15 minutes blog of a boring kid part2

Thinking back to the time when the eight year old girl told my English teacher how bored she was with me, I begin to realize how much I do not understand about something so simple as chit-chat. Afterward I was paired up with another 3rd grade girl. Like many East-Asian people, this girl is quiet; however, unlike most East-Asian people, she is neither shy or timid. Her firm look and calm attitude made her almost adult-like.

To my understanding, the point of this 8th grader and 3rd grader pairing program was to encourage the children to read more. It was supposed to make reading a fun activity. However, the young Vietnamese girl I was paired up with was a no-nonsense kid. The objective was to read a book, and that we sure did. We left no word unread. We did it perfectly, and that was its own flaw. Beside the objective, there were very few little words between us.

I am still uncertain whether if she did not want to talk to me, or that was how she is. There are two things that I recall from the whole experience. First is how she told me about older brother, who always play around all the time. Second is how she can read the books without any help from me. As I speed reading through those third grade books, I can recall her correcting my pronunciation on few occasions. The more amazing thing was how she did it. Short, clear, and concise. All of it without without a glance away from the words in the book. Unlike other typical kids, she said it without another word on the mistake.

Needless to say, the story end uneventfully. She never say goodbye or smile even once during the whole pairing program. It was a year later when I saw her again near the elementary school. She was feeding the birds in her front yards. She saw me, and I lifted my arm up half way as a gesture of saying hello. She did the same for a moment, then went back to throwing the seeds to the obese inner-city pigeons. All of this without even a smile, and this is how the true story of a boring kid end.