*UPDATED* Assignment 1 - Ears.

It is a story of a high school girl, Jojo. This happened on her last year in high school, her 18 years old.

Jojo and Mandy are seatmate and also best friend. Jojo has hearing problem so that she cannot hear people clearly. Since their seats are in the last row and are at the corner of the classroom, Jojo’s hearing problem becomes more serious. All she heard is like people mumbling. Therefore, she can’t follow up what her teachers teaching so she asks Mandy to repeat and explain very frequently. Mandy is quite a patient person, she repeats for her everytime and never get annoyed or mad. Although she repeats for her everytime but it does not mean she permits her to continue her whole life in this way. As Jojo’s best friend, she always asks her to visit the doctor randomly. However, Jojo uses different excuses to refuse her advices and tell her she’s fine and healthy.

After few weeks/months, Mandy gets annoyed. She asks Jojo to visit doctor more frequently than before but Jojo still refuses her advices as usual. Then, Mandy starts ignoring her, she stay silent when Jojo asks her questions. Jojo feels down and sad.

One day recess time, she goes to meet her another friend for counselling. When they are talking, they heard somebody quarrelling. It is the couple of her friend’s class quarreling. Their voices spread over the whole class and turns louder gradually.

At the same time, Jojo’s face turns pale and she stop talking. Her friend worries and asks her is she okay or not. She answers her that she is fine but then she leaves the classroom after answering her question. She enters to the toilet. Her head starts aching. The quarrel sound of the couple keep floating in her head. She uses her hands to cover her ears tightly but the sound becomes clearer and clearer. But the voices changed. It’s

not the voices of the couple anymore, it’s the voices of the people that Jojo used to know. Her parents’ voices. 

A flashback appears in her brain. The time throwbacks to her primary school time. Once when her parents quarreling, she tried to stop them because they were fighting. Her father attacked her mother and her dad accidentally slapped her face hardly when she tried to stop them. Since that day, Jojo cannot hear clearly. This is the scar that Jojo never wanted to reveal. She feels like if she tell this to someone else, everything will change. She doesn’t want to make anyone worry about her or hurt anyone.

After staying in the toilet for couples minutes, she realized all Mandy did is for her health. She helps her a lot and treat her really nice. Therefore, Jojo is going to tell Mandy that everything happened to her because she doesn’t want to lose this true friend. Jojo gets out from the toilet and go back to her class. She tells her everything that happened to her. After that, Mandy hugged Jojo tightly and telling her everything is fine.

In the end, Mandy brought Jojo to visit the Ear-Nose-Throat Clinic.