Alto

  Tonight I'm kicked out from a school of performing arts. Officially. Sort of. Yay. Let's celebrate.

  Holy shit I want to cry.

  Let's call this school SPA for the remaining of this perfectly ignorable self-pitying prose because it is very similar to a spa and at the same time very different from it. Both this SPA and the real spa make me sweat profusely. Both make me happy. Both need me to pay to enter. The only difference is I can go for spa anytime I want but now I don't think I can ever set foot at SPA again.

  It shouldn't really bother an ex-prefect who used to play truant so often that she gets a warning letter from school but hey, high school is compulsory. SPA is not. It's something I want so there you go, a distinction is made between these two.

  Munita persuaded me to study at SPA twice. Initially I rejected because it was far, the classes end late and most importantly, I have to pay for it.

  Kill me. I have only signed up and paid for one course this year and that was because I could not resist learning from the first actress in this country.

  Speaking of which, I am quite surprised that this actress-teacher of mine has not expel me yet. Weeks passed and I still have not finish reading that short 200-page article on Shakespeare, and my characterization for Lady Macbeth... I'm working on it. In my head.

  Maybe because I made my payment promptly.

Talking about payment. SPA actually refunds me. They don’t have a refund policy. Just goes to show how serious they are about not wanting me. Even if I'm willing to pay (which is rarer than the rarest steak) they still don’t want to have me around.

 I must be quite amazing, to be so incompetent that people are willing to refund me just so they won't have to see me again. Wow.

   Looking at the money Nick pressed into my hands, I'm not sure if I should be grateful that I don't have to worry about tomorrow's lunch money (or next week’s, or next month’s) or book a bed at the nearest asylum because I am too depressed.

  I met Nick before my first class. During my audition actually. He asked me a number of questions so I thought, of all the people present, he would remember my name. He seemed to be genuinely concerned about me.

  I was so wrong. Like everyone else, he calls me Alto.

  Here at SPA, I am the only student who does not have a name. Everyone goes "yo Nick!", "hey Munita!", "break a leg, Jia Yin!" and so on, but when they need to talk to me they just go "hey, Alto."

  When you are not good enough, you don't have a name. For quite some time I fail to respond when people call me "Harriet" because I'm too alto-fied.

  Tonight Nick calls me by my name for the first time. I suppose he feels guilty for expelling me even though that's the right thing to do.

  It feels strange to remember my name again. Harriet. Is that really my name? It sounds so foreign.

 Harriet. Harriet. H-A-R-R-I-E-T.

  I am Harriet. My name is Harriet. I like to act. I am also a school dropout. Like all school dropout, I am destined to do great things.

  One day, people will  talk about Harriet Jayson like how they talk about Bill Gates. They will remember her as the school dropout that did something so awesome that no one can forget.

  I can see the title in some articles in future history textbooks now.

  "Harriet Jayson : The School Dropout Who Acted As a Tree for 1000 times."