My Life

by Jambaldorj Olonbayar

It is what it is. Unpredictable and it is the only thing that doesn’t stop when we stop. Life goes on. Who am I? How does this affect to my life? Maybe I can never answer this question, or maybe the only way I can answer this question is to look back.

            April 20^th 1993, hot, really hot, sweaty, really sweaty. No, I am not talking about the weather; it is the day I was born. As first child in the family everybody expected a lot from me, but what did they expected? What could day old child do?

The first day of first grade. I was alone, I was scared, and I was naked in the dark. I looked to the right I see kids crying, I looked to the left some kids are getting beaten up, and other kids running chasing each other. Laughing, crying, tears, blood, and suddenly I had a stomachache and it was rising up in to my chest. As I walked in the school, I was scared and I was holding on to my dad as hard as I could so the teacher couldn’t take me away. After all the crying and screaming I finally calmed down and sat down. As I sat down there was a big paper and all I could read was “welcome to your first day of the first grade and your first test.”  The test was so complicated and hard, and I didn’t know what I was doing, all I knew was 1+1 was equal to 2. The next day I walked in and saw some big letter on my paper. As I walked closer it looked like an A. I felt so good, I felt so proud of myself. Sadly when I came up right front of it all I saw was F. Then I thought to myself “I wonder if this was what they expected?”  

For the whole year I was called dork, jerk, an idiot, and an outcast. When I took a look at the test I was so embarrassed and depressed and yet the bullies and the smart kids made me feel worse that it was. One tall kid with white shirt and long black pants came up to me and said “hey dummy you got F? Huh! That what you deserve! A class low kid like you will never get A like me! HAHAHAHAHA!” I felt like crying like but suddenly anger emerged from my chest to my whole body and my body started shaking. So I got up and looked in his eyes as I was ready to fight, ready to stomp on his face. I wanted to take the chair and pounce it on his forehead. We both stared at each others eyes as we were waiting for one another to make the move, but lucky for him the teacher came in the room and said “you two take a seat and we will get started.”

            As the time passed I began to stop talking to other people who thinks that they are better than the other started hanging out more with the people at my level, the people who accepts everybody, rich or poor, smart or dumb. The only friends I had always got picked on by the bullies. The bullies robbed them, beat them up, and worst of all they took most of their clothes of and sent them out side. These things never happened to me because the bullies were my brother(actually he is my cousin it’s just Mongolian tradition to call him brother) and his friends. Everyday I begged them to stop doing that to my friends and go find other kids to pick on. Sadly all he ever said to me was get new friends. Whenever he said those words it hurt he was picking on my friends because he wanted me to be friends with the cool kids or the smart kids, but he never understood that that was not what I wanted.

             As time passed again those who called me jerk, dork or an idiot became my friends. Everything was going smoothly almost everybody liked me. they finally saw the real me in side of me, and they understood that I was not just a low class kid with bad grades. I was fitting in and I loved my life. When everything was going so smoothly my dad moved to the U.S for a better education. Just when everything was going to be perfect I had no father to look after me anymore. I am not saying he is dead. Every boy needs a father, a role model, someone that they can look up to and dream becoming like them. When I had no one to look after me I felt alone again. I felt like when I fall there was no one to catch me, I felt like I was half empty.     

Fourth grade, I was confused and scared. My dad was not with me and my was going somewhere called Germany to raise her college degree from 4 year to masters. Because of that I had to move to my grandparents. They lived in the countryside. For the first time I was actually looking forward to it. I had a chance to restart everything, refresh everything it was my time to shine. Sure when I had like spring break or during summer I would go to my grandparents and stay there for the whole break but not to actually move there and live there, and that was going to be difficult for me. I was not a city boy but I was not a country boy either. I was bit scared, but the excitement overwhelmed me. I couldn’t wait.

            When my moms’ plane took off so did I. The country side that I was heading to was called Zuunkharaa but the train that goes there was not leaving the station because of the pilled up that was blocking the road. After an hour of delay the train started to move. The train ride was supposed to lust at least for 6 hours but it felt like only few minutes for me. While I was in the train I thought of all the possible things that I could do. When the train finally arrived at Zuunkharaa I couldn’t see anything. There was just a blizzard. When I stepped out of the train I slipped and almost went in to the road of the train. Then I thought to myself “dang that was close!” After an hour I reached to my grandparents’ house. I was freezing, and all I wanted was warm milk with chocolate bread. As I walked in my grandpa greeted me with warm smile warm home and warm hug and my grandma was standing behind saying “aw my darling.” They gave me hot milk with chocolate bread. I drank too much milk and my grandpa told me “you know if you drink too much milk you will have a nightmare.” I didn’t really believed him I thought those stuffs were bull crap.

            NO! NO! I screamed. I knew I was dreaming and I wanted to wake up, but it felt so real. NO! I screamed again, right before my eyes my right hand got chopped off. The blood the pain was too much. Suddenly my grandpa shook me and I woke up. He looked at me and said “its ok you only had a nightmare, you’ll get over it soon. Hahahaha I told you that you will have one.”  When I woke up I was shaking, sweating, and crying. Getting torched was too much too for 9 years old kid. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. The shadow of the trees was too scary especially when my bed was facing against the wall. That night the wind was too strong the trees would move and looked like some hand was trying to reach for my neck.

For the whole night I was in the bed trying to imagine that I was someplace happy, some place that I don’t have to see myself getting killed. I closed my eyes I thought about all the happy places that I ever been to. I thought and thought for a long time, the first thing that came to my mind was mountains filled with grass and flowers. Green, blue, orange, pink, and a cool breeze of spring. All the prettiest thing made me feel much better in no time. Soon my grandpa came over to me and gave me warm water and told me “go to sleep you have a busy day tomorrow” and smiled. As I was trying to sleep I was wandering if I could really fit in with the country side people. All of the sudden I thought to myself “maybe they might criticize me because I am from the city.” All those thought and the dream made me stay up all night. In a blink of my eyes the sun rose up. The sharp light of the sun went right through my right eye and went right to my brains. For a second there I thought maybe I was a vampire or something because that light was killing me.

Like my grandpa told me that day was a busy day. We got out of the house at 8am and went to the school and I took a test. What the fuck! Those test looked lot like the test I took in 3^rd grade. So I went over to the teacher and asked her “tani nadad ogson shalgalt chin dorovdugeer angiin shalgalt mon bizdee?” witch meant the test you gave is a 4^th graders test right? The teacher looked at me and said “why is it too hard for you?” I simply said nope with the pissed look on my face and walked back to the table. The test was easy, when I was taking the test I felt like a genius. Everything was so easy, I knew every question. After the me and my grandpa went to the supermarket bought some food, clothes, and some school supplies. For the first time ever I actually enjoyed shopping, who knew that going on a shopping in a small country-side would be fun.

Next day was the day I was supposed to start the new school there, I was so exited. I wandered if I was going to be in the cool kids group, and I wandered if the girls will like me. All that thinking made me fall to sleep fast. DOOOD! DOOOD! DOOOD! DOOOD! My alarm woke me up, even thought I was so sleepy the excitement made me jump out of the bed. I was so exited that I didn’t even eat my breakfast. As I was walking to school I remembered something. I didn’t have my backpack on me. “CRAP!!!” I screamed. I turned around and ran towards my house, “hu hu hu hu” my breath became even harder. As I was running I tripped on a frozen cow sh*t and fell in a pile of snow. “Damn it” I cried out. After five minutes of running I finally got my backpack. I ran back again, while I was running I laughing and said “dang I am not setting a good record”. With a creepy yet tired and sweaty smile on my face I ran toward to the school. As I walked in to the class room 105 the teacher who took the test from me was the teacher. She looked at me with her angry look and said “first day you are late. Pshh I guess that’s what I should expect from a city boy huh? Well everybody this Jambaldorj Olonbayar, and why don’t you take a seat next to her.”

As I was sitting down she looked at me with a cute look and said quietly “hi my name is Chantsa.” And she winked. I smiled to her and said “nice to meet you” sadly the teacher heard me talking and smeared out “hey! New kid!! Shash!” I knew this countryside and this life still; a country boy would bring me a new chapter to my life. A chapter that would show the happiness in my life, some excitement. Maybe I was right maybe I was not.