My family (3)

In the winter break of my first year in high school, my cousin asked me: “ Ping, do you plan to go to college?” I said: “ what do you mean?”He said: “ if you plan to go to college, you need to work hard on your school; if you don't, then be careful about your eyes, a peasant can not wear glasses, people will laugh at you.”I started to wear glasses since my first year in high school. He saw me wearing glasses and we had such a talk.

I would appreciate him for my life since he waked me up and pointed to the light in my life. I had a thought about how my life was going to be and talked to my father one evening.
“ Father, can you transfer me to a county's best high school?”
“ Why?”
“ because I want to go to college. If I can not go to the best high school, then you find me a job when I graduate from this high school.”
“ Well, if I transfer you to the county's best high school and your grade was bad, I will lose my face.”
“ I will not let you to lose your face then.”

When the new semester of my second year in high school started, my father told me: “ follow me and I'm taking you to the county's best school.” On the road to the school, he told me how difficulty it was to get me to transfer to the county's high school. This was done by the old principal of the high school, he said in front of the school committee meeting: “ Well, just treat this girl as my own grand daughter, I have been teaching in this school for more 30 years and please give me a face and allow her to enroll. I'm retiring soon!”

I could not understand why this old man treated me so dearly until later my mother told me the story. My father was very very smart when he was a student, he was accepted by the county's best school without the entrance exam, the old man was my father's teacher then. My father continued doing well in his high school years and was the chairman of the student's committee. My father's father didn't want my father to go to the college since he didn't want to pay my father's tuition and living expenses. My father had argument with his father and ran from the school right before the college entrance exam. His teacher chased him to my grandfather's home trying to persuade my father to go back to the school. That's why he wanted me to enter his school because he believed that my father's kid must be at least as smart as the father. That's how I went to the county's best high school as a special student.

My classmates thought that I came from the “back door”, they didn't respect me. But I soon surprised everybody, including my teachers. In the first midterm exam, I got the number one in the total score of my all 6 classes. My scores were the highest in my English, history, and math classes. One day, my English teacher asked me a question: “ what was your score in your English exam in the previous high school?” I told him: “ The first semester I got 55 and the second semester I got 50.” He simply didn't believe it. And my history teacher was even worse, he asked me what score I got for my college entrance exam. I asked him: “ what was college entrance exam?” Later I realized that they thought that I studied all 3 years in the high school already and came back to their school to start again. I was pride about the exam results and told my father one day: “ now you don't have to worry that I will let you lose your face!” And it was true, I was #1 or #2 in my class all the way to the graduation and got the highest score in the college entrance exam in my county.