Nickem
Any similarity in personality, background, race, or situation to real life is purely coincidental and has no relation whatsoever to this story. So don’t even think about it. Thank you.
Nicholas
My sister is a straight A student. No. Scratch that. A straight A plus student. She’s in every level of honors, at the highest. She’s skipped a grade in math, she’s in honors English and is maintaining a high 97 average, and she’s gotten only 100 averages in both social studies and Spanish. And science, she never talks about it, so I never know.
Hear, hear. There is me.
I am short.
I am sensitive.
I am easily teasable.
I’m good at math and building with Legos. I have to admit that, as arrogant as I may sound. My mom gets me math problem solving books that I solve. And I love the Rubik’s Cube. And I love science. In kindergarten, I practically memorized the Beginner’s Encyclopedia of Prehistoric Animals and the Beginner’s Encyclopedia of Marine Animals. Well, according to my mom and sister.
Writing?
Psh. I suck.
My sister is older than me.
My parents find that she is the treasure of the family. Why, she’s so modest, and smart, and she’s so kind, full of manner, she doesn’t lie. She’s the perfect little angel. No. Perfect big angel.
Then there’s me. They look admiringly at her, then they look at me. Here I am, with a skin problem—a bother to all of the family. Constantly itching to be somewhere else. Always bugging people to show them my awesome Lego creations—one has to admit, it is pretty cool.
Their face drops. But it’s not like they hate me. I mean, they tell me that they love me.
But that’s nearly BS compared to what they say to her.
And all she does is flutter her pretty little eyelashes so that they nearly faint from her perfection.
And me?
Why, they yell at me at all of my imperfections.
Nick, why aren’t you eating properly!
Nick, you have to say thank you!
Nick, you need to get better grades!
Nick, why don’t you get good scores on the NJASK?
Nick, why don’t you just die in a hole?
No, they didn’t say that last one. But I bet they do in their minds.
While, they’re all over Emily.
Nick, why can’t you be like your sister?
She’s smart at all areas of academics.
She works hard.
She gets good grades.
She enters every possible competition there is.
And she wins most of them.
And you?
Why, you, Nick, you might not be like your sister, but you’re special in your own way.
Errr—
And they stop. They halt suddenly. And they return to their everyday tasks.
And she just flutters her little eyelashes to make them faint, oblivious to her bad sides.
Actually, they aren’t that cruel.
They’re just so happy and confident with Em, that they think I have to be like her. You see, my mother thinks that everyone is like Em. She expects so much from everyone. In fact, it’s the opposite of most people. When you first begin to teach, or meet someone, you start from 0. That person has 0 credits, 0 expectations, on your part. Then, as they begin to impress you, the credits get higher and they either seem as or better (or worse) than they expect. And that 0 expectation level is situated at an average level. For example, if a teacher encounters a new student, they will assume temporarily that the student is a mediocre student. If they are, well, the teacher has psychic abilities. If they’re better, well, good for them. If they’re worse, well, the teacher’s expectation level goes down a notch.
But my mom, she thinks that the whole world is composed of Em-congruents, that her expectation level of anyone who is an adolescent or a child over 7 years of age is in the genius, smart, A+ category.
That counts me.
You see, this year, fourth grade, I got a real easy teacher. In fact, she seems like one of those deer in headlights when she sees our class hollering at each other during indoor recess. Luckily, it doesn’t rain or snow too often on snow days. Otherwise she might permanently have that look glued onto her face.
And when she teachers, she teaches easily. She grades easily. Contrary to my mother, this woman has way too low expectations of us. So if we write a mediocre to average passage of writing in response to a simple question as an open ended response, she gives an A+, check plus, regardless.
I mean, unless the writing’s absolutely atrocious, and that it might be prone to get fired if you mark a misspell-filled, grammar error-filled passage a perfect score.
So naturally, you slack off. But that’s part of life, isn’t it? Some times, you have that hard working period, and other times, you’re just slacking off, having a ‘rest.’
Well, my mother doesn’t believe in ‘a rest.’
Slacking off? Then get back to work.
So when she read my open-ended answers marked with a perfect score and the nonexistent structure, creativity, base, and effort in the writing, she blew her top.
“Well, what is this?” (She always starts calm, at a piano, and then molto crescendo to a fortissimo within about five minutes.)
“My writing.”
“Did you write this?”
“It says my name.”
“What?”
“I did.”
“And what is this writing? This isn’t even writing! You need to write better! What is this? Your teacher is slacking off!” She shook her fist. Not a good sign. “That teacher is probably lazy to grade stuff.”
At these times, unless you want to get mouth-slaughtered, you need to quickly join allies with the stronger enemy.
“Yeah, she only marks up the papers that are really, really bad.”
“Then what happens to the smart kids, like you?”
“I don’t know! Well, at least the math teacher is better—you know, she gives the quicker learners extra work…”
“No! The school requires that. And this teacher of yours, she’s not grading a bit of these correctly! Do you call this proper writing? This is a KINDERGARTNER’S LEVEL!”
At this point, saying any word is like dropping a grenade. So I kept silent, even though I felt a hot bubbling steam rising from the bottom of my stomach.
“And you know what? I might even tell the principal, because this is outrageous! You’re not learning a thing! Your sister was so much better in fourth grade—she learned so much more! Her teacher taught her grammar, and she learned a lot about writing and reading comprehension. She stayed up until eleven doing homework, but you? You do it all at school! You come home with completed homework and nothing to do! This is outrageous! Look at this, Em! Did you write this horribly in fourth grade?”
She shoved the paper in Em’s arms, who took the paper and began to skim over it. But me, with growing rage not only against my mother but at my sister, for being so smart, I snatched it right out of her hands. She frowned and stomped away.
“Your sister is so good at writing right now, because I worked hard with her, and she worked hard as well. She had good teachers, too. But you, your teacher—your teacher is so lazy! I don’t know, this is not right. You need to learn! If you keep going at this pace, you’re just going to go into autopilot, thinking ‘Well, I don’t have to get good grades, I don’t have to learn a lot, do I?’ and you won’t be as smart as your sister!”
Sister banana split.
“No!” I said, softly.
“Well, then you need to—“
“No!” I said a bit louder. I did not want to be one of those bums, sitting in class with a dazed look and not understanding a single thing, until the teacher individually helped him. “No!” Not only did it mean that, but it meant great disappointment to my parents. They would never look at me the same again. Perhaps, they might never look at me again. I would be a disgrace to the family.
“Stop saying no!”
“No,” I whispered. I couldn’t think now. I burst into tears.
“I’M NOT EM. I’M NOT SMART, OKAY? STOP THINKING I’M GOING TO BE LIKE EMILY. I’M NOT PERFECT AT ALL! I’M JUST A STUPID LITTLE KID WHO CAN’T WRITE, OKAY? WHY DO YOU THINK I ALWAYS HAVE TO BE LIKE EMILY? WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS COOING OVER EMILY? EMILY, EMILY, EMILY. SHE’S THE PERFECT ONE. WHY DO I HAVE TO BE PERFECT LIKE HER TO BE LOVED?”
Suddenly, my maternal relative frowned, then her eyes dropped into sadness, and she murmured, “Oh, honey. We love you; we love you no matter what. You don’t have to be smart. You can struggle in class, pass with mere Cs, and get through school such. But I still love you. Please, don’t think that way.”
“Then why do you always talk about Emily? Why do you have to put Emily into this?”
“No, honey, it’s just that she can write so well, and to make you write well, you should go on the same path as her. We’re trying to lead you to the path she took in fourth grade. Her teacher was so much better, you see, Nick—“
“No! Mom! I’m not Emily. Don’t expect me to be exactly like her. If you need another one of her, then clone her or something! Why don’t you just disown me and go adopt some child prodigy?”
“Nononono… honey… We love you. We can’t do that. We just want what’s best for you. Emily is just a good role model, you’re lucky you have such a sister—“
“No!”
Then she turned to the old ‘insult-the-opponent’ trick. Not even a trick anymore.
“Honey, you know you’re better than her. In fourth grade, she didn’t even write that well. It’s just now. And look at you, already! She wasn’t in the Gifted and Talented group in fourth grade, was she? Come on, you know. You’re so good at Lego, with those creative things you make, and look at you! Did she solve problem solving word problems in fourth grade? You’re in a special group for gifted kids. She wasn’t!”
Did I fail to mention that back then, the Gifted and Talented program was not in existence. Of course, she disregarded this vital fact and continued her attempts in coaxing me out of unhappiness.
I gave up. I could see her point of view, that she did in fact love me, but she loved Emily more. And without even trying, she was putting Emily into everything, because that love for Emily was so deep, she expressed it even without thinking. And me? Why, she doesn’t say that to Emily.
Emily
My brother is the usual child prodigy. Music and science and math. The usual smart Asian boy, I guess. He doesn’t try hard, but he’s good at those things. He might be arrogant, but he’s good at it.
I mean, he started piano when he was in kindergarten. He was crying, because he wanted to learn piano, since I was. What big deal is it that your older sister is playing piano? But no, he had to cry right in front of the piano teacher with his little buck teeth crying, “I WANNA LEARN PIANO NOW!”
So they took time off of my lesson that day and took time to teach my brother.
And now, fourth grade, four years, he’s way too good to be true. I mean, he’s not Mozart—he’s not composing symphonies at age nine, but he’s pretty good. The songs I played after two or three years, he played after one. And with our new piano teacher, who seems to pick favorites vaguely, but still noticeably, he is definitely one of those ‘gifted’ tagged children. The piano teacher tells anyone near that he’s ‘gifted’ for musical talent.
And me?
Well, she tells me she’s proud of me.
But that’s about it.
Oh, and science? In kindergarten, when he first learned to read, my mom took time to read many books to him, with him, and eventually, listened to him. She, being a very diligent and scrupulous and vigorous mother, picked out only books that would make him learn. And the books that would fit his gender, age, and interest.
So she got him the “Beginner Encyclopedia” series. Those big thick picture books with huge pictures and nice, easy, long captions. Perfect for reading practice. There was the Beginner Encyclopedia for something with dinosaurs, fish, and there was one about meteorology, and such. And together they would read it so often (he liked it a lot), that he memorized it. But it was strange, because while some kindergartners memorize the lines of a book based on a movie they watched (probably over a hundred times), like Finding Nemo, or Lion King, he was memorizing the names of dinosaurs. And afterwards, we would see that come into effect. We would be watching that movie on dinosaurs, and he would point one out, and say, “Hey, a brontosaurus!” Then wait a minute, and say, “or an Apatosaurus?” And then he would debate with himself. And the people next to him would be gaping at a five year old child debating with himself whether the species on the screen was indeed a brontosaurus or an Apatosaurus. In which he would come to a draw, because smart as he is, he’s not a paleontologist.
And Lego. It started from me. My small interest in Lego and building things was stolen by my brother, as he began to dominate the green pan (the base for lego-building), and made all sorts of things. First, they were simple, as I made them. Sheep. Chairs. Desks. Doors.
Then, into first and second grade, he started improving rapidly. At an alarming rate. It was all based on the movie he liked—I guess movies are important for motivation…?
He got into Star Wars, which was The Thing for him, because not only were the movies interesting, but they already had Star Wars Lego Sets out there, at the nearby Target or Toys R Us. He began watching videos on making ships for Star Wars, and followed them, waited for each celebratory occasion to ask for a new Star Wars Lego Set, and then hide himself within a mass of Legos, building some sort of masterpiece. It was amazing.
He would be gone for a moment, come back after a few hours, with a full set of ships and shooting thingies. It was amazing.
Then came the day when he began to create his own.
He was holding his chest high, obviously proud of his work, and marched into the living room with his Lego in one hand and his hip in the other.
“I,” he proclaimed, “made this by myself.”
We nodded.
“No, instructions. All, by, myself.”
“Ooooh,” my mom would say encouragingly. And also at truth, because it did look like one of those Lego sets.
“I copied it off a picture, because I know that we couldn’t buy that Lego Star Wars Set, so I made it myself. And I made a few editions myself.” And henceforth, he began to make his own creations.
Then he got into mechanics. A level even I did not want to fathom. He manipulated the stretchiness of rubber bands to create some sort of gun. And he was, then, into guns. But not real ones. Lego ones. All the same, they worked perfectly, and they were so amazing, and I could not believe. These lego-substance of guns that had rubber bands wrapped around it in a certain way that if you pulled a trigger, a little Lego ‘pellet’ would shoot out. A nine year old making guns that can shoot you (not fatally)? Talking about the pull and twist and whatever it is, and about the ‘mechanism of this device’? He was already speaking in another language. Lego Language. Science Language. It was simply amazing.
And his math?
He is so lucky. He is forced to work on a workbook full of math problems daily. And he improves at a rapid pace. And with it, he gains confidence, which makes my mood ever more scornful towards him. He is so good at math. At that age, I was nothing near. I was barely passing by. Only in fifth grade, when I was placed into the ‘glorious’ title of ‘Honors’ that I realized that I may not be as bad as I thought. But of course, all those other kids in my class were doing exactly what my brother is doing now—extra curricular math workbooks, meaning more smarts, more math knowledge, and better grades. And now, at the age of thir teen, I must say. I am starting to think towards the SATs, partly because my friends are already in the process of preparation, and I am envying my brother. Without knowing it, he is getting ready for the SATs, too. He’s doing extra work, making him smarter, making that far-away SAT a bit easier than it may be to me. And although I may be in a high level math class, I know that my classmates are far more advanced in the field of math than I am. In fact, I can almost see my brother in one of them.
Did I say? He likes chess.
But let’s not rant on about my brother’s prodigy-ness.
Because he has imperfections, too.
For one, he is very annoying. But that is what all brothers are, so let’s take this for granted.
For another, it is due to his prodigy-ness. See, my parents are both on the smart side. My father graduated from the best college in Korea, and then came here to America, to study at MIT. My mother tagged along. But she taught my Dad when he worked at the office thingymajiger in Korea.
Anyhow, we have good genes.
Although I do get straight As in classes, they are barely. I’d be getting a low A, and I’d just study hard to get a 100 to boost up the grade, and continuously do this near the end of the marking period. I have to study, and I stress over it, and I hate presentations. But that’s beside the point. I am just ‘a-okay’ in all classes. Averagely smart, I guess. There are so many other kids like that in our school, and so many who are super smart. Nothing to be proud of. I think I got my mom’s streak.
But my brother, he’s like my Dad. All on the sciences and math side. Maybe not too writing-fulls, or in the reading-writing area, but definitely in the sciences and math. He’s not ‘a-okay,’ ‘averagely smart’ at a subject. He’s super-smart at it. Math? He comes home with that “pshhh, nothing” face when he talks about a quiz. And Science? I don’t know, he never talks about it, but I can never forget the fact that he loved science in kindergarten. I guess that passion was dug under by Lego. But definitely math. He is very very smart. He is easily getting perfect score on the Continental Math Leagues. And not even that, but even for the fifth grade one. A higher-above level.
But it’s this super-smart thing that gets into his head. Right to his head. In fact, if you compliment him, it doesn’t go anywhere but his head. That’s why I don’t enjoy complimenting him. It sounds cruel, I know. I do compliment him, you know, out of effortly kindness, but when I do, I can just see that evident change in expression from arrogant to superior. And he’d get way too much of it in his head, that he thinks that his math is so much harder than mine. Hello? Eighth grade math? Versus Fourth grade?
And because he is so convinced of his very existent intelligence, he is sensitive. Or maybe he was treated with too many Legos. I don’t know. For all I know, I may be like that. I may be just as sensitive, or even worse. Sometimes I worry about that. Seeing how annoying his sensitivity is, I sometimes worry if mine is worse. And how annoyed everyone else would be.
So if he breaks his Lego, he suddenly has this teenager act, even though he’s nine, and shouts at everyone near, stomps around, and bursts into tears, kneeling at the feet of our mother. And she would coo and sob with him and say, “oh, honey…” And stuff.
And then Dad would come by, get a bit awkward from this awkward-cryingness (because he’s not a sociably-intelligent person), and suddenly offer to go to Target with him to buy him something. Obviously it’s going to be Lego.
Dad is not a very child-discipline-aware person. He has strict philosophies that may not always be correct. If you cry, he buys you something. It’s like bribing a crying baby with candy. They eventually begin expecting the candy, and eventually, manipulate that act of crying.
So my brother cries a lot. Especially when his Lego’s gone wrong.
And recently, we’ve forced him to move all of his Lego to his room, so that we don’t have to step around the house staring at the floor in tip-toes so that we don’t seriously injure our feet. So now, he’s locking himself in his room for hours at a time, not appearing unless he has to go to the bathroom, or eat, or any other plausible reason. And if he suddenly appears out of his room crying, it means something’s gone wrong. And other times, he would run out with some sort of gun or Lego ship in his hand, and bug us for so long while we’re doing our work to please look at his masterpiece. And then we’d say, Sorry, we’ll look at it after we finish. But having such low patience, he would first go to me, then to Mom, then to me, then to Mom, alternating, until one of us would finally give up and say, Okay, what is it?
And if you ever touch that doorknob in the midst of his creating—
Oh, it’s regret you’ll feel. It’s like creeping in on a tiger’s cave or wherever they dwell. He pounces on you the minute you open the door, to GET OUT! GET OUT RIGHT NOW! STOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!”
Lego is his strong point and his weak point. Threaten to knock down one of his Lego masterpieces, and you’ve got what you’ve wanted.
He’s so lucky he’s so good at so many things. And not exceptionally good, but really, really, really good. I envy him.
And yet, Mom thinks that I’m the role model. People find that people like me are role-model-worthy, but in fact, we are just ‘a-okay’ at everything. And super bad at some things. People like my brother are superman at some things. Not everything, but it’s still worth having a super good talent than being okay in a few. At least you have one thing to be proud about.
You can’t expect a science-loving, math-genius, Lego-maniac guy to write perfect essays, and relish in writing. I mean, I love writing. Writing is my way out.
Lego is his.
But she expects so much from him, especially in the areas that he isn’t superman at. And that I’m ‘a-okay’ at. It’s those areas that I am better than him at something, because it’s no talent against ‘a-okay’ talent. And hence we are compared. Like two samples in a biology lab.
I don’t like it, and he doesn’t like it.
But hey, this is life. You need a basis for which to be compared, otherwise your grades are not accurate. Whether it is compared to a perfect score or to an average score. You want to see how good you are. You want to see if you fit in.