Remaining Rainy Days

It's pouring. Yesterday was typhooning. But today is just the rainy season, which is apparently a little different from monsoon season. I still haven't learnined the exact difference.

She was standing in one of the double-glass doorways --not in the usual uniform but orange oversized t-shirt and the school plaid skirt. They think the shirts can only fit dolls or students when they first enter high school. She's a second year.

My head cocked to the side, mirroring hers as I watched her feel the rain's wind and perhaps think about the class she was skipping. As I was about to walk on, she turned, gave her shy shrug and "hi." Her voice is so cute, but I have always wondered whether she makes it that way, that's really how it comes out, or perhaps it has become naturally hers. They have so many voices; they're not schizophrenic, but there's a voice for "Hi, Teacher. I love you, please give me candy, " and "Teacher! Why no movie!!"

We exchanged whys and whats. I write this because I remember when she was a first year and the crew she sat with. The four of them scared me at first --the bigger girls in the class, and though it seemed they banded together just cuz they were tougher, perhaps it was the social momentum and mechanics of a homeroom classroom mixed with puberty and the pressures of conformity. They wanted to do work, but never really did. They're all separated into different homerooms now and are some of my best --at least sweetest and most attentive-- in their respective classrooms.

They call me clever for remembering their past homerooms and all the names, but who can forget? Especially when they change so much, mature in just a few months, become so sweet as they grow more comfortable. Of course I will try to remember those things.