My ROP teacher, Mrs. Tapia. She was the sweetest person I’ve met in a long time. I don’t know. I guess I’ve just been so engrossed in the same swarm of people every day during the school year that it was so unbelievably refreshing to see a genuine smile. Like, a genuine warm-your-heart-for-the-sake-of-warming-your-heart kind of smile. At the end of the day, be it slow or fast, I would walk over to the classroom and enter to a pair of welcoming eyes and an upturned mouth. She would always ask how my day was, or how I was. If I arrived earlier than the others, we’d talk about little stuff. If I had to run out for a meeting after school or just to print something, she wouldn’t even blink an eye. The most unfortunate thing was that during the semester course, she experienced the loss of a loved one. For a couple days, she wasn’t present. It was really depressing. She was just amazing. Most teachers don’t care for you, or at least, don’t much care for your being in itself as much as your grade and academic standing in the class. She was one of those teachers that try to reach out to you and let you come to her. And believe me, she made that road easy.