Chapters from an Immigrant's life, Part XVII. Bad boy nerd

Ok..some may think that I am a nerd, or a geek. Sometimes I wish I was, and sometimes I thank God that I’m not. I was pretty smart during highs cool, except , the last 6 months in my senior year in UAE. I used to be in the lead in all my subjects, except Arabic and Islamic religion classes. I was caught cheating in an exam in the Islamic religion class, and I barely passed those two subjects. Of course I never studied chemistry before the exam as I was ok in this subject. Got in trouble few times and had to bring my father to school to bail me out. I was responsible of firing our chemistry high school teacher by inserting adult rated videos in his office, and reported him to the administration. Needless to say I was the one who used to tie the garbage canisters to our physics teacher and was the one who inflated the tires of the car of our religion teacher. I hope they are not reading this of course.

During my first year in the states, I was a smart student and surprisingly, got A’s in my classes. One class I remember was the “jaz’ course, where I would walk through the disks in the final and cheat off the other students. I never studied jaz and never liked it. But later, I fell in love with Luis Armstrong and …whats the guys name that composed “sketches of spain”. Oh well, I forgot him, but did like Jaz because of those two composers. I did good in my social studies course and wrote a paper that is still in the library at the college I was going to.

I of course performed very well in my chemistry class that my teacher was making me grade the other students homework and papers. The guy was a womanizer, and maybe that’s how I became one. He loved his female students, and I did too. I even fell in love with my qualitative analysis chemistry teacher, although she was married, but I just loved her. So yes I was a good student…but not to the level of being nerd.

Now, being a trouble maker my life, I did things that will guarantee that I will never enter the hall of fame of nerds. There was a challenge one day. The word “challenge” is my weak spot as I always say “I’m in” before even hearing what the challenge may be. At any way, I lost the bet, and now I had to pay the price of my gamble. The punishment was to run butt naked from the college of engineering, all the way to the BA college. This is about 300 feet only. At 3 am exactly, 2 guys and myself stripped down inside the college of engineering, and ran out of the door to run to the BA college. To our surprise, there were other students who were informed of the run, and were waiting to see or take pictures. As soon as I ran through the door, I saw people screaming and laughing at us. Boys and girls, heck even a homeless man chased us on the street whistling at us. I just wanted to get to the BA college and put on my cloths again. Finally I got there, only to find the campus police waiting for us there. This is not a good day for me I whispered to myself. Anyway, we got in trouble and given warning.

In my organic chemistry I class, there were more than 100 students, and as usual, probably two thirds were girls. So, I and a group of arab students (we were 4 total) made up signs with numbers from 0 to 10, and sat outside the door. Every girl student going in, was rated as we raised those banners with numbers. Sometimes we get “screw u ### hole, what a jerk” and sometimes we get “you guys are cool”. One time I was slapped with a purse by this gorgeous girl, but I didn’t care, it was well worth it. It’s not like I was sleeping with those girls, no way, but it was meant for fun by flirting with them innocently (turned violently in the case of flying purse of course)

The best story that I remember was in organic chemistry lab. The experiment was extraction caffeine from tea. I did the experimenst and it was great. I then wrote the lab report, only I missed the word “caffeine” and spelled instead as “caffeine). I got 8/10 of course because every wrong answer will also subtract one of the correct ones. I was angry, and argued with the teacher screaming that of course I meant caffeine. He never gave in, and as usual, I lost the battle.

In my physics lab, I did wonders. Pointing the laser at the teachers back, and put gum on a Chinese student chair (he was way too smart and that troubled me). In the chemistry lab, I was able to make a quick reaction to produce HS gas. Hs gas is the bad smell from sewer. I did it easily (very basic reaction) and quickly dispersed the vial on the lab bench away from mine. The teacher smelled it and the whole class was almost puking. Of course they never knew who did it, but I tell you, I almost puked with the class. It was fun though. In my transport phenomena chemical engineering class, there was a student who was sleeping in the class. Then suddenly, he farted, and the whole class started laughing. But there was this vietnamees student who I never liked anyway, and he was laughing loudly. I cashed on the opportunity and started yelling at him to shut up so I can concentrate on the class material. I just wanted to pick a fight with the guy. He cursed at me in class, and the teacher was sitting down doing nothing. I got up, went straight to him and pushed him with my right foot off his chair till he fell. I was expecting the teacher to kick me out, but he was busy laughing at the whole thing. He started screaming like a cat and I sat back down while the class was clapping their hand for what I did, they hated him too.

Of course I was not that nice all the time. I was once given a B for a class that I knew I deserved an A, and the exams proved it, yet the teacher (Turkish female) didn’t like me and still gave me a B. I complained of course and pursued her for a year till she was kicked out of the chemical engineering department. I miss those days where I stayed in the lounge at school for 4 days sleeping there and eating pizza. I miss my fights with the chair of the department who was racist against arabs. I missed the time when I was helping this knock out girl in my class hoping to get her to hang out with me, and when she didn’t, I neglected her in the final where she flunked the class. Or the time when I fought with a Chinese TA for my “heat transfere” class and he kicked my ass of course. Or when I stole the “American history final exam” from the teachers office, made copies, and helped others ace the test.

I missed all those moments. I look back and would love to bring them days back, for really I was a good student, but with bad behavior. I wasn’t alone of course, many others were like that, and I seemed to go with the flow. School years were my best years and so many stories that I went through but lack the time and space to write about them.