Katawa Shoujo Forums

As I make my return, I want to assure all of you that I've checked up on this thread daily. As I still am at a bit of a loss for words I apologize in advance if I haven't addressed your post.

Erenussocrates, I'm pleased to see that you have posted, and that all the wonderful people here have given you advice. I'm also glad that you took it as amazingly as you did and gave your own feedback in return. I am a bit similar to you but when I took the chances, the tables were turned. This isn't to discourage you, but to give you a general understanding of what can happen. The advice I can give, don't give up. Just continuing to hold on will yield strength and power. Continuing on after a setback is its own kind of strength. Perseverance is power. People are satisfied to judge things by their own narrow experience, never knowing of the wide world outside. And just note, nothing ventured is nothing gained.

Kouryuu, If you receive no response I encourage you to go forth with the face book message, in the end if it doesn't work out it's gold coins to a cat. But as I had said to Erenussocrates, Continuing on after a setback is its own kind of strength. I wish you the best of luck.

On my end, That girl and I have spoken for a few days now, I felt as if messages weren't working so well so I initiated in voice chat last night. I could sense it in her voice that she was nervous about the whole thing. I'll admit I was too but I am better at masking myself. Which I will be completely honest about, I felt as if I was making the right choices more or less but for the wrong reasons. I've come to realize, she isn't the same person who I was drawn to in the past. People change, it's a part of life granted, but she's gone through a complete transformation. Today she sent me a message saying "I'm like totally in love with your voice." All I was able to say was "Thank you, it isn't as if your voice isn't refreshing either. Nostalgic if the least."

I'll admit I say very stupid things half the time, but aside from the point. I'm generally a nice person, and I hate getting into sticky situations but even monkeys fall from trees. The point being, I can sense her dependency beginning to form and I don't feel remotely similar. I only wanted to mend our friendship. I kind of feel like Keima from The World Only God Knows. Except there isn't any consequence if I don't speak to her. I just feel as obligated as he does I guess. I don't know, it's rough to explain myself.

Surreal-mind wrote:@Kouryuu: There IS a chance that she changed her email address, I mean ... it's been 3 years after all...
I think it is a good idea to send her the facebook message.

I honestly don't think anything really "bad" can come out of it...
Worst case scenario she doesn't answer your message, and that's the end of it.

Kouryuu wrote:It's her loss... right?

Yes, yes it is.

Yeah either she changed it or it looked like spam mail/virus mail(I get that alot).

It's true, I mean the worst case scenario is that everything stays the same. I guess all this time my heart held some hope, you know I've always hated my heart. It always gets in the way or makes things harder xD. *shakes fist angrily* I love a good fist shaking. ^^

@introfate - Thanks man, I appreciate it. I dont know what to say about your situation, its heartbreaking really... I kind of wanted to avoid saying negative things (because I noticed I did that alot) but I mean... ouch. You seem to be able to handle it better than I am from just reading it, so I think you're all good.

Erm, something positive... I got nothing...

EDIT: Oh man I'm rollercoastering all over the place xD

So there's a new problem I now have to deal with everyone. I'm losing my place to stay and I have no idea where I'm going to go.

Everyone I could have gone to before is gone..

The girl? Found some other guy and has started to hang with him instead. My phone is now silent all the time, for now I feel completely alone.

I need to leave this town but I have no idea where I'm going to go.

I think what you need to make yor life complete are concrete plans. Don't say "one day". "One day simply means "never". Say "now", and "every day".

Eh. As I said in another post on these boards, I'm a pragmatist; I try to keep a positive attitude, but at the same time, I don't let my hopes get up prematurely without good reason. :p

To be honest, my biggest problems right now with regards to meeting people isn't an issue of motivation - it's a lack of money and a lack of places to meet them. Thanks to that car wreck I mentioned, I'm paying off a rather hefty medical bill - I can't even afford my own place right now, having to stay in a rented room on the end of my brother's house. No privacy = no place to bring girls home to. :3 Additionally, I don't get out much - not because I don't want to, but because there's honestly not that much I like to do that involves going out. All the things I enjoy (TV, Internet, video games, etc.) mostly involve being at home, and a lot of activities other people enjoy, I don't - I refuse to drink alcohol on principle, I'm too fat to be anywhere near a dance floor and be taken seriously, and I don't like sports or outdoorsey activities (especially during the summer - TOO HOT! ). It doesn't help that I live in the rural South - options for recreation that you'd find in a big city are virtually nonexistent around here. The only place I really see anyone regularly is at work, and I'm not allowed to socialize with them outside of work due to the nature of my job as a security guard. Not that I would anyway, there's not a single cute girl there who isn't already dating somebody. :p

I wish i had the same attitude as you though, being able to say that your awesome. I think im the most unawesome person out there. I feel like saying that i am awesome would be horribly pretentious.

Heh heh. Well, you see, this is what I was talking about by "roleplaying confidence". I don't actually *mean* what I said there - I *am* awesome, in a "I accept myself, good and bad, completely" sort of way, but I'm not actually that *cocky* about it. When I say things like that, I'm basically putting on a show of sorts. I have a strong place for humor in my heart, especially as a social tool - to interact with people and to assuage my own insecurities. To counter my own natural shyness, I like to occasionally throw out jokes like that - making remarks on how amazingly amazing I am in such an over-the-top way that anyone who hears them knows right off the bat that I'm being a smartass and don't really mean them. It's like self-depreciatory humor (another staple of mine), only inverted.

so I sold half of my video games to make room for love in my heart

MADNESS!! The human heart has plenty of room to love both a partner and video games unconditionally. At least, mine is. :p

I will not, however, ask my girlfriend (if I ever get one) to wear cute cosplay outfits of my favorite game characters. That's just kind of creepy.

Hello.

I'd like to start by saying that this story has had more effect on me than I thought it might - though, that doesn't really seem like it should be surprising upon further thought.

I was an awkward child. That's putting it mildly.

From a young age, I was inquisitive and sensitive when it came to the world around me. I was quick to make friends with anyone willing to listen, and I now realize that isn't necessarily a good thing. That sounds bad, though, so I'll explain. I've never been able to keep friends. I've had several of them at different times in my life, but, thinking back, never all at once, and never for very long.

I'm not even sure why.

I come from a lower-middle class house. My parents were both hard-working, but never put work first. We survived - sometimes on the verge of poverty. This made my brothers and I different, as the town where my parents decided to plant roots to start a family is decidedly upper-middle class. This meant I was the poor kid attending a rather rich public school.

From the age of four, I was also the kid living in the house that was under constant renovation. Lead paint on the walls in the old house my parents had purchased led to medical problems for my youngest brother - which resonate to this day. If that wasn't enough, they found that behind those walls was a structure barely held up on its foundation.

My parents were already strained financially, but they couldn't afford to move so they had to get the house repaired or risk having DSS take their three boys away. Thus began their efforts to improve the living conditions of the house such that it was habitable - and on a shoe-string budget. I won't go into details, but shoddy contractors and dwindling funds made it a slow process. It took a full year for the house to be habitable again - just in time for me to start school.

I use the word 'habitable' because it wasn't exactly finished. Having to restructure the house from within almost entirely meant they couldn't just knock walls down and repair them. it was an arduous process of taking the exterior walls apart in sections and rebuilding as they went - kind of like laying down railroad track if you had to pull up the old railroad as you went.

By the time they were finished firming the structure and erecting the outer walls along with all new floors, staircases and other structures, there wasn't any money for finish work. Thus we had plywood floors, walls without sheetrock, and limited plumbing - bare essentials. Honestly, it's a miracle DSS allowed them to raise us in what was essentially a hollowed-out house without central heating for the northeastern winter (just a woodstove), only one half-bathroom, and a kitchen assembled from plywood shelving.

When we moved back, the house wasn't completely habitable yet, so we lived in a camper my uncle had lent to my parents - which sat on the lawn about 30 feet from the house. One morning while I was out exploring the area around the pond (it's waterfront property, but only by definition), I met the neighbors son, Todd. His parents had split up years prior and they shared custody, so he was only there on weekends. We quickly became friends as we scoured around the local woods and little brooks looking for crayfish, frogs and the like.

Did I mention it's an upper-middle class neighborhood?

Kids are cruel by any measure, but when there's such a disparity in material wealth it's like you're a clay target being thrown in front of a cruise missile.

Not only were we wearing hand-me-downs, bagging lunches and lacking school supplies, we couldn't afford field trips or other extra-curricular activities either. I could start describing other assorted problems my brothers and I had, but it seems redundant. As I said, kids are cruel. They don't need much ammunition to start assaulting something 'different' - and the three of us were in no short supply of 'different' to fuel their fire.

I was the outcast at school during the week, but I did have the comfort of having a friend on the weekends which made it tolerable. Todd and I weren't much for talking about things, but I learned that he had some kind of condition that would probably shorten his lifespan significantly. I never found out what it was nor do I know whether it ever claimed him, but I don't remember caring. I had a friend who didn't judge me based on appearances, and that was enough.

I was teased for everything from my clothes and hair, to my shoes (which seemed to be in constant disrepair) and mannerisms. And that's just what they could see. Remember i said I was quick to try and make friends? That's where it turns bad. When you make friends you might start telling people things about yourself - and I wasn't exactly like my schoolmates for a number of reasons outside the obvious. I was befriended in elementary school on a number of occasions only to have that friendship betrayed when they learned some quirk about me to fuel the barrage.

Eventually, Todd's father remarried and through that I met Todd's cousins - Danny, Kim and Wendy. I remember going to the ceremony and being introduced to the three of them on the rock driveway. This many years later, I know how significant that event was. Danny is probably the only friend I've retained over the years - even if we only see each other sparingly - and I would never have met him were it not for that wedding. He went to a school in the neighboring town, but we shared a fervent interest in video games and movies that persists to this day.

I don't think I would have survived elementary school, though, had it not been for my one school-friend, Jacob. He and I met in 3rd grade or so, and even though he was as pretentious and brutal as the rest of the kids, he looked out for me. I was the kid nobody in class wanted to be seen associating with. I was the 'weird poor kid', I suppose - though it was never put that way at the time. Jacob and I shared interests, however. He and I were fond of writing and other creative activities - which really is odd for an 8-year-old - and that held us together even under the gaze of our classmates.

I've never had the chance to thank him properly for that. I don't even know where he is now.

By middle-school I'd learned - or been trained, rather - to keep to myself. I kept my head down, as it were, and avoided making friends with anyone. Jacob and I started drifting apart around the same time, though. I didn't really understand why at the time, but his interest started turning to the fairer sex and I was well-behind in that pursuit. I'm actually pretty sure he was farther ahead on that front by seventh grade than I am now.

Jacob kept trying, though, to get me to be more social - which I can't fault him for. I was pretty introverted and shy even though I was really curious about people. My last solid memory from middle-school of significance was the semi-formal dance. Jacob practically had to drag me there, and he did his best to try and get me to socialize. However, after a failed attempt to get me to ask a particular girl to dance, he left me alone. I wound up in the corner of the room in my sweater-vest, sitting on the edge of the lunch-pit (which doubled as a dance floor) like the proverbial nerd staring at the floor.

The following fall, Jacob went off to a private high-school and I've basically never seen him since.

When my freshman year started, I was tall, chunky and friendless - except for Danny, whom I only saw occasionally. By that point all I really had to occupy my time were my creative pursuits - namely writing, but by then I'd begun to focus on drawing and art in general - and video games. I befriended teachers more than I did students. I was practically on a first-name basis with my English and Art teachers (though formality remained). Still I didn't stay in contact with anyone at school when I wasn't there until I met Joe.

It was the mid-90s (post Cobain), so grunge rock was at its height of novelty. Joe was a bit of a guitar prodigy. I had been in the school band for a year and we met sometime in middle-school, but weren't exactly friends. I used to stay late and catch the late bus home on most Tuesdays and Thursdays because I was constantly in the Art room working on something or other. While out wandering, I heard Joe practicing in the auditorium, and I struck up a conversation that lasted until I was dropped off by the late bus.

I wasn't much of a musician - I'd quit playing the trombone after only a year - but Joe shared my interest in video games. That made it very different from Jacob. We weren't inseparable, but we hung out and got along. I also became friends with a few other classmates around that time. Looking back we were the odd-ones-out. Joe, Jay, Ellen, Jeff, Kevin S, Tony & Kevin(twins), Rebecca, Mike, Jason and myself. We weren't tight-nit by any means, but we usually shared lunchtime and various classes together. I don't really know about the others, but I really only spent time with them at school - I still kept my home-life separate from school.

The house, you see, was largely unchanged since we moved back in before I started Elementary school. Not that we didn't try, but my parents simply couldn't get the money. My mother lost her factory job after falling and hurting her back some years before, and my dad was fervently working long hours to support us while my mother attended night-courses in book-keeping. To cope with that, my dad became a shut-in alcoholic.

Just saying that now makes me shiver.

He'd always been a beer drinker after work, but the stress of the job and the weight of the responsibility caused his drinking to escalate. Since around my sixth grade year, he would work the second shift at work, then come home and drink until he passed out then wake up and do that all over again. He was never violent - we barely knew it was happening, really. At least, us three kids didn't. Until the DUI.

My dad is a loving, caring man. He would do absolutely anything for his family - and I'm not shy about saying that He's witty and jovial without being caddy, and his presence is the kind that demands attention. I've always admired his work-ethic even if I somehow can't emulate it, and i know that if i ever had a problem I could ask him without risk of being judged.

My dad is also introverted like me, and it makes him keep things in that might cause others to lash out. Instead, he'll grumble and stomp and slam doors. He's stubborn and sometimes terribly intimidating, but the drinking didn't cause that - merely enhanced what was already there. It was over a weekend - I don't exactly recall which day or even the time of year - and it was getting late when my dad ran out of cigarettes. He'd been drinking most of the day, but decided to drive to the corner store in his somewhat-stupor.

Even though it's less than a mile drive, his driving was observed by a local officer as he left the store. As he turned onto our road, the officer put his lights on; but my dad wasn't completely in his right mind. Instead of stopping, he shut off his lights and thought he'd pull into our driveway in darkness to evade the officer. This had the effect of making the situation worse.

The officer pulled up and got out of his car, drawing his gun on my father.

Nothing drastic happened. My dad was complicit, but failed the sobriety test - which, as he still says now, he couldn't have passed while sober due to a long-standing back problem. The officer, whom we knew, thought there might be a threat of domestic violence - a laughable assumption - so my dad was arrested instead of allowed to return inside.

After that there was a court date, AA meetings and a suspended license which meant my mother had to drive my dad to and from work. His drinking, however, didn't stop.

As I entered my sophomore year, my dad had his license back but he was still drinking and my mother had moved out.

I never told anyone. When asked about my parents, I dodged the question or cleverly skewed the facts - something I found myself to be warily good at doing. I hated making excuses, but I didn't need another reason to be teased.

I'll finish the rest later. Writing that took a lot out of me...

Voxile wrote:I'll finish the rest later. Writing that took a lot out of me...

Thank you for your story. I was about to say it seemed to end abruptly and not get to where you are now, which was what I was going to ask. I look forward to reading more, all that happened must have made you quite strong if you are still here today.

Eh, I do recognize 'having more friends amongst teachers than amongst students', as I was like that too until I reached university. Adults generally are less likely to waste time on bullying, I guess...

My mother is the perfect foil to my father's moodiness and wit. Having experienced similar toil in her childhood as me, we talked about it often. She tried to give advice, but there's really nothing she could have done and I knew that. In place of my dad's introverted grumbling, my mother wears her emotions on her sleeve - and she has a sharp tongue for relaying her thoughts.

She, in every sense of the word, had kept the house in order. After her back problems forced her out of factory work, she worked in retail for a few years to suppliment our income. When she was home, though, she was the boss. When she decided to move to a friends house to get away from my father's drinking, a lot of the routines around the house fell apart. Unfortunately, I fell apart similarly - except it wasn't at home where it showed.

Now, up until then I had been resonably able to deal with the teasing, lack of friends and general mess that is school, but for the year my mother left over my father's refusal to quit drinking, I went into a downward spiral academically. I realized it much later, but I nearly failed half my classes - and even flunked English completely that year - because I wasn't able to deal with both my lives crumbling.

Thus I transferred the destruction - temporary as it was - from my home life to my school life.

I saw my mom almost every week when she would come by to check in on us - usually after her night classes and while my dad was at work. It just wasn't the same. Everything at home was skewed, and I couldn't deal with that; so instead of acknowledging it, I channeled my torn emotions at school.

I skipped classes, started smoking more heavily (something I'd done flippantly since I was eight), gained weight, mouthed off at teachers and, perhaps worst of all, lost friends. Not that I'd really considered them friends, but everyone started avoiding me - it was like being back in seventh grade. I remember keeping an odd memory in my mind around that time that fed my ability to close everything out at school; a particular incident in eight grade science class.

Amy, one of the more boisterous students in my class, had been dared by her friends to kiss me; at least that's what I was told. There was no pomp and circumstance about the affair, however. Immediately after accepting the dare, she promptly kissed her hand and slapped me across the face.

I wish I were kidding.

Now, more than 15 years later, I can laugh at the incident. However, at the time I remember being so awfully crestfallen - especially after the dare was explained - that I sat at my desk and cried for two hours. I remember thinking that if she'd just slapped me I wouldn't have been nearly as effected by it, but the dare had been to kiss me, and her solution was a kiss by proxy of her hand.

I skulked through my sophomore year with that memory in my mind. I kept my head down, didn't talk to anyone, avoided classes as much as I could by hiding in the library and, generally, shut myself down for the year. As I think of it now, it's quite similar to the way Hanako reacts to her classmates in the beginning of the story. I almost think that I'd have been playing that tile game had the school halls not been carpeted. Unfortunately, there was no Hisao or Lilly to draw me out of that mindset.

I'm actually surprised my teachers didn't notice the change, thinking back. I had always been teased but it had never pushed me that far inward. The only class I remember continuing to excel at was Art, and I think some small part of me invented the personae of a brooding artists to cover for the fact that I simply didn't ever want to talk to anyone, or even acknowledge that I was at school.

The night-courses my mother was taking in book-keeping had been preceeded by attaining her GED, which, at an age passing forty, was something to be commended all on its own. Having dropped out of school to escape the teasing - among other reasons - in her sophomore year, she was very worried about the possibility of my doing the same. I like to think that it was that thought that partially forced her into reconciling with my father.

That summer I found myself taking three of my classes over again in the summer-school of the neighboring town. With my parents back under the same roof, however, I was able to concentrate on my studies once again and I didn't have to be held back as was the likely case if I failed again.

My delinquency really ended there. Even though my father was still drinking, he did get switched to the day shift which lessened the time he could spend drinking - he didn't want us to see him doing so. My mother got a job as an accountant at a friend's fledgeling tech company, and they were both home most days when we returned from school.

My Junior year began very much like my freshman year - friendless, chunky, tall and awkward - not to mention cripplingly shy. The friends I'd made were tentative around me - none of them had any idea what had caused me to fall inward so quickly, so the strange snap back to normal was jarring for them. I still never told them what happened, choosing instead to to point the blame at my teachers; which I should apoligize to them for doing - it really never was their fault at all.

I'll write more later.

Voxile, thanks for your story, I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

It's been a bit of a hurricane of stories here as of lately, and I'm having some problems following it all. But, today something interesting happened: I went to the hairdresser. Now, you may say, what's that, but actually, my hairdresser is a good listener. I told him some of my problems, and he saw the humor in them, and then so did I, and I felt relieved quite a bit. So for those people who are too intimidated to go visit a councilor or psychologist, perhaps a visit to a good hairdresser will prove useful. At the very least your looks will improve.

Beoran, I would talk to my Barber, except he speaks very little English and I know very little Tagalog.

Voxile, First off, I welcome you. Your life story intrigues me, I can't wait to see the rest of it. I've seen hardships but the way you describe your house, man-oh-man. I thought moving every year was hard.

Xiious, I wish you the best, I hate to see you go through something like this especially since you found out about that girl you mentioned. Remember this though, perseverance is better than defeat, don't give up at the first sign of difficulty. One more thing, it's a personal favorite of mine: after the rain, earth hardens. It can be taken many different ways, see it as you will.

Kouryuu, Don't worry about me really, the earth has hardened and now it's up to me to keep a friendship rather than throw it away again. It's fish to a cat in a sense. If she continues to press on though, it'll be gold coins to a cat. I've already decided the limitation to this friendship. That's also due to the fact that I believe spilled water will not return to the tray. Meaning, a separation in a relationship will not return to it's previous state. Maybe there is luck in the last helping, but it's nothing I dare venture. I want your status update though.

introfate wrote:Kouryuu, Don't worry about me really, the earth has hardened and now it's up to me to keep a friendship rather than throw it away again. It's fish to a cat in a sense. If she continues to press on though, it'll be gold coins to a cat. I've already decided the limitation to this friendship. That's also due to the fact that I believe spilled water will not return to the tray. Meaning, a separation in a relationship will not return to it's previous state. Maybe there is luck in the last helping, but it's nothing I dare venture. I want your status update though.

Thats good to hear! Gotta keep pushing forward right?

As for me, I am kind of all over the place, I was just settling down but then I realised I had just escaped into gaming (played 19 hours straight yesterday) and today my dads started to get on at me about getting a job. I started panicking again, I am back down though now.

I still havent applied to a job yet, all I need is to know what to type in the email. I think its sposed to be like a cover letter for my attached cv but I really dont know what to type. I am going to spend a lot of time researching into anxiety and fears etc to see if I can find a way to deal with them. Its the main thing I am suffering from and if I can overcome it, maybe just maybe, I will be perfect.

Still no reply yet (I have gotten better at dealing with this).

Hey guys, still popping back in, i have had a hell of a few days. I had a bad day yesterday, every once in a while i have a bad day where i get pretty depressed about my situation. I am usually pretty good at being optimistic about it, but it gets me every now and then. Being Single, not getting enough hours at work, still living with my parents when i should be thinking about moving out, ect. Got to me really bad yesterday, but i think i have mostly bounced back today. Really when it hits, its like i just want to curl up into a ball and die, but like i said its really rare, like 1 time in a month or two, def not like when i had depression in highschool where it was that feeling every day, and i am really thankful for that.

Only thing bothering me now is there is something wrong with my neck and shoulder, was hoping it goes away but i may have to stop by the doctor and get muscle relaxant, it's nothing serious but its making work straight up awful right now.

I was more awkward than ever. I thank whatever intervention held my hormones in check during my latter years of high school for not condemning me to be cruelly assaulted both socially and sexually. It may seem odd, but I hardly started to notice girls until I was nearly finished my Senior year.

I think there may be some kind of brain chemistry that should be investigated to that end (perhaps related to hormone production versus dopamine production), because I seemed to be lacking whatever hormones were driving my classmates to reckless early pregnancy, drunk driving, and other less-than-savory activities befitting minors.

Basically what I'm saying is that I was a square on top of being shy, awkward, tall, chunky and (still) the poor kid living in half-a-house. After my Sophomore year, my intelligence was also in question - as well as my possible delinquency. That's a prime time to be introduced to a new school principal.

With that said - God bless Mr. Klayman. Bespeckled and bow-legged, he replaced our retiring school principal - moving from Florida to take the job all the way up north. Two weeks prior to the beginning of the school year, we received a letter from the 'Office of Principal Lew Klayman', which, basically, demanded that we attend a meeting in his office before the beginning of the school year - myself and my elder brother (who was staying back and had missed graduation the previous year) were to be 'set right' by the 'new regime'.

I'm not even kidding. I wish I'd saved that letter.

The meeting was, in retrospect, hilarious. My mother brought us down to the school on a Saturday afternoon and we sat and waited outside the principal's office along with a dozen or so other students and parents who were all twiddling similar letters. As the morning wore on, we realized we were going to be the last ones called in. It was like waiting in line at the DMV - or perhaps a gas chamber.

After a couple hours with the mid-afternoon beaming through the wall of glass windows spiking the temperature in the lobby area, Lew Klayman stepped out of his office ejecting the attendees of his previous meetings and calling us by name "Mark and Paul.... Thebullet? Thibidow? Thelbillot?... Mark Paul, you're the only ones left, get in here. you too, Mrs.... Uh, Lorraine."

I'm not completely sure that's an exact quote, but it's a decent approximation of his mispronunciations of our last name, at least - another one of the teasing points I'd grown to resist. As we passed by, Mr. klayman stood practically at attention with his hand holding the exterior doorknob while he leaned in to clear the door for us. My mother offered "Call me Lori." as she passed, which he dismissed with a single "Nope." as he waved us into the small 10x10 office.

Now, the thing you need to understand is that up until that previous year, I'd had an exemplary attendance record, no incidents worthy of record, and exceptional grades. Lew Klayman, however, was not privy to anything but the records from last year - which were decidedly less stellar for all three of us brothers.

This meeting was basically a farce. He'd gone through the previous year's records and sent letters out to the worst students from the previous year to call in for a 'pep talk', as he put it. Essentially what it came down to was that he wanted the two of us to clean up our act or we'd be on the short bus out of academia.

I remember having the thought, "School hasn't even started and I'm on the principal's watch list... this should be a stellar year."

After about 10 minutes of discussion, Mr Klayman was satisfied that we weren't going to be toilet-papering the school (more on that later) or setting fire to the car park (that one's just for emphasis), so he ushered us out of his office and set us on our way to start school that following Monday, August 26th, 1996.

I turned 16 that following Thursday.

Apart from that first meeting, Mr. Klayman was an amazing principal. The previous administration had let a number of things fall behind like hall monitoring, general maintenance, and class scheduling was changing that year. We went from 45-minute classes to 90-minute block schedules.

So, new principal, hall monitors actively patroling during classes, cleaner bathrooms, and an entirely different daily schedule to get used to - on top of that, it wasn't exactly a secret who got called to see the principal before classes even started. At least my home life had started to stabilize by this point.

Not too far into the new schoolyear, I was christened with a new nickname - by the entire school. There's some argument over the exact origin of the nickname, but i'm almost certain it was accidentally coined by Lew Klayman himself as he tried to call one of us to his office. "I need Mister paul... Teebs-adow... to my office, please."

I don't even recall why I was called to his office - I think it was something about an adjustment to my class schedule. It wasn't important. Anyone who heard that announcement and later heard the shortened version spouted by one classmate or another, knew me as that abridged abomination of my last name.

I was "Teebs" for the remainder of High School.

Later the name was adjusted to befit my two brothers as well, who were referred to as "Teebs Senior" and "Teebs Junior". I remained the original, and was thus referrred to as "Classic Teebs". On some level i was happy to have such a common reference invented for me, and, truly, it rolls off the tongue easily. However, I was in no modd to have adrenaline addled jocks yelling "Teeeeebs" as I walked by.

Terms of endearment my ass.

Hello! my story is not so much that of a broken heart, as of a heart that never has been in true love...
Even as far back as high school I was a lonely type of guy, always in books and spending most of the time in the library... quite Hanako-style. Later, it was only worse, with not being able to form any meaningful relationships and ending up alone. I wasn't forming much friendships too, trying to be nice and polite to everyone, but being too boring and unattractive to draw people in. Being adverse to any alcohol , let alone other "stimulants" didn't help. Eventually I basically stopped even trying. Lonely birthdays piled in and now I think I will die lonely one day without anyone save close family to remember me.
Should I end up in Yamaku, I'd probably wouldn't even go drinking with Kenji - I'd rather spend my evening reading books alone in my room.
Still, I have learned to live with loneliness, and dont mind it as much as before when I was often depressed about it. I guess its similar as people disabled learn to live with their condition.