FIRST LOVE

It’s been six years since I left high school. During my college years, I was wrapped up in tons of work and hardly had time to visit my high school. Today was a rare chance to go back to high school as I have done all my work and have a holiday.

I got up early this morning and dressed in my high school uniform. I prefer the one which I used to wear on weekdays in which I had P.E lesson to the normal, white with dark blue trousers. The shirt had the blue color of the sea when sparkling rays of sunlight reflected on the water surface. On the left chest lay the school logo ( featured on it the school “big ben”, the bird, the pi number, the microscope and the national corn ) which was proudly printed the line “Le Hong Phong High School For The Gifted”. I felt sheer happiness as I put it on again. It was a highly selective high school which students need to get high scores in the Entrance Exam to high school so as to become a part of the school, to proudly put on its uniform. It reminded me of a time when I was fifteen, studied hard to become the school student and had a happy, unforgettable high school life.

Wearing an old uniform, I went to school on foot. A feeling of nostalgia aroused in me. Everything feels just like the first day I visited my school. It was summer; the hot, glittering sun rays shone on the nearly 100 years old orange tile roof. On the first day I visited my school, I was still a secondary student. I was amazed by the school area which was about three times as large as my secondary school, which was just only a small school in the district. I went there initially for the math summer course which would help me prepare for grade 9, last year of secondary school. The school seemed like it hadn't changed so much for all those years I left school. It still held the beautiful, old of French architecture during colonial times with windows having arcs, classrooms with wood tables and chairs, and chalkboard. I remembered sitting in the school classroom for the first time in that summer, looking at dazzling green leaves under the blazing sunlight of summer and later the peaceful, harmonic sound of the drizzling rain dropping on the tile old roofs which had witnessed so many student generations of the school.

That summer, that first day evening, I kept thinking about the school, about its students and all of its beauty which seem ageless. Suddenly, an excitement aroused in me, encouraged me to become a part of it. That summer, that year, that first day, it had changed me from a boy playing games morning till evening, having no interest in studying felt a motivation to ingrain in my mind English words and grammars, to study literary devices and lengthy analysis of literature novels, poems or even to do Maths everyday, the subject which I found the most boring. It seemed impossible to explain why you love something so much, why you were so determined to it from the very first moment you met it. It was just like “first love” at first sight. 

The summer one year later, I finally took the High School Entrance Exam, which consisted of Mathematics, Vietnamese Literature and English and a specialised subject . It was a big exam with nearly 80000 students in the city. Only one in five students who wrote down the name “Le Hong Phong High School in the Gifted” would become a part of the school. The results came out just about two weeks later after the exam. I was a little bit sad as I got into English Specialised class but I was able to be in the general class and a part of Le Hong Phong big family.

Personally, summer passed by as quick as the wind blew. Just a month after the result came out, I was officially the school student to prepare for the unforgettable three years of high school. It was three tough years of studying and preparing for exams but it was also filled with the excitement, the happiness of the school festivals, bonding events, the clubs and friends and teachers, those who shared wills and dreams. The thing I liked most was the meetings with my social work team as we shared our spirits of wanting to help the community, being active , helped cheer up the students and excite the school activities or even prove that we were not "the-study-only" like some people branded us.

Happy high school life passed by like a wind blew through your hair. It felt like it was just yesterday that I was lying on the table, feeling sleepy listening to the teacher talking chemistry, maths,... and now it has been six years already. I was standing in front of my old class, looking at the old desk that I used to six 6 years ago. Leaving high school was like leaving behind the days of being thoughtless, and delightful and wrapped ourselves in dreams, even the most miracle dreams of student life. As you left high school, you left to pursue your own dreams which may either come true or not and faced hardship yourselves and one of the things that consoled you was the memories of the high school years which had long gone.

Three years of high school have long gone but it will always be in my memories and remind me of a happy, youthful, hard-working, and dreaming years. Remembering about those years in the past relieved and motivated me to work harder, to love myself more.

The sun was hot, sparkling and high on the blue sky, lighting up the orange tile roofs and the green leaves, reconstructing the memories that I had here, so real that I felt my steps that were slowly leaving the school so heavy.