Inside a Nerd's Mind

Embarrassment

Our classroom is just a small one that can attend to around 50 students. There are two doors on the left side of the room, one in front and one in the back. There’s a glass sliding window in the middle just between the two doors. And on the right side of the room were glass windows on where you can see the outside world or just the street and the buildings. The whiteboard is located in front of the small platform on where the speakers, teachers, or the reporters in front would be elevated for everyone in the room to see. The teacher’s table is beside the whiteboard on the right side of the room. The chairs inside the room were divided into 3 main groups, the left, the middle, and the right. Each group would have 5 rows of chairs and 4 chairs and tables in each row. Each table would serve 2 students and there’s 2 tables per row in a group which means that there will be four students that are seatmates which means that me, Zach, Jeremy, and Kim would be seated in the same row. The order from left to right is Kim, me, Jeremy, and Zach.

The old gentleman slowly walked inside the room onto the center of the platform in an elegant manner. He stayed standing in front of the room, checking and looking at every face of standing, sweating, nervous, and uneasy students. He was looking at every face seriously, judging them, remembering them, it was like he was finding a way on how to kill everyone or like planning everyone’s murder. I swear I felt Jeremy hold my right hand for a second before letting go.

As the shy weird guy that I am, of course I am shaking to death, I am so nervous that I can hear my heart beating, I’m sweating so hard that two very cool air conditioners in the room can’t beat the heat that I am feeling.

I’m nervous that I or at least one of the people that would be called in front as we are the group that bumped into him outside.

His gaze was almost nearing our group and our row.

My heart beated twice as fast.

“Please don’t see me. Please don’t call me. Please don’t see me. Please don’t call me.” I chanted to myself praying to all of the gods, the saints, the angels, and to everything else in the world.

Then he saw us, at the back of the room, on the rightmost group, on the last row.

I remember Zach saying “f**k!” under his breath.

He stared at the four of us the longest, I reckon it was at least 5 seconds, his eyelids became squinted and his eyebrows pulled closer.

“Oh, hell naw!” Jeremy murmured.

Then… he smiled and turned away. He walked towards the teacher’s table to set-up his laptop.

We were relieved.

We all took a deep breath. You can probably hear Zachary’s breath from the other side of the world that day.

“Good morning everyone.” He greeted.

“Good morning, sir.” We greeted back.

“Please take your seats.” He told us.

As we were about to sit down, we thought that we were already safe from misery and despair.

“Not the four of you at the back.” He said, chuckling, as he pointed to us.

“WHAT!?” I almost shouted but thank goodness I just whispered it.

Zachary groaned and we looked at each other confused.

You can already see Zachary turn red immediately and Jeremy sweat.

Kim’s always smiling face turned to a frown. Now, that wasn’t a pleasant and a common sight to see.

Everyone in the class looked at us while some pitied us, some even laughed at us.

I gulped.

“What did I do?”

“Have I said something bad?”

“Did I look at him wrong?

These are the questions that I’ve asked myself repeatedly whilst standing up. I was thinking of a reason on why he would do this so that I can be ready for any questions or humiliations later. That is how shy I can be. I try to think all of the possible scenarios, all the possible dialogues, all the possible events that can happen, and all the possible situations it can lead to so that I know what to do or to say whenever I am faced in a specific scenario.

This is one of the worst scenarios I imagine myself on, you may think it’s something shallow but for a shy kid like me, it’s hell.

I imagined that my shyness is based on my fear of judgement. I don’t like being judged, I don’t ever want to be judged, and especially I don’t want to feel like being judged. That is why I am afraid of any kind of self-expression or expressing my feelings, opinions, thoughts, and my talents – if I do have such thing. I don’t like to be humiliated, for people to say such horrible things against me, for people to even think of horrible things behind my back. I would rather that people don’t know anything about me at all than them knowing any humiliations in my life or being an embarrassment.

I remember when I was elementary school, we were reading a story and I wasn’t able to understand it. I tried listening, I tried re-reading, I even tried asking my seatmates but I couldn’t really grasp the plot and the lesson of the story. I think the title was “A Tale of Nowhere” and it was about a band of friends travelling through the woods together. We read the story as a class then our teacher gave us time to read it on our own, and even then, I wasn’t able to comprehend it. It was too advanced for me.

After giving some time to read, our teacher called on us to answer her questions. I believed it was pretty easy questions but I don’t know the answer as I haven’t really understood the context of the story. While my classmates were called and answering, I was shaking on my desk, praying.

“Please don’t be me, please don’t be me.” I prayed every time our teacher was to call on somebody.

And to the worst of my luck, I was called on the last question.

“GODDAMNIT.” I swore to myself. I almost had it. I was almost lucky.

“Ethan! Please stand up.” She demanded.

“Oh why, oh why does it have to be me.” I thought as I was standing up.

“What do you think is the moral of the story?” She asked.

“f**k!” I said to myself as I didn’t know the answer.

Why couldn’t it have been something easy like, “What is the title of the story?” or “Who are the characters presented in the story?”. Why did it have to be something deep?

“Uhh… Uhh… the… moral of… the story…” I stuttered.

“Yes Ethan?” She asked.

“Uhhh… It is… Uhh…” I kept on stuttering.

“Yes Ethan? What is the moral of the story?” She said seriously as if she’s already getting annoyed.

I got more nervous.

“Uhhh… the…. Uhhh… the moral… is… of the story… is… uh…” I murmured.

“The moral of the story is?” She asked again in a somewhat demeaning manner.

By this time, my brain wouldn’t work even if I wanted to. All I could ever think about is how I wanted to run outside the classroom so badly.

I looked around the room and to my classmates hoping that someone would give me an answer. But all I ever saw was people either staring at me or laughing at me. I can hear their murmuring, I can hear them judge me, I can feel them talk s**t against me.

This got me uneasy.

But luckily, one of my classmates in front tried to help me. He was only mouthing something to me, he couldn’t speak or say it as the teacher might hear it.

I was staring at his mouth, trying to understand the words he is trying to say, so that I can finally get out of this hellhole.

I stared and I even squinted.

“The moral of the story is?” the teacher repeated the question again but this time in a slow manner.

I can feel that she’s getting annoyed and my classmates’ laugh and murmuring are getting louder.

I wasn’t able to completely understand what my classmate was mouthing but I answered the best I could.

“The moral of the story is to be with friends.” I answered hesitantly.

“Is that what you got from the story?” She questioned, uncontented.

I looked at my classmate in front, he just nodded.

“Uhhh… yes?” I answered unsurely.

This back-and-forth barrage of questioning happened for a long time. She would ask me a question and I would answer something that didn’t even relate to it. It feels like it happened for an eternity but it was actually just around 10 minutes. But even then, that’s a pretty long time.

She didn’t give up on asking me questions even though I would say something idiotic. She may have looked annoyed in the beginning but she calmed down at the end. It was like she really wanted me to learn and for me to know the answers to her questions. I appreciate teachers like that, those who take their time and effort to teach their students even if it takes them a long time. Now, that takes patience and I applaud for them.

You see, I’ve thought of myself as a late bloomer. I remember my mother telling me that I was born early, on the 8th month actually, and thus I was malnourished and needed to be incubated. I think 7th month and 9th month pregnancies are the common but not 8th months. She also said that when I was born, I could fit on top of her own palm and she carries me by just merely opening her hands. When I was in Kindergarten, I always cried and peed my pants. She said that I didn’t interact much with the other children and only played with my own toys. And that every time I got home, I would always have a pee stain on my shorts. When I was in elementary school, I didn’t care about making friends, I only ever wanted to play with myself; I didn’t care about hygiene, I would pee my shorts thrice a week and even wipe my snot using my shirt collar; I didn’t care about fashion or care to what I should put or wear on my body, I would just use things that were given to me. I was a geek, a nerd, a weirdo, an outcast, and I only really had a few friends. I was only slowly introduced to those things when I was in the 10th grade or just last year. I’ve realized the importance of being neat, being tidy, being presentable. I realized that first impressions last and what you make others feel about you would stick to them until the end. People would always have that specific something that they’ll remember about you even if you aren’t that person anymore or if it was a long time ago. It’s weird on how you have different versions of yourself implanted into different minds of the people. In one person, you are courageous while on the other, you are a coward. In one person, you could be smart, while on the other, you are dumb as a rock. That’s why I promised myself, whatever it took, that I would always be the best version of myself. But that didn’t always turn out as planned.

The teacher then turned to us.

“Did you know why I told you to remain standing up?” He asked.

No one from us answered.

We looked at each other, asking each other if we should answer and what we should answer by just the gaze of our eyes.

“Guys?” He asked while smiling.

We didn’t move a muscle.

“Come on guys, I’m not going to scold you.” He chuckled. “I was just asking you a question.” He added.

We were confused, we looked at each other.

“Uhhh… No?” Zachary answered unsurely.

He chuckled once again.

We were relieved once again.

I thought he was going to rain fire on us.

I thought he was some kind of strict and serious teacher.

But now, we realized that he was just f*****g with us.

He had that positive and happy vibe; he feels like the kind of teacher that likes hanging out with students and befriending them.

“You actually remind me of a tale that I read when I was a child,” He said. “I believe it was called, ‘A Tale of Nowhere’”. He recalled. “Are you guys familiar?” He asked.

The three of them shook their head while I nodded.

I can’t believe that I’m the only one who knew about it.

“Only you?” He asked.

“I… guess so.” I murmured.

“What is your name?” He asked.

“Ethan.” I replied.

“Would you like to tell the story?” He offered.

“What?” I blurted.

“You don’t like?” He asked.

“Uhh…” I can’t answer.

“Come on, come in front and tell us the story.” He commanded.

“Come on, don’t be shy.” He teased.

He really wanted me to tell the story.

I was like, “f**k it, then.” and I walked towards the platform in front of the room.

“Very good.” He was happy and satisfied as he signaled the other three to sit down.

He pulled out the teacher’s chair and set it in front. He signaled me to sit down as he leaned on the teacher’s table.

I sat down, and looked at my classmates.

Their eyes were locked on me.

I became nervous, I was sweating already.

“Everyone, please give a round of applause to Ethan.” He told the class.

I thought the clapping was going to give me confidence but it made me more nervous. It was as if I had to tell the story like an English professor, I’m not a good storyteller, I don’t even remember much of the story and now I have to exceed their expectations. I just can’t make peace with that idea.

“Ethan… Relax… Calm down.” He said calmly and in a soft voice.

I closed my eyes.

I took a deep breath.

And I opened my mouth.

And there began my short time as a glorious story teller.