An 8th Grader's Perspective (THE STORY)

I'm still reading my flashcards, I made last night, in the school bus. I wish Justin and Eugene could shut up because it's really hard for me to concentrate. Better yet, I hope the bus would break down again like last week, so I could possibly skip today's all-school gathering. The best thing about going to school by bus is that no one can blame you when you get to school late. Anyway...shoot, I think we are almost there. Why does Mr. Perkins like to have us presenting during all-school gathering so badly? He probably enjoys seeing us embarrass ourselves. I never really know what I was talking about, when I was up there. It might be a whole different story if I could use Chinese to present... No, wait, actually, I don't know. You might think, "heh, it's only about fifty-sixty people starring at you," but, no, it's not that easy. I'd rather present to a thousand people that I don't know. I hate it when all the ones I know looked at me while I am speaking. Especially that most of them would come and talk to me about my presentation. Sometimes even when they say things like, "you got a nice presentation there," it somehow still sound so sarcastic. Alright, we just arrived, and, no, we are not late at all. In fact, I think I still have about three minutes. I don't know. The clock on the top of the school building is never correct.

When I got upstairs, I don't see any of the other eighth graders were still looking through their flashcards or whatever that they needed for their presentation. I wonder if it were that they all gave up. Daniel got up first. He always had that kind of luck. I couldn't hear him well due to both his breathing into the microphone and my anxiety. After Daniel, just when I was saying to myself, "not me, not me..." I hear Mr. Perkins asked, "you want to go up next? Okay you go up next." There I go, standing in front of sixty or so people, all the ones that I know... And the next thing I remember was the moment I woke up in Ms. Chen's office.