When you sit on the top seat, no one will let you get off it.

No, I'm not the top student. I'm not there. I'm a step away from there.

Yet I'm treated like one, while the real one gets away from this scott-free.

The only reason why I excelled over others was probably because I tried my dang hardest, while many of the rest 'shake-leg' and let things take its natural course.

And, as all people who believe in all things good, hard-work paid off.

But the isolation after that was... no, not harsh... it was.... strange. It wasn't really isolation... was it bad attention?

Let me see if a few case studies would cure this.

Some of the classmates at school love to pick an academic fight with me. Now it's a challenge to see who can beat me in marks. No, I don't get offended by them getting higher marks than I in those tests, it's their attitude to smirk at me and let a cry of victory escape themselves that tests me.

Everyone now has imprinted the label 'Top Student' on my forehead and entire self. So everyone decides to treat me like one - they let me get on with their studying, and lie back to go web-surfing, chatter and chitter, while I try to pay attention. Inconsideration? Not aimed at me specifically, but that is a definite 'yes'. And when I try to get my neighbours' attention, they ignore me to continue playing.

Lastly, today I hung back at school to finish some nasty music theory homework. Everyone in the class was laughing and web-surfing - the norm - while I buckled down to some hard work.

A classmate, a rather notorious prankster and slack-relaxed student, sat next to me. He also buckled down to work.

He started a chat while I was doing homework. No, that did not get me ticked. I enjoyed the chat - the homework was really nasty.

Then some comments got through. He said he enjoyed studying with me, and he thought I was a very hard-working student.

If no one has noticed it already, thank you very much. I wondered if he was sucking up to me. I was worried that he was.

And after that, he ran home. The rest of his class had entirely given up on the homework and I was left alone to complete it.

I don't think my classmate meant his rather 'ambiguous' comments. If anything, he was giving a go at being the next Top Student.

I would never condemn my classmates, however. I know the attitude's not that great, I know I get annoyed by their antics, but it's those antics that make school life less stressed than it really was. A good laugh over lunch cured the morning theory-hangover. Checking each other's work and rumaging through notes together made school days more tolerable.

However, I believed that I could be as happy a student as I was before I was labelled 'Top Student'. I enjoy the extra attention, but I don't want it to get to my head.

That said, now school has been let off for e-learning - and burdened us with assignments to complete over the week.

Knowing my classmates, they can't wait to see my entries on the school website for the assignments. I already posted them up.