Chapter One
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Hi, my name is Julian and I am in my last year of primary school. Everyone calls me “Shorty”because hey,I’m short! I’m always that kid that sits in the front row of the class photo. You know, the one where all the normal sized boys stand at the back and then there’s like one extra-small boy that gets to sit amongst all the girls in the front row, whose feet don’t even touch the ground. Yep that’s me. I’m the kid where the school uniform jumper looks gigantic because the sleeves are so long that they are almost touching my knees. I’m not sure why uniform shops don’t make smaller sizes. There must be some other short kids around in the world. But then again, I remember mum telling me that when I was a bub I was just so tiny compared to other babies. She told me about how baby charts showed average weights and sizes for all babies in Australia.
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At that time they were really concerned about babies that were too big for their age. Not me. When I was born I was so small that I didn’t even make it onto the graph!My height and weight were under the graph line. So basically,I was doomed to be small right from the beginning and I was the shortest kid in my grade from prep to seniors. I’ll let you in on a secret –I could get away with wearing size 4 shorts for most of my primary school life. I bet you that not many kids could brag about that achievement!
But being short did have its advantages. I could always run really fast, especially in the school athletics team and it was pretty easy for me to play any sport. It’s probably due to the low center of gravity factor. I was small,but I could always scramble my way out of a footy pack with ease. I remember playing footy in the Under 10s.All us kids used to play in packs. Instead of staying in our positions we would just run after the footy no matter where it was. So there would be like 20 kids all circling around the football. Somehow,I was able to get that ball and appear from out of the pack. You see,I think I was so short they couldn’t even see me. But sometimes I was so fast they couldn’t catch me. So I might not have had the same strength and muscles as some of the other boys,but these little arms and legs could play soccer, basketball and Aussie Rules with just as much skill as the next kid.
So I am off to high school soon. Seven years at this primary school has come and gone so quick. This has made me think about how a kid sees primary school. I mean, I have never been a huge fan of school and I remember being so disappointed in prep when I found out I had to do this school thing for many years to come. I clearly remember my first day. The teachers made school look so exciting with all those fun activities and games laid out all over the table. We had our smart looking uniforms on and carried everything needed in our big green school bags. Mums, dads, aunties, uncles and friends all made us feel like we were so important and made such a big deal of it. We all thought that at school,we were going to suddenly become a grown-up and get to do all these amazing things. Well that only fooled me for the first few days. Then the realization hit. I would be doing this school thing forever. It wasn’t all fun and games but just a constant nagging to do a whole bunch of stuff within a certain time-frame and then once you had finished that,you were on to the next activity whether you liked it or not.
t seemed to be about learning how to be bossed around and how to just accept the fact that you had lost your freedom. This took some getting used to. It probably took me four years to adjust to school. Yep, that’s how long it took me to accept that I had to get up every day and do all the stupid things that teachers make you do. They would make us do some really dumb activities that I still don’t get. Like make us read stories all the time and then make us answer questions about the stories. We then had to answer why we wrote those answers. Or they would get us to re-tell the story. I would be like, “why am I repeating the story line –isn’t it obvious what happened?”It always seemed pointless and sometimes I used to think that the teachers must be really dumb if they needed to be told what the story is about again.
But seriously, it wasn’t all that bad. There were some really good things about school. Yes I know it seems impossible, but school did have advantages at times. When I sat down to think about the best times at my school, I came up with a list of what I thought were the most memorable daily moments. The most enjoyable times and the very best that school could offer each day. Here is my list in order from lowest to highest.
But being short did have its advantages. I could always run really fast, especially in the school athletics team and it was pretty easy for me to play any sport. It’s probably due to the low center of gravity factor. I was small,but I could always scramble my way out of a footy pack with ease. I remember playing footy in the Under 10s.All us kids used to play in packs. Instead of staying in our positions we would just run after the footy no matter where it was. So there would be like 20 kids all circling around the football. Somehow,I was able to get that ball and appear from out of the pack. You see,I think I was so short they couldn’t even see me. But sometimes I was so fast they couldn’t catch me. So I might not have had the same strength and muscles as some of the other boys,but these little arms and legs could play soccer, basketball and Aussie Rules with just as much skill as the next kid.
So I am off to high school soon. Seven years at this primary school has come and gone so quick. This has made me think about how a kid sees primary school. I mean, I have never been a huge fan of school and I remember being so disappointed in prep when I found out I had to do this school thing for many years to come. I clearly remember my first day. The teachers made school look so exciting with all those fun activities and games laid out all over the table. We had our smart looking uniforms on and carried everything needed in our big green school bags. Mums, dads, aunties, uncles and friends all made us feel like we were so important and made such a big deal of it. We all thought that at school,we were going to suddenly become a grown-up and get to do all these amazing things. Well that only fooled me for the first few days. Then the realization hit. I would be doing this school thing forever. It wasn’t all fun and games but just a constant nagging to do a whole bunch of stuff within a certain time-frame and then once you had finished that,you were on to the next activity whether you liked it or not.
t seemed to be about learning how to be bossed around and how to just accept the fact that you had lost your freedom. This took some getting used to. It probably took me four years to adjust to school. Yep, that’s how long it took me to accept that I had to get up every day and do all the stupid things that teachers make you do. They would make us do some really dumb activities that I still don’t get. Like make us read stories all the time and then make us answer questions about the stories. We then had to answer why we wrote those answers. Or they would get us to re-tell the story. I would be like, “why am I repeating the story line –isn’t it obvious what happened?”It always seemed pointless and sometimes I used to think that the teachers must be really dumb if they needed to be told what the story is about again.
But seriously, it wasn’t all that bad. There were some really good things about school. Yes I know it seems impossible, but school did have advantages at times. When I sat down to think about the best times at my school, I came up with a list of what I thought were the most memorable daily moments. The most enjoyable times and the very best that school could offer each day. Here is my list in order from lowest to highest.