Days 7-9
thirdblindmouse and I ended up chatting a little bit about children's books in the last post, which made me remember this one. Does it ring a bell for anyone? ETA: Found! Ha, the cut text turned out to be the title.
7. Kindergarten
We had reading groups in kindergarten-I'm pretty sure it was kindergarten, because pre-school was too early, and in elementary school we just sat in the back of the classroom when it was our group's turn, but in this memory we were in another room down the hall. There were a few of us grouped around the table, and the book we were reading, or were being read, was about five (?) Chinese brothers, each with a special power of his own. Someone was trying to kill one of them, and what the brothers would do to protect him/themselves was secretly switch off the one being executed each time an attempt was made. I guess they all looked the same. So the brother who could stretch was swapped in when the executioners/assassins/emperor/whoever tried to drown him, and he just stretched his legs all the way to the bottom of the ocean and stood there with his head still above water. And the one who could withstand really high temperatures was substituted when they put the brother in the oven. At least, that's what I remember; and that's about all I remember.
Speaking of ringing bells:
8. Middle School
In seventh-grade English, we had an assignment to read a piece of literature aloud in front of the class. It could be a short story, a few poems, or an excerpt of a longer work. I did a few poems by Shel Silverstein; I'm still not sure why. This memory is not about me, though; it's about another boy in the class, T., who decided to read Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells. There were so many "bells" ("bells"es?) in the refrains, and his reading voice was so quiet and flat, that he and most of the class were giggling by the end, by which point he'd sped up to get past all the "bells" already.
Tangent: I heard a very cool song version of "The Bells" on the radio last weekend in honor of Poe's birthday. Each group of four "bells" had a melody, so it didn't just sound like the same word over and over and over.
9. Middle School
Same class, different day. I sat next to my crush that year. I remember one day before the bell rang I was idly toying with my hair, inspecting the tips of the curls or something. "Split ends?" J. asked. For some reason I automatically answered, "Yes," even though I didn't really know what split ends were; or I thought it meant when the hairs are all different lengths like what happens when it's been a while since the last haircut.
7. Kindergarten
We had reading groups in kindergarten-I'm pretty sure it was kindergarten, because pre-school was too early, and in elementary school we just sat in the back of the classroom when it was our group's turn, but in this memory we were in another room down the hall. There were a few of us grouped around the table, and the book we were reading, or were being read, was about five (?) Chinese brothers, each with a special power of his own. Someone was trying to kill one of them, and what the brothers would do to protect him/themselves was secretly switch off the one being executed each time an attempt was made. I guess they all looked the same. So the brother who could stretch was swapped in when the executioners/assassins/emperor/whoever tried to drown him, and he just stretched his legs all the way to the bottom of the ocean and stood there with his head still above water. And the one who could withstand really high temperatures was substituted when they put the brother in the oven. At least, that's what I remember; and that's about all I remember.
Speaking of ringing bells:
8. Middle School
In seventh-grade English, we had an assignment to read a piece of literature aloud in front of the class. It could be a short story, a few poems, or an excerpt of a longer work. I did a few poems by Shel Silverstein; I'm still not sure why. This memory is not about me, though; it's about another boy in the class, T., who decided to read Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells. There were so many "bells" ("bells"es?) in the refrains, and his reading voice was so quiet and flat, that he and most of the class were giggling by the end, by which point he'd sped up to get past all the "bells" already.
Tangent: I heard a very cool song version of "The Bells" on the radio last weekend in honor of Poe's birthday. Each group of four "bells" had a melody, so it didn't just sound like the same word over and over and over.
9. Middle School
Same class, different day. I sat next to my crush that year. I remember one day before the bell rang I was idly toying with my hair, inspecting the tips of the curls or something. "Split ends?" J. asked. For some reason I automatically answered, "Yes," even though I didn't really know what split ends were; or I thought it meant when the hairs are all different lengths like what happens when it's been a while since the last haircut.