A Theme Class Meeting

When Dr. Henderson was assigning (指定) project partner for his psychology (心理学) class, I secretly hoped that he would pair me with my best friend or at least a classmate I could have some fun with. Above all, I hoped he wouldn’t assign me to work with the fiercely competitive and extremely serious fellow who always wore dark clothes and apparently had a personality to match. As fate (命运) would have it, Dr. Henderson very designedly matched everyone in class and announced that I would be working with the one person in class I wanted to avoid.

I went up to my new teammate and introduced myself. He looked at me as though I weren’t there. I felt he treated me as though I would hold him back and probably make him fail to get an A in the course. He wasn’t mean or rude but he just gave me the impression that he could do whatever project we dreamed up better if he did it alone.

Needless to say, I didn’t look forward to being looked down upon so I tried to make the best of it and didn’t say anything for fear that I would make things worse.

The project required each team to develop a hypothesis (假说), set up an experiment to test the hypothesis, analyze the data and present the findings. Whatever grade the team received would be shared by both students.

When my teammate and I met to discuss our project, I was uneasy. Here was this challenging student who had been known for single-mindedness and good grades — the exact opposite of me. I actually wanted to drop the class at one point, but stopped short because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of my chickening out (临阵脱逃) . I decided to stick to it no matter what.

After long discussions we somehow agreed to do a study on the psychological well-being (健康) of teenagers. I wasn’t sure what it meant exactly, but at least we had a topic.

We started to meet regularly to draw up our plans.

One day I got word that he was admitted to hospital (住院) for a serious disease.

[1] My first year of high school felt awkward. After I left junior high as a straight-A student, it felt strange starting over as a freshman. And to make matters worse, my closest friend went to a different high school. I felt very isolated.

[2] I missed my old teachers so much that I would go back and visit them. They would encourage me to get involved in school activities so that I could meet new people. They told me that in time I would adjust and probably end up loving my new school more than I had loved my old one.

[3] One Sunday afternoon not long after I had started high school, I was sitting at home doing homework. It was a cold and windy fall day, and we had a fire going in our fireplace. My mother kept stoking the fire to keep the house nice and warm. Suddenly, I smelled something strange, and then I noticed smoke pouring in through the seams (接缝处) of the ceiling. The smoke began to fill the room so quickly that we could barely see anything. Feeling about our way to the front door, we managed to get into the front yard. By the time we made our way outside, the whole roof was engulfed (吞没) in flames and it was spreading quickly. I ran to the neighbors to call the fire department.

[4] Five hours later, the fire was finally out. Our house was almost completely burned down. Everything was gone in the smoke. The firemen wouldn’t let us go back into the house that night. It was still too dangerous. We piled into the car with just the clothes on our backs, and made our way to my grandparents’ house to spend the night.

[5] On Monday, I went to school. When the fire broke out, I was wearing pajamas (睡衣), and I had no shoes! I had kicked them off when I was doing my homework. “Why I have to be here!” I cried inside, head hung low.

I was totally embarrassed by everything.

The next day, when entering the classroom, I was shocked.