AIAI-assisted translation·Read the source version
September is nearing its middle, and school has finally begun again.
The monotonous, repetitive days of summer passed quickly. The dull and oppressive days at school pass both quickly and painfully. My school includes everything from preschool to secondary education. Although I attended only the secondary part, it has still been an extremely long period—eight years altogether. Each move upward has meant nothing more than changing from one classroom to another, from a lower floor to a higher one. Nothing else changes.
Lessons are the same as before. Their main themes remain maintaining order and waiting. They seem designed to test the physical endurance of students and prepare them for a future in which one third of their time will be wasted without meaning. Classmates change; I hardly notice when a new face appears. Teachers change; once their grading rules have been discovered, there is little reason to pay them much attention. I follow the pace established over several years, step by step along a planned route, until at last I will walk out of the school that required eight years to cross and meet the bewilderment waiting beyond it. It is like a tedious novel whose later plot can already be mostly guessed after reading barely a third.
I am not sociable. I do not have a single friend, either in life or online. There were once a few people with whom I could occasionally talk, but without noticing how it happened, I forgot them and contact ended. Whenever the environment around me becomes complicated, the noisy information automatically recedes into the background and watches coldly to see what I will do next. Yet I also seem to be sensitive. I say “seem” because I have observed no one else closely enough; the sample is too small and the conclusion drawn from it too strong. I can detect hostility towards me almost immediately, while my thoughts cannot react quickly enough to meet it.
What kind of life do I want to live?