One of those people: Amanda

I want to start a new segment on this blog dedicated to some of the people that I have met in my life, because I feel like I've really met a lot of different ones, and they have influenced my life in some way. Haven't you ever suddenly thought about someone in your past that you no longer see or talk to?

Well, I want to showcase some of these people, and they may or may not be that interesting to you, but let's see.

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Amanda was the first person I've ever had feelings for.

I was five years old at the time, and I first laid my eyes on her on the morning of Monday, 2nd September, 1996, my first day of primary school. She was Filipino or Spanish or from the Carribbean, I don't know which, but that was the vibe I got from her at such a young age. She had the same haircut as the woman on the right, but didn't actually look anything like Catherine Zeta-Jones.

She was cute as a button, with big, brown, bright eyes. Her nose was small, cheeks big, just cute in general. Cute, cute, cute.

I don't know her surname. But the thing I liked about her was that she was smart. You see, I was quite an inquisitive kid at the time and the only books I read were non-fiction, and I read about space, and the human body, animals and dinosaurs, history and geography, even a little science.

There was one time when our teacher sat us all down in a circle, and I sat down next to Amanda. Our teacher asked us to share with the class one thing we did in the weekend, but we could only speak if we were holding a little purple elephant in our hands.

I knew it wasn't actually an elephant. When our teacher was introducing this purple 'elephant' to us, I watched as Amanda immediately raised her hand, and said, "that's a woolly mammoth, Miss Harrison, not an elephant". Our teacher responded with, "well, let's just pretend this is an elephant for a while, okay, Amanda?", and Amanda nodded obediently at this.

I knew it wasn't an elephant, too. I knew it from all the dinosaur books I read. And I loved that Amanda and I were both clever, and I liked her. I liked her because she knew it wasn't an elephant. I liked her because she was cute. And anyways, 'Amanda' is such a lovely name.

When my first year of primary school ended, I never saw her again.

But I hope she's doing good out there in the world, whether she's still cute or clever or not. I probably wouldn't be able to recognize her if she passed me on the street... twelve years can change a person's appearance quite a bit, especially when you go from being a child to a teenager.

But ah, well, life is funny like that. People come in, then they leave you sometimes.

In retrospect, to be accurate, it was actually a purple mastodon.