Also–Terry Richardson: stop being Terry Richardson.

Let’s go back to the fall of 1989. My family and I had just moved to Calgary after escaping Iran and living in Pakistan for 18 months.

In Iran, I went to an English speaking school so I knew a little bit. But what little I knew almost disappeared during our time in Pakistan where I passed most of the time with my cousins and the kids in our neighbourhood flying kites and playing Street Fighter at the arcade.

Anyhow, back to Calgary. I remember going to the school with my Dad and a translator. The person we met with recommended that I should be placed in the 2nd grade. I should’ve been in put in the 3rd, but she could tell that my English was pretty bad.

I said only three things during my first day in class:

“Hello, Teechair!”

“Present Teechair.”

And, “Goodbye, Teechair!”

I got laughed at a lot.

By the end of the week, I figured I should raise my hand and actually try to participate in class. I waited until Math class—my strongest class back in Iran—started. The teacher had written a series of easy addition questions on the board. One by one, the other kids would raise their hands and answer.

Seeing an opening, I shot my hand up. Seeing this, and my apparent enthusiasm, the teacher said slowly, “Nayeem! Go ahead, dear. What is five plus seven?”

I froze. I knew the answer. But I was blanking and couldn’t think of the English word.

Fuck. Ok. Think. Think. What’s davaazta in English?

Some of the kids were snickering. I’m not sure, but I imagine my face was red and I probably looked like I was trying to solve the unsolvable in my head. So, I said the first English word that came to my mind.

“Ehm, banana.”

The room exploded with laughter.

“Alright everyone, that’s enough. That’s a good try, Nayeem.”

I was furious. I ignored the rest of the lesson and started jotting down multiplication and long division formulas for myself. Fuck these kids and fuck this teacher, I was going to prove to her that I wasn’t some idiot. My English may have sucked but I knew I was at least two grades ahead of the other kids in math.

When the bell rang for recess, the other kids ran out the door but I took my book and walked over to my teacher’s desk.

“Teachair. Seven times the eight is fifty-six! Six times nine, fifty-four! Seventy-two divide twelve, is six! Teachair, you see?”

I pointed at the problems I had written for myself and solved.

“And five plus seven is twelve. Not banana. Sorry Teachair!”

She smiled, putting her hand on my shoulder, “Oh, I know Nayeem. You’re very smart, we’re just going to have to work on your English just a little bit more, okay?”

With time my English became better, but my math also became worse. I blame my math getting worse on YTV and TMNT.

You were like that artsy girl in high school who I had a crush on, but I did nothing about it cause you were artsy and wore black nail polish. I was a little scared to talk to you.

Anyways, here I am.

So, instead of emailing my friends–4 of them–with links to videos or other stuff, I’m gonna unload all of that here.