lskstudent-blog

[lskstudent-blog]

Ch. 4: Persuasion

Dear reader,

All flames, as they must, are born in a spark. There must be breath and beauty to kindle, for without, the scarlet tongue cannot find its fierce curl. It cannot glimmer to stretch even over the cold fingers of logic that snatch away dreams from the enflamed chest. My spark was the smallest of them all, arising from a stranger's name to the full-fledged anticipation of his presence at school. It was his fault, but not his intention. There was no way that he could've known how I felt, nor how deeply my interest in him was growing.

Later, I began to feel an odd wilting inside me whenever I didn't see him in hallways. I had to learn what this meant at first, but reader, can you tell? It was disappointment. I was disappointed, truly at a loss of happiness for not being near his presence. This was no longer a little spark. The flame had taken rapid flight, as if jumping on a trail of oil without being able to stop itself. Once fire has touched oil, it cannot turn back.

Now, I must remind you of the favour I asked of you in "Dear reader...", and of your promise to respect it. I shouldn't hear you laugh a mocking laugh, or sneer for my embarrassment, when I tell you this next shameful secret of mine: I have this troublesome habit of convincing myself that I attract boys sometimes, even though most of the time they hardly notice me. It's a very awkward flaw I have, to give myself fake esteem and self-flattery, but you must understand that it is hard to avoid when I naturally tend to overthink the people around me. No, I don't think I'm beautiful or attractive, if that's what you're thinking. However, basing from what people have told me throughout my life, I can at least say that I'm not ugly. Well, not so ugly to distraction at least. People have said that I'm "pretty" and "cute", but I rather think I look childish and plain - which is why I'm mistaken in my habit.

This is not to be taken with amusement, really. I hate to be admitting it, but you must know, we all have flaws. For this character in particular, you can go ahead and note down this: that because of her flaw, she incorrectly believed that Mr. Knight took notice of her when she wasn't watching him.

In math class, I sat at a group of desks directly in front of the doorway. If you stood outside the classroom and looked in from a distance, you'd see me sitting at a desk facing the left side wall. Really, I was that close. Each day, I was the first to arrive to math from always leaving class early. As students would come pouring forth in the halls during the five-minute break between classes, I'd sit alone in careful watch of my side view. It was out the door and straight at Mr. Knight's classroom where my attention laid and where my imagination ran wild. I had a perfect view of him as he hovered outside his doorway in that unsettling way. Discreetly, I'd glance at him as little as I could to satisfy my eyes. After years of great practice, as was my habit of spying in secret, I could watch him while making it seem that I was completely unaware of his presence. What a minx I was - if you saw me, you wouldn't even notice that my attention was elsewhere even as I talked with my fellow classmates!

Sometimes, he'd turn his head ever so slightly in my direction, or at least into my classroom. Why he had the need to look glance inside, and multiple times may I add, I have no idea. Now, not to sound foolish (although I know I terribly will), but at the time, I did imagine that he was glancing at me. What else could it have been? I'd be there in the classroom, sitting right upfront in perfect view through the doorway. Each glance of his that I saw, which he thought I didn't notice, was in fact impossible to ignore. Not only that, it was nearly impossible to not take them with more thought than necessary. I was falling in love for goodness' sake! Matters of the heart made me a beggar - I was desperate to embellish upon even the simplest eye movements and head turns.

Perhaps all those years of obsessing over English literature have turned me into another over-analytical fanatic. I was like my grade eleven English teacher, Mr. Tim, who analyzed every nook and cranny of literature to the point where he began to sound ridiculous. For once, students were more sensible than the teacher, because my English eleven class agreed that sometimes, the writer doesn't mean to make the wind mean destiny. Sometimes, they just want to write about wind because it sounds nice! Go ahead, then. Laugh at me. It's funny isn't it, that I thought an attractive grown man was looking at a plain-faced, childish girl? Yes, quite funny.

Other times, he'd walk around the area by his doorway to look down the halls and past the corners. I can remember it still, time allowing to paint it so vividly. Even when the second bell rang for classes to start, he lingered for a few seconds more. Down the hallway and up the staircase behind him - he gave one last glance to these places as if checking for someone he was expecting to see. But what was he looking for? Whom was he expecting? Every student was seated in their class already, and the halls were completely empty by this point. Seeing as there were no more students to be found, he disappeared into his room. What was I to be - confused, disheartened, satisfied? Perhaps all three. Confused at him for having done something so unnecessary. Disheartened that he had to leave after only five minutes of feeling him near, so close, so wanting to be reached in my eyes.

That leaves satisfied. Why satisfied? I left an important piece of the story. Before he retreated into his classroom, he left me with something that I'm still unsure of. It was either meaningless or full of a message, depending on what you think of it. He was pulling back from his last-second glance down the halls, and just when my heart was sinking at his leaving, he snuck glance in my direction. My direction or just the direction of my classroom? I couldn't tell. It could've been either. But that was the last thing he did before he disappeared.

Two questions: who and why. If it was my classroom, why was that necessary? But if me... no, that's too generous even to myself. Even so, why was any of that necessary in the first place? The mystery still haunts me to this day. So did memories of the thrill and the throbbing of my heart that possessed me. I desired to have him near for longer, to feel the presence of the mysterious and dashing Mr. Knight.

Afterwards, in picking apart the scene in my head, my imagination broke from its leash. My girlish hopes were as potent as Madame Bovary's. Deceptive, they weakened my ability to resist the possible truth: that it was all nothing. It was all just a school girl's overthought fantasy wild on teenage hormones. After all, a handsome man stealing one last look at me out of interest is irresistible persuasion.

Sincerely,

L.sk

[lskstudent-blog]

sends me on a dream. that’s why it’s on repeat.

[lskstudent-blog]

Ch. 3: Beginnings Pt. III

Dear reader,

Think of a certain mid-life crisis, obsession or downfall that currently plagues you today. Bitter feelings, such as the tears after a debacle or the anguish of inescapability, can easily be conjured up, but other than that, think of this instead: the origin. All downfalls start somewhere, where there was one meagre idea thought to have lit those destructive embers and created the Frankenstein in you. What was it? Was it the bullies in high school? Was it the first boyfriend or girlfriend who abused your heart into ever-beating cynicism? Think hard, for it does exist. Reader, I should've never allowed myself the liberty of interest. Even the slightest curiousity at its most innocent, like the first experimental drag of nicotine, was enough to start me on my path. After searching Mr. Knight on the Internet, I couldn't look at him the same. In fact, I couldn't ignore him anymore like I used to. I began to take especial notice of him at school, and I hate to admit this, but it was mainly because of how handsome he was. Strikingly handsome, in fact, beyond my expectations. Many of my friends at school would call him old, but to me, his attractiveness made him seem oddly younger than he truly was.  Hard as it was to ignore the truth, there was no denying his good looks. There are two kinds of male beauty. The first looks and feels soft, safe, gentle, calming and friendly. Like an angelic prince, it holds pureness and light in the shimmer of blond, the crystal of clear blue, and the warm smile of an amiable character. The other is just as beautiful, but ever so different. Rather than shining, there lurks masculinity, dark, dangerous, striking, and most of all, mysterious. It was the kind you held in awe from afar, out of fear and lack of calm breath. Mr. Knight embodied the latter type of beauty. His hair was trim, thick if only he'd let it grow, styled in a slight combover of light cool brown that was faintly grey. His thin and tidy beard grown over a hardest jaw, and his compact and broad-shouldered build carved out masculinity. Best of all was his steady gaze of sobriety in shades indefinite. It was as if his eyes could not decide upon one colour, rather unreliably swimming between boundless brown and sharp greyish-hazel. All of him was powerful enough to send my heart racing; it was both pleasing and alarming to look at him. Yet more, his ability to attract me would not be complete without his atmosphere. It was the air around him that made such dark beauty discoverable to me. In merely hovering nearby, not even speaking a word, he could silence the air as still as his unchanging expression. That countenance of his, perhaps unintentionally, broke the peace of days onward. He refused to let anyone figure him out in a simple glance and made the turning up of his mouth in a grin a rare sight. He seemed a walking moodiness set in stone. By the power of that face concreted in a fearful smoulder, fierce and indecipherably mysterious, I could never live at ease ever again. His manner was just as odd. He often stood outside next to the door of his classroom and watched his students enter his room or the students passing by. While it is normal for friendly teachers to do this, especially to greet their students as they come in, he never did that. He rather stared on in his speechless way. With his harsh expression, the way he hovered over students like an ominous cloud was unsettling. However, it gave me a chance to observe him furtively whenever I could. As I mentioned in "Beginnings Pt. II", my math class was next to Mr. Knight's room, separated by the turn of the hall that led to a staircase and a parking lot. My math class sat to the left of the nearby staircase, while Mr. Knight's room sat on the right of it. So imagine, whenever I went to math class or up the staircase to French and science, I would thankfully pass by his room. There, I was free to steal countless side glances through the window of his classroom, for there was a large window that revealed the entire room. I only hoped that no one saw me, most of all, him. But I was just nameless girl to him, remember? So no, he did not notice me. You know the feeling your stomach gets when you're nervous? It squeals nauseously, and you can feel the acid just churning restlessly. I woke up to that each morning, and so did my mind, in a dizzying alertness, worry about seeing him at school. The fear was incessant, knowing that he would pass by my locker down the hallway to his classroom as he did every morning. As much as I tried, I could not stop myself from internally collapsing as if truly collapsing at the knees whenever I saw him. You'd see it clearly in the way I'd nervously check both ends of the hallway as if waiting for something dreadful. In not even ten seconds of his brief presence, he made me dread living life itself, and fear a place so safe. There was heart-racing breath in my lungs when he neared, but while it was difficult to endure, it was not altogether unpleasant. I wasn't sure why I didn't hate it in the first months of interest. Rather, I liked it.

Sincerely, L.sk

[lskstudent-blog]

Ch. 2: Beginnings Pt. II

Dear reader,

Isn't it odd how in one moment you can go from not knowing that a person exists to not being able to ignore them ever again? You can live day by day never seeing a person who lives a completely separate life. Then, there comes a day when you discover that someone else has been experiencing a life as rich as yours, only a breath away, standing as far as across a room the entire time. Suddenly, the lens that you've been wearing since you were born is either shattered or blinded by colours not yet discovered. You can no longer unsee them. That was how I felt after seeing the stranger. Before, the man had been just another someone with just another name, a human being who played an important role to other people. While to me, life had not yet conjured up such a composition of looks, words and aura as him. But after that moment, at least, he was a stranger, emerging utterly new as if the sun was a newborn star each dawn. As the memory has faded for the past three years, I struggle to redraw each line and colour that created the beginnings. I can only recall that starting in that semester since September of the school year, I began noticing the same man over and over again. Even though I had passed by his classroom dozens of times on my way to classes, he began to appear as if he had just arrived at the school. You will soon learn that locations in and the geography of my school is important to my story, which is rather a challenge to explain without visual aid. It was quite ridiculous, actually. Not only was I passing by his classroom everyday without knowing, but my math class was the room next to his, not five footsteps away, and my locker was along the same hallway as his classroom. You see, my locker is situated near the end of the hallway, where it goes both straight and turns right toward the main staircase that leads to the centre square. Then, at the other end of the hallway is my math classroom and his classroom. His classroom was placed along the wall of the hallway, where the hall ends and turns right to another staircase and out to a parking lot. Around the same time I first saw this man, I remembered recently reading the name of a teacher on my course schedule that I'd never heard before. When I looked over at my timetable earlier in August, an odd curiousity lingered in me. All but the name of my English teacher stuck out to me for its unfamiliarity: "Mr. Knight". Whoever was to be my English teacher, I desired to know about. The sliver of curiousity, innocent and harmless, began with my brother, K, who was two years older than I. "Do you know Mr. Knight?" I asked him the day we received our course schedules in the mail. "Mr. Knight? I know who he is, but I've never had him before." Seeing that my brother had little left to tell me about my mystery teacher, I turned elsewhere: the Internet. Trusty Google, it was helpful for the most part in scrounging vague bits of information on a total stranger. From my findings, I was able to learn about what his former students thought of him on a website that rated teachers. Rather than read to settle, I read only to be more intrigued. Most of the opinions shared the same ideas; in a sentence, he could be summed up as "cool and easy-going for making class enjoyable". Eagerly, I continued to read. Nearly all of the reviews were surprisingly positive. I couldn't contain my excitement of it all - so he was a great teacher after all! I guess I would be looking forward to English after all. That was all in innocence, until I came across this review: "Don't know what the hype is all about. He can't even teach. No one can even tell that he can't teach because they're all too distracted by how handsome he is!" Now there was a phrase I'd never heard of before. "Handsome" and "teach". It had never occurred to me a teacher could be handsome. Was it possible? Certainly, that was nothing to worry about, right? A teacher couldn't be good-looking -- that never happened. Teachers were either really young and average-looking, newly-wed on no sleep because of their little one-year-old, or they were extremely old, mid-fifties, talking about the old days with wrinkling skin and an eagerness for retirement. It was like hearing the unbelievable stories of a friend, the kind of anecdotes that sounded exaggerated to the point of fiction. They were only imaginable, but far from anything near truth. Was I right to take them all with disbelief? A "handsome" teacher, a male too. I was used to having male teachers, but in English? No, never. If you knew me, English was a subject incomparable to science, math, languages or P.E. What was I to expect? Something more than English, perhaps.

TO BE CONTINUED

Sincerely, L.sk

[lskstudent-blog]

Ch. 1: Beginnings Pt. I

Dear reader,

Every story has a beginning. To get to know mine, I shall tell you how it all began, how a heart was turned in one eternal direction in just a single moment. Nearly three years ago, starting in first semester, I would often leave my classes five minutes early. It was for certain medical reasons; being physically fragile at the time, I had to avoid being run or bumped into, especially from the congested crowds between classes. One day, I left class early (I forget which, math or French probably) and got my gym bag from my locker. I went down the main stairs of my school on the way to my next class, P.E., passing the empty central square and cafeteria. My memory has been blurred by the days, but at some point, perhaps on my way down the stairs, a man came walking about ten steps in front of me. He was just a man, another school staff, I assumed. At first, I thought he was one of the P.E. teachers, since he was walking in the same path that I was. He had a lanyard hanging out of his pocket, a common style to wear one's keys for P.E. teachers. His head was hunched forward as he walked, his arms bent to his chest as if holding something. Why was he moving so slowly, not even paying attention to where he was going? As I could tell, he was absorbed with his cellphone, which I thought ironic in a school environment. Surely, it was laughable to see a teacher setting the example opposite to staying connected to reality that get thrown in our faces. If students had no right to use cellphones during class, what gave him the right? Well, "no cellphones to you," I thought, shaking my head at him. However, stop your imagining; I've led you down the same assumption that I first made. Now, keep in mind that this was my first impression of him. About the cellphone use, that part of the memory has long been overlooked for me. It is far from right to judge him in the wrong way. Rather, what is more important is the misjudgement on my part. I realized after moments of scrutinizing him that he wasn't the P.E. teacher I thought he was. I mistook him for someone else, and saw that I had never seen this man before. Past visions of my eyes had never seen such as him. He was not so tall, actually quite short, 5 8" or 9" at the most, with a head of shortly cut light cool brown hair with faint tones of gray. The reason why I mistook him for another teacher was because he seemed so... young. From the back at least, of wide shoulders and athletic back in a leisurely tread, he seemed not much older than thirty-five. The walk passed in a brief moment, yet it was not long enough for all my wondering. Even though I was only six metres away, my steps were too silent for even me to hear. His head neither stirred or turned as I went unnoticed. All the while, I kept wondering who he was. Approaching the gymnasium, he turned right and disappeared down another hallway to the P.E. office, while I went through the main doors of the gym. He was no one I knew. But something was very curious about him. I couldn't tell what, but that didn't matter. The day went on as usual, but as if in a grand Shakespearean play, a new character had been introduced to me, stranger as he was. Once I spied the back of him in that harmlessly curious way, my eyes couldn't be removed. Not just yet. I had to follow him, even in the moments he disappeared, as if to assure myself that there was most definitely something odd about him. But he was just a stranger, and what are strangers to us? That's just it: we all start out as strangers. With the mystery of my medical condition, I can say that I stayed safe from physical impact. Unimportant as it is, I never fell in P.E. class that semester, yet without a chance, I'd fall in a way that neither my heart nor mind had ever known before. I always knew I'd fall sooner or later. But for whom? That, I'd never expected.

TO BE CONTINUED

Sincerely,

L.sk

[lskstudent-blog]

Prologue: Dear reader...

To whomever dares to read,

I have no idea why you’re wasting your time reading this, or how you even found this website. I guess I should start with introducing myself. You’re probably wondering who I am. I’m just another person who you’d call “in love”. You see, I hate to say it that way. It is such a broad category, and it makes how I feel seem ordinary. True, love may be ordinary, every person having had their fair share of it. But to me, it’s no ordinary emotion. Call me ordinary for succumbing to my heart, but call me out of the ordinary for giving my heart to someone I shouldn’t.

You see, I have a secret: I’m a girl whose heart has been stolen by a teacher. I’ll call him Mr. Knight.

For those of you who’ve experienced unrequited love for a teacher, you’d know that it is forbidden. It is dangerous and futile territory, an easy target of scandal. And for the last two years, one thing I’ve learnt is that loving a teacher is absolutely, undeniably, most definitely and tragically hopeless. It’s useless really, other than making a poet out of yourself, as Plato once said.

Yes, it’s a taboo, which is probably why I’ve always felt so ashamed of it. It’s the reason why I hide my secret glances to him everyday, and why I make jokes about him with my friends when, in reality, I love him more than words can describe. Pretending to the point of insulting him hurts, but it is the only way I can feign indifference. Luckily, I’m extremely skilled at hiding my true feelings. While that has helped my feelings get by the last two years undetected, it has only dug a deeper hole for myself. The more I dig myself deeper, the hard it is to get out.

That is exactly what I’ve been doing, digging a hole for myself, but I feel that I’ve reached a point where I need more freedom. Already, in the first year I fell for Mr. Knight, he filled pages and pages of my diaries. Since then, I’ve written about him so much that I no longer have to mark the times I mention him with sticky notes. Then, since last fall, I’ve begun to write poems about my feelings of him. While all this did help a bit to vent my boiling emotions, it still isn’t enough. It won’t be enough until the day I just let my secret out to him, which won’t be for… actually, I don’t even know when that’ll be myself.

And so, this brings me to my reason for starting this blog. I always thought it was cool how people had anonymous blogs online where they could express their inner thoughts and secrets without being discovered. It’s like talking to yourself but in a public place for strangers to overhear, where you’d know that someone is listening, if you were lucky enough. The best part is that these strangers don’t know you personally enough, not even a face to match with your story, in order to make judgments about you. I only ever saw this in the movies, but I never expected that I’d become like one of those people. So here is my blog, where I’ll be sharing to whomever stranger is interested enough to listen my heart and soul. In a place of secrecy and liberty, I ask that you please not judge me but instead accept me, that you lend me a compassionate ear, and that you respect these confessions of a Lovesick Student.

Sincerely,

L.sk