At one point, during the winter I came to school wearing a very slight pink chapstick. Well, I was turned back from the door and asked to remove it. I pleaded that it was not cosmetic but therapeutic, that my lips were very dry but I didn’t convince anybody. At some point, I faced some unhappy teacher that objected that my wintercoat was too loud. It was indeed loud, green and purple checkers. It was also made to order and the pattern was very unusual too. You see, I tried to be different, not to conform, even in a world of uniforms. This time I won. My loud coat had the required Matricola on the left arm and I told them that was my only winter coat and my parents would not buy me another coat.
There was practically no truancy. You just went to school because that was the thing to do. In the last years of highschool however, if the teacher was late coming to class and especially if that was the last period of the day, we would just take off. If the teacher came late, too bad, we were not there to wait for him/her. Usually, I was one of the instigators and tried to convince everybody to leave. I realized that if we all left, they could not punish all of us.
There were no sports competitions between schools. We played various sports in gym, but not competitively. Privately, you could enroll in various sports but not through schools. Each school had its own chorus and our highschool had a very famous one that had concerts at the Concert Hall. But, I didn’t like that activity and I did my best to be kicked out of it. You could not simply say you didn’t want to participate. It was not allowed. But, if you managed to sing out of tune, they would surely dismiss you. I took swimming and tennis lessons but I didn’t get to be very good in either. I also took ballet lessons when I was little.
At the beginning of highschool, the best students were told they would be enrolled in the Union of Young Communists. You got a badge and had to swear allegiance to the communist party. We had no choice but to comply. By the end of highschool, most everybody, with very few exceptions belonged to this organization. They had to report that numbers were up. For us it was totally meaningless. The bad part was that we had to participate in long political propaganda meetings after school. Sometimes, roll would be called at these meetings. All classes would participate at the same time. I, along with some others, became quite adept in avoiding these meetings. We would simply run away using any door that was not guarded by a teacher at that time. Because you see, they knew that you didn’t like it and wanted to run away, so they had to keep you there. Or I would go, stay a little while and then pretending to go to the bathroom or some other excuse, I would vanish.
We would also be required to march in the communist parades. We were threatened that bad things would happen if we didn’t go so we went. But, as usual, I found ways to take side streets that were not heavily guarded and I would just go home after making sure that the person in charge saw that I showed up when the parade started.
Of course, periodically, we would be required to go for the mandatory “volunteer” work. I could not avoid this because each teacher would be in charge with a rather small group of students. The work was rather unpleasant but unfortunately, unavoidable.
In the 11th and 12th grades, we all had pre-military practice. We had to have blue pants and tunics for that, as well as a blue cap. We had some instruction in the classrooms but also in the field. We had to learn to shoot at targets (blank shots, of course). For me, it was an impossible task. I missed it by so much that it was laughable. But my heart was not in it. Nobody’s heart actually.
During the last year (12th grade) or even sooner, most parents hired private tutors to make sure their kids would be admitted to college. If highschool admittance exams were rigorous, college entrance exams were brutal. Usually, a lot of students competed for much fewer seats. This time, my mother decided to hire a tutor too. In fact, my mother and my best friend’s mother decided to pool their money and hire a tutor for both of us (to teach us both at the same time). We were preparing for the English Department of the Bucharest University. Our tutor was an English teacher. She was very, very good and trained us very well. She gave us a lot of homework, which was on top of the regular homework from school. Our English teacher from school also held after-hours sessions for those of us (quite a few) who studied to go to the English department of the University. We did a lot of work from special manuals. I still remember that at some point I contradicted my teacher about a certain point of English usage. He did not press it very far but went home and researched it. The next time he had the grace to tell me that I had been right and he had been wrong. I still admire him for this. You see, by that time, I had read lots and lots of books and became very good in English.
Throughout my schoolyears, I had the “talent” of contradicting my teachers, or stating a different point of view than theirs, if I thought that my point had merit. It did not happen very often to make me obnoxious to all, but occasionally it did happen. Some teachers were amused, some were not. But some would admit that I made sense.
(to be continued)
Simona Georgescu
