 At such a young age, it is so hard for me to wrap my head around what that must have been like. What did it mean to have Tessie and Gayla Thien there with you in that moment? Well, we must have created a bond between the three of us the first day we got here because that entire time we were waiting to be placed in the classroom, we started playing hopscotch together on the tiles of the floor. But we were prepared to know that whatever we did, we had to stay together.