Ear Infections and a Russian

I had a really great schoool experience growing up: I grew up with the same group of kids, I got to hate on Cow Eyes, learning was actually made fun by my teachers, life was great. Except for Grade 4. Fourth Grade was known as Hell Year. But just for me. That's because my teacher seemed to detest me with an absolute passion. She was the Uncle Vernon to my Harry Potter (cause I'm so the girl-version of Harry Potter. I would have totally caught that Snitch.)

Side note:

Oh my God, it's totally true!

Her name was Mme. Dora. And she was certainly not an Explorer, nor did she have a monkey friend (if she did, I feel like we would have connected). From day one, she seemed to have it out for me.

Does Dora usually have a boner?

This woman seemed to yell at me for any reason or non-reason she could think of. I could have been picking up someone's pencil from the floor and she would have accused me of stealing it. I could have been picking my own  nose and she would have charged me with attempting to spread a viral contagion. (Hey, anyone seen the movie Contagion? Is it any good?).

Every morning, we started out class with a reading period. After a while, I ran out of things to read (I'm the Rain Man of reading). She noticed right away. I said I had read all my books at home multiple times. She told me to read books from the class library. I told her I had already read them all. So she gave me the city paper to read every morning. What in the hell kind of fourth grader wants to read the daily paper? I sure didn't. So I just drew moustaches on the photos.

She yelled at me so much that it actually started a rumor with the younger kids. During all of my childhood, I was constantly dealing with bad ear infections, so I had tubes put in my ear pretty much every other year. 4th grade happened to be one of those years. My best friend Prince's little brother later told me that Mme. Dora yelled at a kid so loudly, that the kid had to have an ear operation. (That kid was me, in case you didn't get the connection).

Fourth grade appeared to get better when we got a new student. From RUSSIA. Her name was Alena Molorina and she was going to be my new best friend. Cause she was new and from RUSSIA, MAN!

Look! A Stereotype!

Like I've said before, I get what I want. And I wanted to be awesome buddies with Alena. So I did. We did everything together for a whole month. We'd run while all my other friends would try to follow (did I mention I was a bitch child?), we had inside jokes, and we worked on school projects side by side. One of our art projects involved drawing group pictures to put in a class calendar. Since I was born in October, I did that month and so did Alena.  I drew out this awesome haunted house, so everyone could decorate it. It was a masterpeice. There were frickin turrets, shattered windows, cobwebs, the whole works.

It probably looked like this. Cause I drew like Leonardo da Vinci when I was 9.

When we presented the drawing, Mme. Dora enthusiastically praised Alena's black cat silhouette. That's it. No more compliments to the rest of the group.
Next project was free-range (Like a happy chicken. Always buy eggs from free-range chickens. Anything coming from a happy ovary will be much better than from a stressed one.). I decided to make a little booklet out of red construction paper. On the front was a drawing of my dog at the time. On the inside was a poem about her. It was glorious.

Next thing you know, Alena makes THE EXACT SAME THING, but all about her cat and with blue construction paper.(See how badly I hold a grudge? It's pathetic.) Next thing you know, the teacher is showing it off in front of the whole class, saying how creative Alena was, blah blah blah. I know now that the teacher was probably just trying to make the little Russian fit in and feel comfortable, but alienating her by making looking like an Einstein probably wasn't the best way.

Cause that's what it did with me. I slowly grew to hate her. Partly from jealousy, partly from the unjustice the teacher dealt me. I wouldn't play with her anymore. I hid my art projects from her. I rolled my eyes at the sheer mention of her name. After half a semester, she ended up skipping like 2 grades. I guess she was an Einstein.

I never saw her again, but every once in a while, I wonder what happened to Alena.

Since she's Russian, she most likely looks like
 this now. Damn that Alena and her Russian genes.