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   Elementary School
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My mom had to drag me away for meals. I would either be playing outside with the neighborhood kids or inside glued to a videogame. Whatever had my attention, it pained me to step away for something as trivial as a meal.

I couldn't understand the adult world's fixation on eating. It seemed like a waste of time. Still all their social functions revolved around these grand meals. This permeated even our language. Whenever we would go visit a family friend I remember my parents always calling it going over for dinner.

"Mom. Why do you call it going over for dinner?"

"Because that's what we do there. We eat dinner."

"But if we're eating dinner, why wouldn't we just eat at home? Or better yet, at Pizza Hut or McDonalds? I thought we were going there because we wanted to play with Micheal's family??"

I was still calling all social occasions play. I went to play at Micheal and Bryant's, not eat dinner. Eunchan and I would call each other to ask to play outside together. 

Everything and anything was play. Calling it lunches or dinners or social occasions felt clinical like example sentences found in an ESL book. Real people never talked like that. Or at least kids didn't. It was these adults who talked in fake ways to try to follow the rules.