had really great personalities and I had several things in common with them. What’s really funny is that they both liked me. I still remember that vow I took to not date anymore so we were pretty good friends with little subliminal love notes or love stares at each other. What’s really ironic is that, I liked both of them too. I asked the rest of the group on what to do and they advised me to just stay friends. I considered their advice and ended up being really great friends and nothing more.

                After that long period of finding that “someone”, I was going through a lot of stuff. I have countless remarks from my father who said I was a constant failure. I had my mom who just blindly trusted my father and so I often kept quiet about these feelings. But luckily I had my group of friends. They basically advised me to not give on hope and that my parents will come around to supporting you. With their input, I immediately became myself again. It’s like giving a five year old soda pop and afterwards she becomes super hyper. They helped me get over a really big obstacle in my life and ever since we hung out together throughout seventh and eighth grade.

                What made things really hard was that, the group divided after eighth grade. Darlene, Angela, Cammie and Vivian all went to DeBakey High School. Jessica and Mary went to Westside High School. As for me, well I wasn’t that fortunate as them. I wasn’t a good subject test taker and failed to meet requirements. At first I was really sad and depressed knowing that my closest friends were all going to separate schools. I ended up taking my freshman year at International School at Sharpstown. During that summer after the last day of school, we promised each other that we would hang out whenever we had the time to and we’d always have fun together.

                Well that really didn’t happen. I haven’t socialized with them face to face for all of high school. During my high school, I faced a lot of difficulties just like in middle school. I want to see them. I miss how we laughed and talked to each other non-stop. I just want to catch up with them and see what life has to offer them. Now we’re headed to different colleges and it’s going to be even harder for us to hang out with all the orientation to go to. I just really hope we’d get to hang out soon. If I had a chance to talk with them, I’d say, “I miss you guys! How are you? I hope things are going great. We really need to hang out before college! I wish you all the best of luck in college and I love y’all.”

Fear not, for my sisters are there

                A lot of people say your parents are the biggest influence from the minute you are born, but for me, my father wasn’t mentally there. I grew up not knowing what it feels like to have a father figure in my life, although he was physically there, he wasn’t mentally. I was basically raised by my mother and two older sisters. Words cannot describe the gratitude and thanks I have for making me who I am now. Even though they were two people, they acted as one.

                But one of sisters was there for me all the way. Her name is Erica and she’s the oldest of the children. She was born into a very traditional Chinese family who always demanded perfection from anyone. Erica, being first born, was abused by my parents so severely that her imperfections became her perfections; however, that alone was not nearly enough to satisfy my parents’ greed. She has been through a lot in her childhood just to be where she is now. Even though she had a rough upbringing, she gained experience that paved the road for her younger siblings.

                In some traditional Chinese families, parents often praise and spoil the son. I was born into one of those families and my parents gave me everything I ever dreamed of. I could say that I was living the life of luxury, but in other eyes, I was living life blind. My two older sisters saw the bad that this was causing and the negative effects that will have on me in the future. Erica took the initiative to try and help me, seeing how she helped my other sister get on her own two feet, but I saw it as useless and a waste of time. Why would I have to learn about how to live on my own when my parents were wrapped around my fingers? In the end, I was a big recalcitrant and was not eager to learn her ways, but she was very persistent.

                As I got older, my parents decided to demand things that could not be given. The turning point in my life was during the sixth grade. They were so infuriated and so disappointed that they started to question my capabilities to actually work so they slowly started to accept the fact that I was “unable” to do math correctly. They just started to unwrap themselves from my finger tips. When Erica found out that I was being mistreated at school and at home, she called me from college to tell me that it everyone makes mistakes and that you should learn from them. She told me to keep my head up and to not let negativity flood my conscience. I strolled into seventh grade with my chin held high and I aced everything and every class.

                Flash forward a couple of years, I’m now a junior in high school and SAT’s are around the corner. Oh how I hated the SAT, still do of course, but it was that year where I passionately did not give a crap about it. After failing a required SAT test that was given to the juniors, and some seniors, I just shrugged it off. But surprisingly my father was on my case about my SAT score. I told him, “Scores should be coming here in two weeks.” Two weeks later he demands to see it. I tell him I’m just going to retake it or maybe take some classes. Of course his lazy self didn’t help me apply for SAT classes, but instead waits for first semester senior to finally push me for SAT. Later that day, Erica came home and I told her about what happened. She told me ways to improve my study habits and to improve me score. I felt a little bit better knowing that Erica was fighting for me in my corner no matter what.

              I ended up go to some Korean SAT class course thing which costs around $50 per hour per class and of course I was accused for the financial disabilities my family went though during that time period. I think I did pretty awesome considering I improved my score 400 points. But my father didn’t see that. He just saw it as number and not signs of positive effort. I’m already stressed out trying to live up to my parents’ goals, but to add on more pressure was too overbearing.

                 Weeks later, my father questions me about how my SAT studies were coming along. I told him the numbers and he just said, “You’ll never get into a good college. I give up.” When he said that, I literally raised my chest, took a deep breath and yelled back at him. This was something that I never done before. To finally release some of that excess pressure was fantastic. I finally stood up for myself. I finally stood up to that tyrannical dictator of a father. Did that matter to him? Nope. But what really matters is that I did it for myself and I wouldn’t have been able to if it wasn’t for Erica always supporting me and telling me to be my own person.

Fresh Meat

                After barely passing my eighth grade class, I finally reached my freshman year. I felt ecstatic about being in high school, the big leagues, but I let that get to my head. I felt I could start over and be whole different person. I felt no one should know my past. I decided to grow out my hair and act really nice. I even had that Bieber haircut going on. What was I thinking?! But I will never forget the first day of school.

                I was expecting immediate teases from upperclassmen, but surprisingly it wasn’t like that. Instead they were read with arms wide open saying, “Hello dear freshmen!” I was lucky enough to go to a relatively small school. Back then it was only about 200 plus students and we were using the T-buildings off of another school. I was a bit confused. No one was being thrown into trashcans, pushed into puddles, or bullied. When I went to advisory I noticed I had a best bud from middle school in the same class. I rushed towards him and greeted him. I was so timid to make friends that I created a cement bubble that encased my dark past.

                Now my friend was more outgoing than I was. He didn’t care what teachers had to say, he was funny and he introduced me to fantastic people. Now I admit, I was pretending to be cool in order to attract friends. It seemed that if a person was “cool”, then a lot of people would come and hang out with that person. So through my experience, I was willing to test that theory. It was true for the most part, but as I got more comfortable with them, I started to chip away at the cement bubble.

                I started making friends by the minute. As the semester dragged on, more and more friends came to me. It was an unusual way of meeting. During eighth grade summer, I grew two more inches so by the time I was a freshman, I was 5’10’’. People would say, “Wow you’re a tall Asian!” and that’s how conversation would start.

                When I came to this high school, the first thing I noticed was a basketball hoop that was just a bit short of ten feet. Every time during lunch I would see upperclassmen playing basketball. I would always just stand by the fence and watch. Until I decided I had nothing better to do and join them. It was a tough crowd. People were sending bullets at me through their eyes. When I made my first basket, people were skeptic saying it was “luck” or a “fluke”, but as I made more baskets, they started to accept the fact that I could play. So every day during lunch I would be outside playing basketball. Slowly I was known to be the shorter version of Yao Ming.

                But it wasn’t always sunshine and daisies. With being a friendly guy mid semester, came a great variety of friends. There’s a time where I almost got expelled. One of my friends brought firecrackers on campus. I asked him what he was going to do with it, “I’m going to pop them, duh!” He replied. He brought it towards the back of the school and you would just hear a loud popping sound. As everyone crowded, he and I walked off, but in the process a student told the school police it was us two. We knew they were going to say something so my friend ditched the evidence. I know it was bad, but I was freaking out. Later that afternoon, we were called out to the police station. I was completely freaked out. When we arrived to the office, I had a deer-in-headlights look. I was just so terrified that the words they were saying turned into a loud high pitched tone. They policemen first told my friend to empty his pockets. He did and they found nothing. I brought everything with me, my backpack and a couple of folders. When one of the officers told me to empty my stuff, I just started to speed up the process. I never emptied my backpack that quickly before. They didn’t find anything so I they explained to us how bad things could have gotten if it was something serious. After that lecture he sent us to the principal’s office.

                The principal pulled me into the office and said I had a good record with good grades so he let me go with just three days of community service. My friend on the other hand wasn’t doing to good with his grades and was assigned in school suspension. At my last period of the day, my band director was talking to the policeman that pulled me in. The band director gave a speech about how we should not affiliate with bad activities. She then pointed me out and told me to go do pushups for the duration of practice.  My rehearsal lasted about an hour and thirty minutes. When I was done, I hurried to the principal’s office to get the cleaning materials and I told him I was so sore. He asked me why and I told him the band director made me do pushups for my actions. I guess he got really mad because the next day I didn’t have band anymore.

                Ever since then, I had a really good freshmen year. When the day for freshmen to get publically humiliated, the staff didn’t let that happen at all so I was safe, but some of my peers weren’t so lucky. Even though I had many ups and downs, my experience was really good. This school made me feel like a family and a place I could be comfortable with myself.

Phase Two

                I made it through freshmen year without a scratch or worry. I was a B average student with plenty of friends. I mean, why would I worry? Well in sophomore year PSAT was all of sudden something to work for now and having a girlfriend or being more popular.

                I looked at school with such hatred, but with such gratitude that year. That year, I bonded with more people than in freshmen year. Even teachers were considered my friends. I never thought, in a million years, I would be friends with a teacher, but this year was different. I saw a lot of new faces. I took the initiative to be a better someone, someone who helps friends in math classes or even at life. I even sat with people I didn’t know, even though it was expected, the point is I didn’t know that person and I saw that opportunity to test my school year resolution.

                There was this one girl named Ruth. The minute I saw her, I knew she looked familiar. I sat there pondering, where in the world did I recognize her? I sat there for a whole year and still I didn’t know until summer. I remembered.  She was from my elementary school and she actually lived right down the street from me. In sophomore year, we had the same geometry class. I really wanted to catch up so I sat at the next table. I asked her, “Hey you look familiar. Did we go to the same elementary?” “Yeah I remember you” she says. We start talking after class and basically every day.

                There was another girl, but she was different. Her name was Annie. She didn’t have much friends and she didn’t seem approachable. She wasn’t from my middle school or from freshmen year either. She was actually dating one of my best friends. She recently moved away from Sugarland because her stepdad found a new job. She started talking to me about which school to go to. I told her about my school and I told her about Bellaire high school. I was completely surprised when I saw her at my school because she really wanted to attend a “better off school” than mine. After her break up with my friend, we started talking more at school. I found out she likes almost everything I like, from basketball to certain foods and even what clothes go best with what. We started talking a lot more outside of school too. She gave me her number and I gave her mine. We even switched AIM screen names. We would talk on the phone at night and chat with one another on the computer. Then one day at school, I pulled her to the side and I asked her, “Would you go out with me?” She paused a little and said, “Let me think about it”. On January 27^th, she finally said yes.

                Throughout sophomore year, she’s been encouraging me to do better and achieve my resolution. In return, I introduced her to more friends and I helped her whenever life brought her down. Even though we had rough times, we were inseparable.

Phase Three

                I hated junior year. There were so many Advanced Placement courses I had to take, SAT lectures, and start to plan my future for college. I especially hated that year because my father decided to just pop into my life again. I would think it would be words of encouragement, but it wasn’t. He kept pressuring me to do well on the SAT and think about college. Well, I don’t do well under pressure and with his constant nagging, it made me feel uncomfortable.

                I had at least five AP courses and all of them were equally tough. One of the most horrible experiences I ever had was during my AP Chemistry class. I never really understood why the administration would enroll me into an advanced class without taking the basics. It was especially hard because one: I’m not good in science courses, and two: I believe the teacher didn’t know much. As I sat there worrying about upcoming homework assignments or projects, I observed the teacher. She basically sat on her pedestal and read off a book. If we had questions for her the teacher would pull out her teacher edition of chemistry. It was intriguing to see her lecture at her students for petty things while when she’s outside of school, she’s super nice. Was it the school that made teachers bad? Even to this day, I do not comprehend the magnitude of school.  I just remember her class being the hardest out of all my AP classes.

                I already had a basic blueprint of what I was going to do and how I was going to achieve the greatest magic trick of all; college. I wanted to go to the University of Houston – Main campus because I believed it was cheaper on my family and I could just carpool with my sister. I wanted to be a biologist and then a business and culinary arts double major. I just remember flying high with my Hopes for my future and then my father would just say, “Pull!” and aim his rifle filled with hateful bullets towards me. My father would only focus on the superficial things. Every little thing I did he always had something to say about it. If I didn’t get an A on a quiz, but a B, he’d ask, “What did your friends get? Why aren’t you smarter like your friends? You won’t go anywhere with that grade.” Every little improvement, he always criticized me. It just seemed that everything wasn’t up to his skyscraper expectations. Knowing what happened in eighth grade, I always tried to do things to impress him. My sisters felt the need to tell me not to expect a high-five from him after getting the most improved trophy and that I should give myself a high-five because in the end, what I think about school matters and not his. I didn’t listen. I still had an ounce of hope left in him. Hope that he would someday wake up from his tyranny. Hope that he’d realize what he was doing was bad. To hope that he would treat his family with respect no matter what their opinion was. My urge to bring him happiness only brought me closer to dirt and depression.

I was in a dark place at that time and my only outlets were my close friends and my love for basketball. Junior year, for me, was a year that I must mature to be successful. Oh how I was naïve to think that way. That’s not how life worked when I was around the dictator of a father.

That year was the year I fell even more in love with basketball. I started to hone my skills every weekend at a community center. I had an epiphany. I realized why I loved playing basketball. It was a late night and I was on my thinking looking at the ceiling. It was after my dad yelled at me about basketball and life. I sat there thinking about basketball. It just came to me. I noticed that all my worries were gone. I’d have a hard day at school and I would play basketball to drown my sorrows away. Whenever I played basketball, no one would judge me based on my appearance. No one would know what was going on in my life. No one would focus on the little things, but only my skills. I started making a name for myself at the community center and soon after everyone wanted me to join them. Things seemed to be going great, but life just always finds a way to throw you a curve ball.