...on unexpected search results

Decided to search up a random teacher.

Was reminiscing about some weird traumatic episode of when I first started school in Québec.

Was during Welcome Class where every fresh-off-the-boat kid was sent to learn French before going into regular class. It was also my first Show and Tell ever and lo and behold, I decided to bring my diary.

Somehow young doremish had it in her head that diaries are super-duper-top-secrets and guard-it-with-your-life-private. Probably pretty hare-brained to bring it, but fuck it, we were told to bring something that was near and dear, and that diary was as prized to me as possessions go. 'Twas pretty in an old fashioned way - not pink, nor fuzzy - it had a lock, and scented pages. My aunt gave it to me as a good-bye gift from Taiwan.

At the end of the preso, the teacher who, so far I had been quite fond of, asked me to open it and show it to people.

I mean, thinking back, my biggest secrets in there were probably along the lines of "today, a booger flew out of my nose by accident and it was icky". But on principle and probably on principle only, doremishette mustered all her courage and said No. To. A. Teacher (!).

But he kept insisting. And I just stubbornly kept refusing. It went on a few times and he got red-faced angry. Nope nope nope nope. Still nope.

He got up, and ended up wringing it off my hand despite my teary protests, and flashed a few pages to the stunned faces of my classmates*. At that point I was flat out wailing from embarrassment (of showing my diary? or losing an arm-wrestling match to an angry 30-year-old? of my frustration with not being able to articulate that I felt it was important to respect my privacy even though I was a kid, which was what I was thinking, but couldn't say? I still can't quite place it).

I have since then hated that teacher.

Anyhow. I found his name on Google and he passed away this year at 53. Cancer. 

Huh.


*"today... booger..."