Another year, another grade.
This was probably the most tragic year of my life, mostly because I got bullied by aggressors at Robert M. Pyles elementary school. It was up until this point that I got really irritated and annoyed at all the teasing the Mexicans at the school did, only because I was one of the few Asians at the school.
Thus far, it had only been verbal assaults fired at me about everything, from racial slurs “Chino”, to the most frequently used comment in elementary school, “gay”, or “gay-lord”. What the heck is a gay-lord?! I still have no idea.
I decided to verbally assault them back, using vigilante justice in the name of Hamarabi. An eye for an eye, right? Unfortunately, that did nothing other than make them more angry, and led to some physical assault. They followed me around after school, chasing me to my house, and beating me up (picture below).
This pattern repeated for a few days, until I decided to finally tell the teacher. Of course, I chose the worst possible time to do it. In the middle of a story my 3rd grade teacher Mr. Vo was telling us, I asked a question. He probably thought it was going to relate to the story in some way. Instead, I just blurted out “these 4 kids beat me after school yesterday.” LOL, so funny. And so cringe-inducing. I imagine if that happened to me as a teacher, it would have been quite awkward.
Their punishment ended up being nothing more than sitting at a pole for lunch. They still followed me after school and beat me up, even harder probably.
Luckily, I walked home an alternative route, and this route included ice cream, so I was happy. Of course, with the physical assaults gone, the verbal assaults remained, indefinitely. But that was okay. I put up with it, because I realized at that point making friends in elementary school was probably a lost cause. Even my best friend Danny, started ignoring me when he realized how much I was getting picked on. Better me than him, right? Oh well.
To end on a happier note, this was the year me and my siblings started recording every Awards show on television on VHS. We then rewatched it in our houses occasionally, pretending we had MTV or something. It was cool, and allowed us to memorize such great songs like Backstreet Boy’s “I Want it that Way”. We recorded the video accordingly.
Nowadays it’s so easy to find a music video, but back then, having it recorded on VHS made a world of difference in our ordinary lives. Oh, how times have changed since then.
Star Wars Episode 1 was the most watched movie of the year. The hype was real back then, but I wasn’t a big fan or Star Wars at the time, thinking it was massively overhyped. “Baby One More Time” was the song of the year, a childhood classic I have memorized.
