Deth

My Nan came up to visit last weekend, and she brought some old report cards of mine that she had found in her house. They were from elementary school. That was when I still liked school. That whole thing reminded me of the time when I stopped liking school.

It changed in sixth grade. I didn’t realize my good eye had gotten worse, but the doctor said I should have another cornea transplant, so I put my name on the waiting list. Sometime in the middle of that school year, they called my mom saying they had one for me.

I went to the Wills Eye Hospital, where I had always gone. The doctor did not want me to go to school for 2 weeks after the surgery. Actually, I was not supposed to do much of anything.

When I went back to school, I had one teacher who took me aside and told me how he knew I was faking it. He knew I just didn’t want to wear glasses, even though I was wearing ugly safety glasses to protect my eye. The other choice was some eye shield thing. He also knew how I just wanted a vacation and I didn’t have eye surgery. It should have been a great time because I was seeing things I had never been able to see.

He really was an ass, but I didn’t realize it at that time. He was the only teacher who never got anything to my vision teacher to be enlarged and didn’t want to let me go to the room in the school where my CCTV was because I might cheat. It was fair to make me struggle and take longer trying to read something that was difficult because he was too lazy to get things enlarged.

His answer to me not being able to see the blackboard was for me to stand up right in front of it to copy his notes exactly. That was good because I’d have the rest of the class telling me to move, so they could see it. It made sense to him.

He’d also say he knows that glasses would help, but I just didn’t want to wear them. I never told anyone because I was stupid enough to believe his crap.

My vision teacher found out, and she was pissed off. Actually, I think she was more upset than anything. I think she talked to him or something because he backed off a little. I think I brought a doctor’s note directly to him. I really wish I had stayed in touch with her. She was a great person and a true friend. He would still tell me how he knew I was faking it to get out of doing the work.

Thanks to that incident, I hated school afterwards. I enjoyed learning and would always be chapters ahead of the class, but still did crappy in school because I didn’t care. I’d only learn want I wanted on my own, and only did enough of the work to pass.