December the 24th was the best day of last year. I think it was the day I truly got out of school-mode. There is this certain way of telling time and space and relationships in general that fourteen years of time-tables gives you. Or maybe it was just me, others seem to do fine without it. Anyway, there was this range of reactions to the world that this timetable had set down for me, and because I was usually sitting by myself watching the world go by for the better part, I always knew what they'd be, come any situation. But here I was, sick to my stomach and unable to lift my head and feeling like crap on Christmas Eve, and I knew school had ended by the way I felt good about everything that had happened from July till then. Because all of it had been a vast, vast lunch period, with me in the playground thinking I was part of a game, chain chain or Magnet or whatever, and it didn't matter. The people would always be there, and so would the rules, and so would the game, only I didn't have to be the fat kid panting along trying to keep up anymore.

Things have been the same since then, only I think I've changed a little. I no longer care if people had the wrong idea all along. Chances are it was always like that. My Hindi teacher, for example, always assumed I hated Hindi, and my Math teacher thought I was doing sums in my register.

People are always wrong about other people.