Biography: Chapter 5 - I’m sent off to boarding school

The continuing saga of Thida, which I'd typed up for a bboard a year or so ago. Please let me know if you like it. If you hate it, well I'll interpret silence as no-one wants to read about my past.

At age 8, my parents decided to send me off to West Downs the boys’ boarding school run by my grandparents. I loved the academics, because it had a well-deserved good reputation and you moved up in the classes according to how well you do on the exams rather than by age. I loathed everything else about it. I missed my family terribly. It was cold and draughty. I was one of only 10 girls in a school of 200. And most of the kids hated me on sight, because I was the headmaster’s grand-daughter. Two of my cousins were also there, but they had started before me and they stuck together. I think they knew I wasn’t going to be there for the long-term. They also weren’t nerds and were good at sports, so they fit in better.

But I did have one friend named Victoria Morse. She was a fellow nerd. I lost contact with her, but I still think fondly of her. Hey, it's interconnected world out there, so I'll give it a shot. If anyone for some reason knows a Victoria Morse in England, please tell her to contact me.

My parents decided to move to California and while they were getting things sorted out, for a couple months they moved into the flat where my grandparents lived at West Downs. We weren’t allowed to see each other any more often than other families, which was once a week on the weekends. Then my parents took a cross-country trip across the US for a couple months. They took my brother and sister and left me behind at West Downs. My brother really really missed me and began every postcard with “Dear Thida, I miss you a lot.” I think the only good thing I can really say about that year and a half is that I gained a new appreciation of my brother.

So at age 9 and 9 months, I went from West Downs to 6th grade at a Catholic school in Davis California called St. James. I suffered massive culture shock. I thought boys were for kicking not kissing.