During a Physics' Class

The bell rings with that annoying noise it makes every time a class period is over and I know what is coming next. I didn’t know what to do. I hated that class. She is opens the door and gets to her desk. She grabs a marker and starts writing something in the board: “Introducing Physics”, her title. I could hear the words “Physics comes from Ancient Greek physis  meaning...”

Hey, I really didn’t even pass the brush in my hair. I'm running my fingers over my hair and pull all the little hairs that are stuck in my fingers. All the suddenly BOOM my head goes straight to the wall. That reminded me the time my so called friend was playing with a soccer ball inside the class and he kicked the ball so hard and smashed right in my face. It was actually really funny but then I felt the worse pain in my nose I had ever felt in my entire life. Since that day I'm remembered for that little incident.

I'm starting to think that I really have bad luck.

But what is it? I mean, what is real bad luck? Does it exist?

My mother always tells me that there is no such a thing as bad luck. She says they are just bad moments in life and that after so many bad moments there is always going to be a good one.

Maybe she is right but I'm TOO many bad moments. For instance, I have broken my ankle three consecutive times, I had an appendix surgery, and I also had gastritis the same year followed by a series of illnesses that only doctors knew about.

Sometimes I really feel like my parents are going to return me to whatever place I came from. Therefore, I insist I have bad luck!

I not only have bad luck on medical stuff. I also have bad luck with those embarrassing moments everyone has once in a while.

There was this time when I was in Miami with my cousin. We were in a shoe store and we were looking at some horrible boots that seemed like they were made of cork. We were laughing at them and making jokes in Spanish, we thought that no one would understand us. I turned around and saw the man that work in the store talking to my aunt in Spanish!! I wanted to disappear in that second.

My cousin just laugh and we continued walking. Then we saw a perfume store and my cousin wanted her favorite perfume called “Roxy”.

We saw a Hispanic looking man and we asked if they had the perfume. He looked at us and when he started speaking we noticed he had a tick on his eye. It seemed like he was making a wink every time he talked. We started laughing so hard that everyone in the store was staring at us. I just got away from there.

Maybe all the things that happen to me are really embarrassing but now that I'm thinking of it I realize that they were just bad moments that now are very funny.

As always my mom is right. Bad luck does not exist. I once read a quote that said “To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his right and left hand. He uses both.”

We have to go through ups and downs, maybe that is how life is.

I'm hearing the sound of my teacher’s voice

“So, that was the first theory of how The Universe was created. See you tomorrow! And please bring your homework.”

I'm wondering, what would the homework be?

New Friends

I met Gaby when I was 12 years old. She is actually one of my cousin’s best friend and they probably know each other since they were little girls.

I saw in her a nerdy girl with nerdy clothes and nerdy glasses. She is the skinniest person I have ever met. She has dark skin, brown eyes and black long wavy hair.

I can say that I didn’t like her since the very first moment I saw her. As all of my cousin’s friends she was annoying, maddening, selfish, and she always kept my cousin from talking to me.

I didn’t like the way she talked, she was just spoiled and her breath smelled so bad that I made faces when I spoke with her.

Even thought I didn’t wanted to see her I had to, she always came to my cousin’s house, which is next to mine.

For my unfortunate luck my room is next to my cousin’s room, so every time she and Gaby had sleepovers I was the one suffering from their hysterical laugh attacks and terrifying screams. I remember that girl used to cause me nightmares.

My mother always told me not to judge a book by its cover but I couldn’t help it. Gaby was steeling my cousin from me.

My cousin, Paulina, has always been like a sister to me, in fact, I'm only six months older than her. We live together since we born and I couldn’t stand another person in her life.

When I was 5 years old Paulina and I went to our first day of school. My mom took us to school and when she left I started crying like if someone just hit me right in the face. And Pau, as I call her, was saying goodbye to my mom grinning from ear to ear. 

She always came to me saying “please, don’t cry. We will be at home in a few just minutes.” Of course it weren’t just a few minutes as she said but that really made me feel a little less sad.  

We went to school together only for 3 years and I really missed her in my new school.

There was a girl who always liked to tease me because of my glasses and because I cried for my mom every day. The next year she changed to another school. It was a coincidence that she now was attending to my cousin’s school.


For my cousin’s birthday that girl went to our house and my cousin took her by her hand and said “Do you remember her? She is my cousin and you better not tease her again!” I almost got to tears to hear my cousin’s words.

She has always protected me and maybe that was the reason I couldn’t stand Gaby. I felt she was getting my entire cousin's attention. 

Last year, in vacations, Gaby stayed at my cousin’s house for a week. One day I was tired of me acting so childish with Gaby since the day I met her.

I came up to her and started talking to her as if I cared what she had to say.

It turned out that she was actually funny and the most important thing, she loved my cousin just as I did.

She wasn’t the spoiled princess I thought she was and I wanted to know more about her.

Now I know my mother was right; you never, I mean never, have to judge someone just because the way they look or the attitude they project.

Gaby and me might not me best friends but since we go to the same church group I came to know a lot more about her. 

  

The weekend has changed

I remember this place; it was a ravine behind my grandparent´s farm. My cousins and I went every weekend and we played there for hours. This ravine had a little river and it was full of trees and all kinds of plants and insects. My oldest cousin went to the top of a little hill were all the water of the rain was accumulated. He looked for a wooden board that holds the water in its place and he pulled it and my other cousins and I got all wet. Eventually we made a mud fight and then we threw rocks to the river.

The amount of water of the river was a lot; of course, I was 6 or 7 years old and for my size it might had been really deep.  Water and mud filled my shoes and my clothes, we needed to change but we were only kids having fun in a place we believed was ours.

Passing the river there were some orange trees. We sent their smell all over the place. I could feel a sweet and acid aroma that made my mouth watery. You know that kind of sensation a sour smell and that goes through your nose and reaches your mouth; you think you are eating the fruit.

I loved to collect all the oranges I could. Sometimes I got a large amount of oranges that no one would like eating them anymore.  My mom always liked to eat them with some salt and prepared them for all of us.

A funny fact about all these is that most of the people that know me think that I don’t like going into the woods and get all dirty, but that is the image I project. Maybe no one really knows me well enough to know little details about me.

Years have passed and my family has grown seens we all went to the ravine.  We all have grown older and we no longer like the things we used to like.

My cousin is now 25 years old and I'm sure he is no longer interested on going to have mud fights with me or my little sisters.  He is already graduated from university and I'm on my way to graduate from high school.

My grandfather died a long time ago and we stated going less and less to his farm. Even the cows that he owned were gone.  The place I remember is no longer the same.

A couple of years later I decided that I wanted to go there. I really missed that beautiful place where I almost grew up on.

To my surprise nothing was the same as I remembered. The river was no longer was a river, in fact, there was no longer water in it. There were some orange trees left but I couldn’t go through them because the track was impossible to cross. It was full of plants and full of “chichicaste”, which is a very itching plant. Also they were lots of spiders that had built their web all over the place.

It is sad to remember this beautiful place that is now extinct, but is sadder to know that maybe if we had continued to go, probably the ravine wouldn’t be covered by the vegetation.

What I´ve learned through all this is that things, people, and even places change. And we shouldn’t let go the things that in the past made us happy or joyful. At the end all we have done make us who we are.