Boarding not so boring

“So often we blog about what’s happening right now, that we forget to tell stories from the past, or stop and give an overview of something.” I read this on someone else’s blog and this thought stuck with me. Although my life is not the most interesting and I don’t have any huge adventures (not those I’d like to put on a public forum anyway) to talk about, there have been books, music, people and small experiences that have influenced how I’ve lived life subsequently.
If someone asked you what was the thing that changed your life forever? what would you say? I would like to think that I’m yet to come across this one ‘thing’ that changed my life. I think if I look at my earliest memory it would have to be boarding school. That experience changed my life forever. So here goes…
As my parents stayed away from the main city and highways were a thing of the future I was in boarding school since my first standard, I must have been 5-6. I was in the boarding from Monday to Friday, and went home for the weekend. It is strange when I look back on it now but a week seemed a lot more then. It just seemed to take a lot longer. I must have cried almost every time I left home. I think my parents were bored of my crying after the first few times. But I think that experience taught me so many things. I was in boarding till the 7th standard and I came back home. I remember when I went to a different school and my dad dropped me off he was the one that cried and I still pull his leg on that. He lets me off the hook for crying as well but hey, I was a kid, it was allowed.
I think boarding school teaches you independence and more than anything it teaches you to be disciplined (LOL!!!) but yeah it’s supposed to anyway. If someone asked me if I would want to go through that again I don’t know what I’d say, I hated it and loved it. If I were to make a list, the main con would be that I was away from home and my parents and siblings, but on the pro side, and trust me this a major pro, I always got my way whenever I came home for my holidays and that must have infuriated everyone else around me. I think that’s why I like going home and making guest appearances coz then I seem to the centre of attention. I don’t believe people who say that they don’t like to be the centre of attention, we all are!!!
Some distinct stuff I remember from boarding school is:

There was this guy (kid) who claimed to be shawn michael’s nephew. (If you don’t know who shawn michaels’s is you should google him.) Anyway back to the story. Since WWF merchandise was THE thing to have he asked anyone who wanted anything to write it down and we all wrote down stuff we wanted, rite from bret hart glasses to the WWF championship belt. So this guy took all our lists and went home for the weekend, and we like idiot’s say and waited planning what we would do with all this cool stuff we got and Sunday evening came, and we waited for him to return. And only for him to return empty handed (seriously what else could you seriously expect)

We all waited for birthday parties since that was the only time we got cake. And since my birthday always fell during the holidays I could never get a cake in school. I’m sure if I tasted the cake now it would be crap but I loved it at the point. There was this thing were everyone in the dormitory got a single piece of cake and only the birthday boy’s friends were given an extra piece. Now I wonder if why I never got invited to get this magical extra piece of cake. Was it coz I was a bad friend? (not possible) or was it coz none of my friends had birthdays that fell during the 8months of school? (I think that was it) neway a group of us wrote to our parents (snail mail) agonizing over the fact that we never got this extra piece of cake and that our bday’s never fell during school days and we wanted to order a cake. I don’t know if we got permission but we got cake, and trust me we gave it to no one. The best cake ever.

In school I think we had almost all sports and since I’m one person never to like to stick to one thing I must have tried all sports. In one semester I bought a tennis racket and a badminton racket and when the bill went home I vehemently denied it, only for my dad to believe me and send a letter to school. And before I knew it they sent a letter back with receipts for what I’ve bought with my signature. What my dad said to me that day was very similar to the line Russel Peters uses, “somebody is gonna get a hurt real bad”

We had cross country in the morning everyday, 6 am I think. It was the most torturous thing ever, in the insane cold to get up, wear shorts and run. When you were in the smaller classes you didn’t mind wearing a sweater but when you reach the 6th and 7th it’s not cool to show your feeling cold so we ran shivering our asses off in a t-shirt. This whole ego and trying to be cool starts at such a young age.

Before I bore anyone who has read this far the strangest thing is school was called, ‘dame touch’. Even if a girl brushed you slightly in a hallway, class or anywhere really you were infected with dame touch, and unless you passed it on you would probably sizzle to death. So if you were ever infected you had to pass it on asap and you couldn’t if someone had their fingers crossed, people made up their own rules with one claiming that he was immune coz his shoe laces where tied in a cross. This happened in 4-5 standards, I’d like to see anyone in the higher classes trying to pass on dame touch to someone else.