This was my class in year 1. Actually, I had this class for 3 and a half years. This is us while we were in year 1. It is photoshopped. Just the giant pencil and erasers and stuff. Not the faces. Some parts I think would be pretty easy to make without photoshopping. The photographer asked me to pose my hands as if I was holding a rose giving strange results, because I had hard time holding an invisible rose with invisible thorns and an uncertain thickness. It makes me look really tough they way I grip a rose that was never there. I have a feeling that me holding a fake rose would have been easier than taking my photo and changing it.  It on the top ledge in the second photo. On the left. Although it might be a bit different with giant erasers. A rabbit… I don’t know. You could probably pull that off without changing the photo.

You might have noticed I haven’t written in a while. Well, gathering memories of classmates is a lot of memories. I know they were very important back then. Especially having known them for so long. Apparently, they still miss me. But it has changed for me. I don’t miss them. Not because I don’t like them. It’s just they’re not so much part of my life anymore and I can carry on without them.

In Russian culture, it is common to have a best friend, I guess. I considered Настя – Nastya my best friend. Her full name would be Anastasia. I didn’t really realise how much other kids were also my friends. And it takes ages to write about these people.

 Nastya is the one with the long golden hair sitting on the ledge in the third photo. The girl next to her is Angelina. I’ll tell you about her in a bit.

Nastya and I were great friends. The way she taught me to bury bitter berries in the snow to makes them sweet. The way we wandered the halls together gathering loom bands- loom bands were the latest rage then. You could find a dozen in a day scattered on the ground. You could make some soon enough. Nastya was soon concerned though because I would wrap them around my finger, and it would turn red because the blood wouldn’t circulate properly. Then I’d have to put them away somewhere else. How we would play in the hallways by rushing to the chairs and raising our feet in a sort of chase game. You can because if your feet are on the ground. But you can only stay in one place for a certain amount of time otherwise you are out.  We would encourage one another when we need to go the doctor for needles or to check for lice. Just writing this makes me miss her now. We could sit next to each in class a lot.  When there wasn’t a seating plan.

Angelina is the girl sitting next to Nastya. She has large white bows in her dark brown hair. She was kind and quiet, smiley. Nastya and Angelina were best friends. She was a very busy girl. Apart form school she also went to art school with me. We actually knew each other very well. Though I don’t think I was as social back then. When the art school lesson was almost done, she would need to leave to get to her swimming lessons.  Which were also all day. Her parents must have been very serious. In this case she would have been working all day. It kind of made sense in Russian because they don’t usually have many kids, and some kids would be only children. They would need to be doing something, because they would be bored out of their brain at home. Their parents would also probably be at work.

She would often pick at a glue-like gunk that as stuck to her palm. I don’t know what it was, or how it got there. But she kept picking at it so it probably wouldn’t come off as a result. It kind of grossed me out, but I’m not judging her right now. Nastya told me that she had changed a lot now. People often change as teenagers.

 Now I’m missing them more. ☹

I’ll tell you more about people in my class later.




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