6th grade was an interesting year. It was my second year at Stanford, and I had accumulated a few Asian friends up until that point. I even started going to some of my friend’s houses to hang out. The activities always included video games (like Super Smash Brothers & The Sims) of some sort, and it was pretty fun (most of the time).
My 6th grade teacher was also kind of rude and mean. I went up to her once telling her she graded my quiz wrong. She said she clearly remembered grading my quiz and accused me of erasing the answers and rewriting new ones. I was literally flabbergasted by that, and refused to participate in class for the rest of the year. Petty, sure. It just goes to show how much impact teachers have, and how they should exercise their words carefully. Anyway, when 9/11 happened I remembered seeing her crying and not sure exactly why. I guess I understand the full impact of that day much more now.
This was the first year my crush found out that I liked her. Unfortunately my friend at the time told her best friend, resulting in her coming up to me at the handball courts calling me “gay”. I suppose that was sad, but in a way, it was nice because it was clear she indirectly rejected at that point. And if there’s one lesson to learn from life, it’s that sluts are ultimately better than teases. Anyway, I was still super awkward at that point, so that situation didn’t really help, and would create my fear of girls for the next several years.
Being in a new house, we finally got to know our neighbors. It was fun while it lasted, hanging out with them all the time and playing in the streets. We didn’t really get that experience at our old apartment. Unfortunately, drama eventually ensued leaning to conflict within our group (breaking into two), and eventually everything falling apart when one of my neighbors moved. I’ll never forget that wonderful summer though where we ended up doing everything together, and seeing each other on the daily.
In my free time I also started writing short 15-30 second songs. I will never perform these songs publicly because they are pretty terrible. Around this time my mom started taking care of my first niece more and more, leading of course to my jealously and hatred of her.
The top grossing movie of the year was Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. ZZZ. Nickelback’s How You Remind Me was the number one song of the year. I find that kind of funny. I personally was obsessed with Five for Fighting’s Superman every time I heard it on the radio that year. I remember recording songs I liked on cassette tapes and re-listening it back when I got the chance. This was in the era before easy streaming, although I’m pretty sure Napster was around at this point.
