Back in elementary school, there was this kid named Edward Kim. He was one of those kids that everyone kind of put up with because he was a nice guy, but could get on your nerves really quickly. You know the kind.

He was the kind of kid that never could stop his nose from running. The kind of kid that has a constant dribble of snot suspended precariously from the tip of his little nose. He made you feel as though you shouldn't call his name out too loudly or suddenly because he would whip his head around and his liquid boogers would slap you in the face.

I digress. In order to give the proper background for this story, you must know that Edward was a swimmer. He swam so much that his brownish hair had a green tinge to it, like someone had fiddled with the tint on a really old television set.

One time, a bunch of us were at a friend's house for a slumber party. The friend had a community swimming pool, so we decided to go for a swim in the morning. So after a long night of prepubescent lovemaking playing video games and... erm.. more video games, we decided to head out around 6 in the morning. While the rest of us got into our swimming trunks and were ready to roll, Edward clambered downstairs in his professional-looking competition swim bag and told us he would meet us at the pool.

***

We were playing around innocently at the poolside. Some of us were trying out wrestling moves on each other, some were attempting cool-looking dives like they had in cartoon shows, and one of us was standing in the water contemplating whether or not he should run to the restroom or just let it all out right there. [I don't really remember who he was. Really.]

All of a sudden.

We heard this high-pitched Tarzan yell coming from the side of the pool. Edward came running toward us at full speed, wrapped up in this gigantic towel that [I assume] was supposed to trail behind him like a cape.

He skidded to a stop. And with the pomp and pride of a Greek hero, he dropped his towel. He was wearing his Speedos. His tight, tight Speedos.

***

I don't really remember what exactly happened, because I think one of us decided there wasn't a restroom close enough to escape the horror of what we were seeing. The neighbors probably thought that there was a group of Catholic schoolgirls who had just seen a blasphemous picture of the Virgin Mary. [Come on, we were like 11 years old - most us of didn't have the baritone voice part down.]

I need not remind you - it was about 55 degrees out. We were in the pool. Edward was outside at the edge of the pool. We just kind of stared at the pale Korean kid's tiny little package looming above our heads like two overripe grapes about to burst.

Needless to say, we decided that video games were much more fun than swimming soon thereafter.

-Jihwan

Back in the 6th grade, my sixth grade teacher dropped a bombshell on our class: a new student was going to join us in the middle of the school year.

A miss Karen Bhatia would soon be joining us and boy, were we all excited. Finally, some new blood in the school, and a girl at that! See, many of girls at Faith Baptist were on the ugly side, so anyone from the outside was hoped to be an exotic beauty. My good friend Anjum and I discussed this a few times:

Anjum: Hey, Alex. So there's this new girl coming. I hope she's hot.
Sark: Yeah, man. Oh man, what if she's hotter than Lizette?
*Lizette was the class beauty*
Anjum: Oh, man. That'd change everything.

It turned out that miss Karen Bhatia was in fact a mister Karan Bhatia. Karan was Indian (not an Injun), and since his name was so similar to Karen, it was mispronounced.

We were all shocked. Horrified. Disillusioned. Where was the incredibly hot Karen who we imagined would have real-life, honest to goodness, non-stuffed-bra boobs? Who was this Karan who was swarthy and lacked jugs?


-Sark

Welcome to Faith Baptist Adventures. This Tabula is co-written by Sark, Jihwan, and Ken and features memoirs about their time at the infamous human laboratory school Faith Baptist.

Sark spent 10 years at the school from pre-kindergarten to the 8th grade.
Jihwan spent 4 years from the 6th grade til the 9th.
Ken spent 4 years starting in the 3rd grade all the way to the 7th.

You'll be reading true stories about topics ranging from men groping men, to wrestling matches in abandoned classrooms, to teachers' nipples. Enjoy.





A few notes: In Faith Baptist, the 6th grade was considered to be part of elementary school instead of junior high school like in the public school system. Because of that, the period system employed in junior and high schools didn't apply to 6th graders, so we still had individual teachers for each class that taught the entire day.