"A Drawing for You - Humanities"

The scorching early summer sun seemed to make up for all the waiting from a long winter. I sat there absentmindedly counting the sunbeams that filtered through the treetops into the yard. Here, a couple of groups of students sat around, attentively on their computers. There, a student was attentively reading a book. It was the middle of the second period, the space was strangely quiet, with only a few murmurs occasionally. Time ticked by. I sighed, closing my sketchbook. The scene of the yellow row of houses, the two parallel rows of trees, the stone benches neatly arranged below, all were so familiar that they could still be seen when I closed my eyes. But I didn’t understand why it was so difficult to draw? I erased and fiddled with it for an hour, but it still felt monotonous, lacking a lot. Putting down my pen, I closed my eyes, smiling with a bit of regret.

When I was in high school, I cherished the dream of becoming a journalist, attached to traveling and writing. A small turning point closed that dream, I then gave up and chose Nhan Van as a safe haven. This school to me was just a name on paper. Not much excitement to welcome, not wanting to open my heart enthusiastically. The feelings for other places were too much to accept the disappointing replacement. For a long time, the thought of having to go to school was extremely heavy. There were times when I looked back and blamed myself for being unapproachable, trying to integrate, but it was just unnatural and forced. I was not someone who could do that well. So the days here, each passing day was a sigh of relief, time let go quietly. Looking back on three years, there were many smiles but not really vitality, a few things happened but did not become memories.

For me, winter is slow, cold and quiet. In my memory, winter always comes with a gray sky. Summer is different, it is hot but fresh and bright. I don't know since when, I have a habit of looking forward to summer. I feel like I just need to wait a little longer, just a little longer, one more exam season and I will be free in my own flying sky. I, up until now, have always thought that I would be happy with the thought of saying goodbye to this place. I, have always thought, maybe it will all be like that.

The summer of my third year has come again, I still walk slowly in the middle of the school yard, there are also a few new names in my memory, a few more nods to a few faces passing by. Suddenly, when I sit alone in this familiar yard, I suddenly want to save some feelings on paper, it feels both strange and familiar. Three years have passed, no matter how superficial and indifferent I am, this place still silently engraves in my heart a little nostalgia, not much and vivid, but still enough to make me feel moved with the thought that the day of leaving is coming. The prospect I have imagined for so long, suddenly no longer has the same excitement as planned.

I stood up, neatly putting my pen and notebook in my bag. I took the opportunity to go home before the noisy student class ended. The drawing for this place, perhaps I could save it for another time, a time when my feelings were clearer, without having to force it. After a few steps, I turned my head back, still keeping a smile on my lips, a smile that was more like a sigh than a happy one. Like the long time that had passed, like the way this place existed in my memory.