Branded / Disrespect? pg. 512

I oftentimes felt disrespected and treated less than the person I knew I was. I still do today sometimes. Once I attended a cram school and one boy was always praised for his works and grades. While he is a good student, my grades rivaled his yet nobody seemed to acknowledge that. They thought he was the model student and that I, was simply another wannabe. They thought that he was the best at everything, and when our group gets a good grade in presentations, people thought it was all due to his benefits when I, in fact, contributed more by writing the speeches, creating new ideas, and pointing out the general directions. That was a time when I felt disrespected and overlooked. People thought I relied on him for good grades, and that was huge disrespect to me. There was also another time when I joined a newspaper club and there was a girl who thought I was stupid and clumsy. She was not a very good writer and her teammates often tease her about that. Seeing that I am a new comer and seemed to have mistook some general instructions that was given to me, she found herself more superior than I am. From then on, whenever somebody gave me an instruction, she would translate mindlessly in that superficial language of hers. To me , that was bold effrontery. The insults were a declaration of war. Nobody gets to treat me any lesser than I am, and she, is not about to become the first. I vowed silently to myself to seek revenge one day, to throw everything back into her dark freckled face. Within a few weeks, my writing improved and received praise from the leader. She no longer offered those " translations" . Now, I realized she may have just been trying to be nice, or perhaps, she felt sympathetic to myself. Yet for me at that time, her bold gestures were offensive and discriminating. I thought and spoke lowly of her, and made my friends think the same. In general, I hate to be treated lesser than what I am. When that situation happens, I will fight back with all my will. Nobody can trample on my pride. Nobody can.