Fake Series 03 ( Play back to real word from my virtual word 

 

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The picture tells us my typical classroom during my childhood. Teachers used to wright by chuck on the blackboard. long wooden bench for 3 to 5 students. 

Sydney, Boram, Nanny, I see you are smiling. Is this because you remember your own classroom days? Maybe you remember the friends you had. Today, I often look at my Facebook list, 

A bright morning of summer when I was in class 11, I was sitting in the classroom with more than 100 talented, smart, brilliant classmates. 

Ten minutes was significant for me from that morning. 

Do you know why?

The class was super noisy because the teacher was late; I had been shooting my words with some of my friends. 

I felt unstable, insecure, useless, and had been blaming myself upon a question from one of my friends. 

I am sure that you want to hear that question.

My social friend asked me, do you have a Facebook account?

OMG! Don't you have one? 

I think you should be more social to enjoy your life.

He helped me open a Facebook account, which was my first knowing about Facebook and have an account, although I never used that account. 

However, I opened my second account when I was in the undergraduate 1st semester and have been using it since then.

Now I have a footprint on LinkedIn, Quora, Instagram, Youtube and so one. 

I have over 3000 virtual friends. 

Still, am I satisfied?

Still, am I social enough? 

Am I professional now?

(I will give you the answer more details ) 

If you ask me who is your best friend among these virtual friends?

It's tough to find out because my best friend is not from my virtual friend?

But who among these are my real friends? What is friendship? To answer this question, I want to take you back to my childhood again.

At my high school, all students, including me, were terrified of our English teacher, Michel, sir. 

He used to come every day in class with his 36-inch long rattan /rəˈtan/ stick by which he hit students who wouldn't complete homework. Every class, he assigned several English words for memorizing, and in the next class, he asked students. Suppose he pronounced a word, and we needed to answer the meaning. If anybody failed, he punished two stings by the stick for each word. Kind of your information number 2 was flexible, sometimes even more. 

Sir: Fake? Stand -up.

Me: yes, sir. 

Sir: tell me the meaning of compassion?

Me: mmm mmm hmmm.

Helal ( friend sitting on my backbench):  whispering, Fake its  "showing sympathy", ......" showing sympathy"

Me (loudly, Confidently): showing sympathy, sir, showing sympathy

Sir:  Improvise? 

Me: mmmm ...

Jones: ( sitting my right side ): whispering, Fake, "doing something without preparation" ( but this time I didn't get him ) 

Me: mmm … "sir, believe me, I knew this word, I memorized it, but forget now."

Sir: Envisage? Ecstatic? Exuberant?  Which one do you want to answer? (OMG, sir becomes angry, maybe he noticed of whispering my friends)  

No whispering this time 

Now times of punishment, I offered my palm.  

( taken two stings on two hands) 

(But I was clever enough, I don't want to take any more on my hand) 

Sir, I can't take any more on my hand, please sting me here ( pointing my shoulder, it's less painful);

Now sir turned to my friends who were whispering one by one and asking more difficult words.

 Sir: you were helping Fake even though you can't say the answer.  Now take double punishment! , and he did that. 

What a sacrifice!  

It doesn't mean that sir could always be noticed, rather than we had been winning most of the time. 

Someday we skipped school to have fun or go to the cinema, stage drama. Late afternoon when we had come home, my mother was furious. But my friend said, "it was not his fault I had influenced him to go with me". Supposedly mom didn't say anything. The same way I went to my friend's home, and all responsibility took on my shoulder the same way, we could avoid punishment from both families. But it didn't work sometimes. 

I have thousands of friends now but still missing them and cannot compare them with virtual friends.  

I am not even social like before, rather than most of my leisure time staying in my closed room with my only friend's mobile phone—feeling exhausted and bored.

What was it that my friends did for me? In my first story, there was a self-sacrifice. Friends are people who will help you, even if it’s not easy. In my second story, my friend lied to me. Friends are people who will keep you from getting in trouble

 

How many of your virtual friends can you say, do the same for you? 

 

It’s the real friends who do these things. So let’s understand the differences and turn away from our screens, and towards our friends.

(Thanks for reading) 

(One of my Speech on ToastmasterClub) 

 

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Comments

  • Oh my...what a school that was.., poor students. Not only cos of punishment but having a hundred of kids in one room...OMG... I can't even imagine what one could learn and the other teach (regarding your school).

    As for friends and friendship...virtual/real... I do not see much difference nowadays...cos all my real friends turned to be virtual, as well as many virtual turned to be the closest ones. Not only because of being busy with everyday stuff or covid, but because of the priorities one has in life. I mean..we can't stay anymore all day long, kidding around all together in a closed environment, as we used to do staying in school or universities. But, whenever one of us needs help or support...we are there to be next. And of cos, I speak about real friends, not the false ones. Not everyone is a friend...but simply acquainted at a certain moment of your life.

     

    • Haha .. I am poor indeed...

      Trying to be backbencher........

      By the way, punishment is now illegal herein. But if you go years back you will find everywhere the teacher used to punish students, probably your area as well.

      I agree with your second or last paragraph, It's best if you have friends who can give you the test of virtual and real friends together. 

      Greetings from the fake world.

    • Lol...do you still believe there is a fake world? Oh my...

      Or...if to dig deeper...you might be also right....all the world as well as we are might be just a fake illusion....and we might not exist..(but this is a philosophy I guess)...hehe

      Regarding punishments in school....even if you bully your student with a mean word..you can get into jail here. And it has always been like that in my entire life. I can't even imagine someone would touch me...or my kids... I'd definitely have paid back...Even taking a risk never to be back to school.
      Though I do respect other cultures, countries, and laws and so on...but to humiliate someone who is not as strong as you is the worst thing which could happen to me. Please, nothing personal and no aim to offend. I just feel sorry about those kids who suffered from such teachers and systems.

      Thanks again for the discussion.

    • Most of the time I feel like the world where we are leaving is fake! repetitive world, born, eat, sleep, work,  rise up, die: this is the life circle,  very short time indeed. 

      we were being taught by teachers or even by parents that if a teacher beat you, means he or she loves you, doing for your sake! in this way we will learn more. So personally I took it normally because it was a very common phenomenon around us. But I agree with you I had been feeling assaulted or humiliated. I  will not allow my children to go through same situation that I used to pass. Although it is banned here but still not zero. 

      I was the first boy in class from 5th grade to 8 the grade in my school, so comparatively very less frequent I was beaten or humiliated others way( pulling hear, touching the ear, keeping head beneath the table or bench, or easy punishment was just standing on chair during whole class). But my observation is actually punishment doesn't work because I saw who was being beaten the didn't develop themselves, they always being beaten. so no meaning to punish students. I saw my friend's face during punishment, so awful, loosen their confidence,  it hearted their heart and they started thinking that "they are poor students". 

      But it doesn't mean that all teachers did that although they have power. Some of my teachers are even friendly to the student. Some teachers used to do misused power. 

  • Your classroom doesn't resemble mine, still, there are so many common things that I experienced in my school days. Recently, punishment is prohibited in the schools here, though most of the schools still in practice using sticks to sting pupils ( Actually I am grateful to you for those two words for without them I wouldn't be able to express my thoughts). But your write-up reminds me how we reacted when our teachers going to punish us, well, it seems most of the behavioral aspects were the same. It's very nostalgic.

    I can't compare my school friends with virtual ones(new) because when we grew up, without a mobile phone let alone social networks, life was totally different. Now, most of my school friends have their social network accounts and I'm connected too. They have changed in different ways in the passage of time. Some of them have prospered surprisingly good. Though I don't spend that much time with them nowadays, still if you ask me who does know more you among the close friends now! I would just say my school friends do understand the best my pulse than all other friends.

    • Punishment here also abandoned now.

      It's very nostalgic, yes indeed. 

      Actually we this area we cannot think about the role or importance of real friends.

      sometimes I like to talk with older people like my grandparents and try to know about their childhood, it's amazing, they can tell you the definition of a real friend. 

      I hope you will ask your grandparents. 

      yes, school friends are friends who know about you most, you can not forget them through a lifetime. 

      Thanks for sharing your thought. 

  • your school reminds me of Harry Potter class.

    • haha ......

      What happened exactly there in Harry Potter Class? 

      Same as my experience?

      I did watch a few series ...

       

    • the environment ..  =D  

  •  True! Maybe we only sacrifice for those whom we know in person, in real world. Yet, the problem with the virtual world is that many people try to hide their true real identity, maybe to have fun, to be free to do whatever they hardly can do in the real world. I think if we all were ourselves no matter where we are, in the real world or the virtual one, we could know the virtual friends to the extend that we were able to rely on them, to believe on them. Besides, who knows, even friends in the real world can change over time, or even sometimes we come to know that they were not truthful to us. 

    By the way, thanks for the post. I give it a thought. But sometimes i do need virtual friendship. Maybe because although i always wanted a close friend, i could not find any in the real world. Seems ppl are busy with their own personal lives, as i am! 

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