Chapter 1 - Ice breaker

The speech was finally over as the principal ended her message with a " Finally, I hope that you will enjoy your four or five years here. "

Class by class, we were dismissed from the hall to our classrooms. A tall, slender lady was waiting for us at the front of the row. She had spectacles and had long hair. She was in her mid 20's, I estimated. You would have guessed by now - She was our teacher.

She waved her hands, trying to get the class to follow her. We went down the staircase and in to the classroom. The classroom had a different feeling than the one before. The floors were not tiled. It was simply cemented. The classroom was dark and there was not a sign of vibrancy. That was expected, though, as most of us were still complete strangers. At the very least, the classroom was clean.

We all took our sits. Those who are friends would group and sit together. Those who had none are forced to sit with strangers. I didn't really care about who I will be sitting next to; I just took a place which I liked.

" Alright class, welcome to Aspire Secondary School. You can call me Miss Lucy and I will be your form teacher for this year. Now then, I believe that all of you must be very nervous as it is the first day of your secondary school life. I think we should get to know one another better before embarking on our learning journey. "

She walked to the table on the extreme end, nearest to the door.

" You, I would like you to introduce yourself to the class. Please tell the class what is your name, what school were you from and what is your hobby. "

The student stood up. We could all see that he was nervous. Everybody was. He spoke almost quietly. So quietly that nobody ( maybe except the person sitting next to him ) could hear him. Nobody dared to complain that it was " too soft " or shouted to him to speak " louder ".

The teacher did not want to force him to speak up either. Even though she herself could not hear him , she said " Good. Next person please. "

One by one, we stood up and introduced ourself. Some were prepared but most were not. We had to put on a confident front. It would be shameful to make a fool out of oneself during the first day of school.

Soon, it was my turn. I stood up and introduced myself. The fact that majority of my classmates were from the same primary school made me relax a little.

I then begun introduced myself,
" My name is Eugene Goh. I was a student from Achievement Primary School. My hobby is investigating the paranormal. "

Yup, I wanted to make other people think that I'm an interesting character. Strangely, the bulk of hobbies my classmates have were " sleeping "," playing computer games " and " watching TV ".
Others include " swimming " and " reading books ".

None were as awkward as mine.

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Chapter 1 - END


*** The names of the characters in this story, schools in this story and other names are changed for privacy's sake. Thus, if you know what this story is about, don't go asking me why I changed the name of the schools or why I changed your name.

This is based on a true story, with real people and real events. Only the names of most characters/landmarks are changed, except mine. Well, cause you know my name already so there's no point changing my name to Akiyama or sorts.