Annie Zhu - Q4 Blog 13 - Green Grass

 



In second grade, I attended an after school program called 芳草地, Green Grass. I met many of my current friends at Green Grass; it’s kind of a weird core memory I share with all of them, even though it’s so distant now. In honor of this quarter’s theme, I will share a list of things I remember from my time there:

1) It had six classrooms. The entrance is an open room with a wood floor (think ballet studio but without mirrors). The first classroom was the largest, where the younger kids stayed. The classroom then leads into a narrow hallway—I can’t remember if it was painted green or yellow.


2) At the end of the green/yellow hallway was a plywood bookshelf. This is where I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the first time. It was also the first time I ever stole a book without telling anyone.


3) Lights off, rows of long plastic tables, a printer paper laid out, me squirming in my chair while trying to multiply 11 and 11. I kept forgetting to add a zero for the tens place:

  11

x11

  11

  11

  22

Twenty-two???? I think to myself. That doesn’t make sense! 11 plus 11 equals 22, how can 11 TIMES 11 EQUAL 22????AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

4) Muyao Li taught me how to make paper boats. Since we used 8.5 x 11 papers, and the origami required a square sheet, we had to fold our papers and cut off 2.5 inch strips. I wanted to use my strip for paper stars, but Muyao took my strip from me :(


5) Sophia Jimenez drew the most beautiful animals. She’s even better at art now; I love looking at her Instagram.


6) The building had one small room upstairs, where the big kids (6th graders) learned Chinese. I always longed to go up there and see what they were doing. Were they rowdy? Did they do edgy middle school stuff like lighting trash cans on fire?

7) My friends would guard the restroom while I peed because it was 2017, and I was deathly scared of the shape-shifting clown from It. I genuinely feared that the clown would shapeshift into a snake, travel through the sewer system to the Green Grass toilet, and bite my butt.


8) Qian Lao Shi, the manager of Green Grass, always wore heels and had a large bun. I never got to see her house (which was huge, according to those who had visited it). It’s my biggest regret.


It’s so odd, how we all have small, trivial details stuck in our heads. For someone else, a random thing they remember might be the smell of their childhood home or the way their pet cat’s tongue sticks out during naps. All of these things seem useless from the outside looking in, but for each of us, they’re small fragments of who we used to be. Truly unique, and truly human. Isn’t that wonderful?

 

 

credits: Google Maps 

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