The Teacher Said, ‘She Has Her Head in the Clouds.’
I’ll never stop daydreaming.
I did alright at school, I think. I wasn’t ever top of my class, I struggled with maths and I was never keen on PE, but I got by. I made it into the top-set English class and got A*’s in the subjects I cared about at GCSE. Not too shabby, right?
But some of my teachers really didn’t like me. I struggled to pay attention unless I really cared about what was being taught. I doodled in the margins of my exercise books, which some didn’t mind, but others, oh boy. My French teacher made an example of me once – she showed my little squiggles and funny faces to the class and sent me to sit at the back on my own. That’s the only memory I have of her. What a great legacy.
I was shy at school. I didn’t want to be noticed. I rarely raised my hand to answer questions and I loathed giving presentations. I wanted to make it through the day with as little conflict as possible, counting down until I could go home, boot up my computer, and work on whatever fan-fiction I was writing at the time. I had never gotten a grade below a C, I never caused any disruptions, and my homework was always handed in on time.
But my report card always mentioned the same thing: ‘She daydreams too much. She needs to pay more attention.’
Now, surely, if I had decent grades this shouldn’t have been a problem? I would take notes as diligently as I could, but there’s only so much critical thinking a fourteen-year-old can manage in one day. I liked to create little worlds in my head that I could escape into, and they were often the inspiration for another story that I couldn’t wait to get home and write.
And look at me now. A shiny degree in Creative Writing, who’d have thought. No one tells me off for daydreaming as an adult – people read my dreams and praise me for them. If only those teachers could see me now.
Don’t ever stop daydreaming, you never know where it’ll take you.
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