"School"

I remember in fifth grade, we had a substitute teacher for English.

While everyone else was busy running around sniffing daisies and roses, I was borrowing assigned reading from seventh graders. They give me looks like I was retarded, but I didn't give a shit.

My English workbook had been filled till the end, it took me two days to complete it. Even further than was assigned for the semester. Somehow the substitute teacher found out, and all she would do everyday was grab my workbook and jot the answers down from it on the blackboard for the rest of the class to copy off into their own.

Chapter by chapter, day by day, every day, as I just sat there and watched the rest of the class.

I still remember the kind of looks they all gave me. Like something was wrong with me. Why would this kid not go out and play, but rather choose to sit here all day and end up doing more work than was supposed to be done? I still remember the look I got from the teacher when she realized all her work was already done for her.

The look always portrayed confusion. This wasn't something she was used to, or expecting. It was something none of them ever got used to.

I remember in Computer Science class in 9th Grade, when the teacher walked out of the class for a minute locking the computer behind him. I walked up to his computer and broke in to it, bypassing the lock. He walked in right as I yelled "yes," without even thinking about it.

He just looked at me, looked at the computer, told me to go sit down, while trying to figure out how I did what I did. He didn't say another word.

I remember in 7th grade Computer Science class, when the substitute teacher walked in and bragged about how she was going to teach us how to create our own websites. I walked up to her and handed her a piece of paper with the address to my website on it. She didn't teach us shit for the rest of the day.

I remember when my dad signed me up for extra curriculur shit during the summers at his work place. They had reading, writing and running around in fields as activities assigned for kids. I remember the looks I got when the counsellors and people in charge couldn't figure out why I didn't want to go out and play with the other kids and chose rather to hide in the corner with my books or my pencils and paper. They graded our work. I came in "second" that year. Maybe if I was a bit more social, I'd come in at first.

I remember getting beat like a mule almost every day in school, after we reached 9th grade. "He's extremely brilliant. If only he would get his priorities straight."

"It's not that he's stupid. He just doesn't seem interested."

"I don't understand. Don't you want to do something with your life?"

Why would I give a shit when so early on you proved to me that I didn't need you, School?

When I left the rest of my "colleagues" far off behind, and without second guessing myself knew more than the teacher did, why would you even expect me to give a shit?

By the time we got to 10th or 11th grade, we had stopped going to class altogether for our own reasons. We would be in school, but attending class or actually paying attention in class was something else altogether.

I started failing almost everything, I just didn't give a shit anymore. Except for English and Computer Science, of course. Never really needed to even open a book for those two.

My dad was supposed to sign my monthly reports, and so he'd either just yell at me, tell me how I wasn't going to go anywhere in the world, before eventually signing them and forgetting all about it.

"If you keep this up, you're going to end up without a job and having to rely on your brothers."

Thanks, Dad. You know how to work wonders for a child's self esteem.

Not to mention all the times you beat me half dead, to an inch of my life. The times I couldn't stop shaking, because the pain was unbearable.

The time you told me you were going to kill me, and told me to go sit in an empty dark room to wait for eminent death. And I sat there for an hour, dad, perhaps more, without moving. I was too scared to. You, on the other hand, completely forgot you had asked me to wait for you.

Imagine the look on your face, dad, when you eventually remembered and walked in the room to find me just sitting there.

Just sitting there with a blank expression, staring at the wall, in pitch darkness. I still remember, dad.

Or the times you said I was probably not your real son and got switched at the hospital. Because I made a mistake, or just didn't want to pay attention in school anymore.

Worked miracles for my head, dad.

In 10th grade, we had made a habit of playing hookie from school. We weren't really loaded in cash, and had expenses to cover. Like lunch, cigarettes, drinks, a few games of pool.

Because we were who we were, we would grab little kids and tell them to go raise funds for us. They never even questioned why. The little kids would run to even smaller kids and extort them for money.

We made 75 Riyals in 30 minutes that day. Without doing shit.

The guard in charge of the doors to the outside was in on it with us. We'd blackmail him, by telling him we'd tell the principle about his tobacco chewing habits. Or bribe him by saying we'd get him some chewing tobacco. Either way, we were on the way to play pool on a cab that day, smoking our cigarettes.

The first time I ever put a cigarette to my lips, two of my friends did the same. We were 5 kids altogether, two of which had been smoking for a while now.

Luckily for me, my house was a minute away from school, so I had time to go clean up. The rest of my friends weren't so lucky that day, and got busted when they walked in to school.

A friend of mine, Arsalan, and his brother Nabeel both got caught smoking the same day. When the school called their house to complain about Arsalan, Nabeel would pick up and pretend to be their father. End up giving the school shit for ever letting us bail to begin with. When the school called to complain about Nabeel, Arsalan would end up pretending to be the father, yelling at their incompetence.

We had left forging signatures way behind, that was child's play.

My friend Omair got caught with two packs of cigarette, a cologne, and some "Niswaar," in his bag. The fucking idiots actually thought he was drinking cologne to get high.

When I got busted for having a cell phone in school, the idiots didn't know the "N-Gage QD" had an external memory card slot. Before they walked me in to the vice principle's office, I had already slipped the memory card out, all the while the phone was still inside my pocket. They couldn't find shit to incriminate me with, then, could they.

During our exams and tests, we wouldn't bother whispering to each other for answers. We'd just slip each other our respective answering sheets. To compare notes, of course. They would never find out.

I remember we started hiding each other's school bags for fun. This one time the principle walked in to one of our friends looking for his, that me and Fahad had hid. He complained to the principle that he couldn't find his bag, and in turn got the shit beat out of him in front of us.

Talk about being fucking fair.

This other time a friend threw another's bag out the window. It landed in the ministry next door. We're standing outside during recess, wondering where his bag could be, when we notice the doors to our school fling open and a soldier wearing camaflogue walks in carrying it. The ministry went on alert that day, they thought it was going to fucking explode.

In 8th grade, we'd throw pieces of chalk at the English teacher while he was busy trying to teach us shit. No one ever really paid attention.

In 9th grade, my friends started chewing tobacco. The teacher saw us one day and gave us a lecture on how it wasn't good for us. As soon as he turned around, the tobacco went straight in the mouth.

Day in and day out, these "teachers" would walk in to class, half hating themselves for it. They'd try to get to us, to teach us shit. But it's kind of hard to pay attention to what he's trying to say when the rest of the class is busy talking over him. About their cell phones, about girls, about cigarettes.

And the teachers couldn't do shit.

This one time a teacher saw a kid talking to another and walked up to him, smacked him in the head. The kid stood up, cursed at the teacher, and pushed him so far that he ended up falling on his desk. The kid just walked out of the class after that.

You couldn't really blame them then, could you, when you would witness them beating the shit out of some poor kid that wouldn't fight back.

Or blame me for the six months I pretended I was terminally ill just so my parents wouldn't send me to school.

"You actually waste money on books? What's wrong with you?" A kid in my class once said to me.

I once got beat in class for reading a book that wasn't associated with the class.

In 6th grade, they asked us if we wanted to go out and play or go read in the library. My voice couldn't be heard in the midst of the fucktards that all wanted to go kick a fucking ball around.

Imagine the yelling I got at home later, when my parents found the rant I had scribbled in the back of my notebook. "Fuck school, and fuck these assholes. All I want to do is read a book, but these fucktards want us to aimlessly run around."

"Are you insane? You could've gotten suspended if they ever saw this!" yelled my Dad at me.

I'm sorry if I couldn't find the right expressions then, dad, I really didn't know how to feel.
Neither did I feel like feeling bad for something I didn't do wrong.

Sanction me for your fucked system.

Blame me for not giving much of a shit anymore.

Blame me for figuring out I've never needed this shit.

Blame me if I decided not to let schooling get in the way of my education.

Blame me if I all I've ever wanted to do ever since is be the catcher in the rye.