| September 16th, 2003 |
| October 12th, 2004 3:37PM |
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| Real Name: | Peter Parker |
| Email: | private |
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| Location: | unknown |
| Occupation: | N/A |
| Age: | private |
| Gender: | private |
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Favorite game was, dum-da-da-da
Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I could play all day and beat everybody. |
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| Biography: |
Deep within the dark recesses of deep space there waits a figure. A figure of such limitless and inexorable power that were such non-existent limits described to him he might go mad with the fully realized force of his own might. Yet this vastly powerful being has a simple name that beguiles his nearly omnipotent nature. He makes his home on a small blue and green planet (Earth) completely unawares of his untapped potential. Who is it?
Me. Pick me Mr. Lohse. I know the answer (as usual). Yet he continues answering the questions put forth by his fifth period Chemistry teacher. Resolutely answering each question as it comes, much to the disapproval of the recalcitrant students sitting behind this young man. We think his string of correct answers must come to its inevitable end, as all things do, but for this individual such logical certainties usually don’t apply. Mr. Lohse, on the other hand, abruptly changed his line of questioning and rather than a question he wanted a report on, dum da da da, me. “Me?” I asked, (now it was my turn to ask questions) why would I want to do that? Yet I do it I will and here I am.
My name is unimportant being that it became my inheritance by means beyond my control, but I can describe myself in terms of what I actually have done and will do. My one greatest hobby is reading, by far. I read anything and everything, preferring fiction and more specifically science fiction. In this school year alone, since I transferred here on September 13, 2002, I have read sixty-seven books at about 2-4 books a week depending on the length, obviously, and almost 20,000 pages. Many of the books were excellent but among my favorites were Shade’s Children by Garth Nix, Sabriel by Garth Nix, The Hitchhiker’s Quartet by Douglass Adams, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and Dreamcatcher by Stephen King. All these books were mainly science fiction and very interesting. Reading has always been something that I do very well and have always been able to do so. All through elementary and middle school I was the school’s top reader, as we had contests and things to determine such, and as a class, my class always won. It was my reputation all the way until the summer ending seventh grade.
In the summer after seventh I underwent a few interesting changes. Up until this point, the tallest I had ever been was approximately 5’3”. Yes I used to be quite short, but during that that summer I grew ten inches putting me at 5’10” going into eighth grade, though that isn’t exceptionally tall it was enough to start me on my basketball career. When eighth grade started I began playing basketball everywhere and all the time. I took to spending my nutrition periods on the basketball courts instead of in the library. I brought a ball to school every day to play with and played after school for hours on end. I ended up playing for one of the school teams (we had three) and ended up the highest scorer and rebounder. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know either. Our team ended up with the best record in the league and winning the championship with me as MVP. I also made the all-star team and we won that game too against the all-star team of the east Santa Monica schools. This was a rather interesting experience for me because it made me realize one thing about myself. Much to my surprise and expectations, being that I pretty much only read the first thirteen years of my life, I am exceedingly athletic. I came to this conclusion when I realized that I was one of the best people on my basketball team without ever wanting to play, and did so only rarely beforehand. This was further proven to me when I went to start my high school career.
My high school had a term called the “student athlete,” or in the student vernacular a meathead. So I became a member of this clique and joined the football team. I never played any organized; eleven man football, let alone tackle football. Yet I did anyway and decided to rely on my athletic talents to carry me through. Oddly enough, and surprising me as much as anybody else, I did. I took a forty-meter dash time (the standard run at which they measure a football players speed) and got a 4.7, as a freshman that was the second fastest time on the team by a good amount. This and my considerable size for what I wanted to do (6’0” and 160lbs) got me a starting position as wide receiver. The class of 2005 as a freshman football team was one of the best ever as we only lost one game and easily won the league. With football as such a success, I decided to do basketball as well. I missed the tryouts due to an illness so subsequently I didn’t make the team, which angered me, as basketball really was my sport and the one I was really looking forward to. However, there was one more sport in which I could participate.
Bang! Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Stretch, lean, push through, and rest. Track season starts. When new freshman tried to join the track team they undergo a series of tests to measure the extent of their athleticism. We ran a twenty-yard sprint (2.33 seconds), a 150-meter spring (19 seconds), a standing long jump (7.5 feet), pull-ups (16), and got our standing vertical jumps measured (32 inches). All of these but the pull-ups were the highest of any freshmen at the time, so I came to realize that I actually was kind of athletic. So the coaches let me do three events, the hundred-meter dash (freshman team), 110 meter high hurtles (freshman team), and the 300 medium high hurtles (varsity). It was the best sport of all my teams at Loyola, and in the 300 hurtles I placed seven out of eighteen at the league prelims with a time of 44 seconds (state winner ran 37), not bad for a wee freshman such as myself.
These sports did more for me however, than simply assure me of my athletic talents. Me and just about every other freshman who ever attended the school were part of freshman athletics program. This meant that almost without exception, every kid you become friends with as a freshman either has a bald head and you know his last name better than his first, or they have the same first letter of their last name as you (this is because on the football team, they tape your last name on your helmet and make you run around with it and nobody calls you anything else or the person sits next to you in all your classes due to alphabetical order. Upon the end of my freshman year I had about five close friends who I will call: Tenacious D (Bald), T (Bald), J R (same first letter of last name), M C (Bald), and B Raiders (same first letter of last name). These were all great guys and I miss hanging out with them, though of the five I was closest to Tenacious D, JR, and I still hang out with them often enough.
Two times we hung out (three of us Tenacious D, JR, and Me) really stuck with me. The first was when we all rode to our Basketball team’s playoff game with another guy, named Sean, and his dad. His dad was blind. We got lost countless times due to his inability to read the street signs, and he continually ran red lights and stopped for green ones because he couldn’t tell the difference between the two. We finally resorted to screaming out the color of the lights, and the street names as he drove past. A hilarious experience to be sure and one not soon forgotten.
The second was a bit more recently (I think it could even have been after the year had ended and at the beginning of summer). The same person who we rode with to the basketball game, Sean, had become a real loser (a fake one as well if there is such thing) and had fallen into general dislike by the general populace. Thus we came to the conclusion that he must endure the punishment of all jerks and losers who used to be cool. We were going to egg his house. We went to the store and got eggs, toilet paper and shaving cream. We then went about creating our special egg bombs. Eggs covered in shaving cream and wrapped in toilet paper (it makes a very nice mess and the yoke makes the toilet paper stick better). Then we cruised by his house and parked down the street (JR has his license). After that we walked back up to his house and put the rest of the shaving cream all over his door. Then it was time to launch the bombs. We hit his house with a good dozen bombs or so (yes they let us use up all our ammo before coming to the window to see what was up) and ran down the street, jumped back in the car and sped off. Fun times they were and those guys are my boys for life. And back at school a few other things were going well too.
With track season over, the next thing to look forward to was JV summer basketball tryouts. I made the team, but never went to the games or practiced because of summer school. Summer was long and boring with three summer school classes at West LA community college and a weird thing with tennis (don’t ask, long story). As summer months slipped by peppered with a few fun events (trips to 6 Flags, movies, parties) but all in all, it was pretty boring. At the end of the summer, exactly three weeks before school started, football started again. Summer football, “hell week,” or more accurately weeks. It was fun but when the school year started I transferred to “That School” about two weeks in.
“That School” changed me from the way I was at my old school. I am assured by several sources that I was extremely (maybe to a fault) extroverted there and very sociable. At “That School”, one might say I regressed to a younger less friendly person. I talk a considerable deal less and think a considerable amount more. The only real consequence of this I that I began writing more as well. I began writing poetry (or something of that manner even though they were usually anger poems) and even submitted a few to the school paper anonymously (don’t ask me why). Look them up if you want they either have odd and obviously fake names or they say anonymous. I became I quiet introvert with a composition book full of my writings and poems. I still don’t really show people or at least show people in a way that they can connect me with my work. But I may include something I wrote or some poetry I like in this little story (If its not there then I decided not to). But, though my intellectual or social being changed with my transfer, my athletic system did not.
I made the JV basketball team here rather easily and was voted MVP by the Varsity Basketball players. Highest scorer again same old, same old with a twist. I can dunk. That 32 inch vertical from last year must have grown or something because now I can bang. One hand or two. Right hand or left, one foot or two. Scary huh? From my height at least it is pretty nice.
Another thing was that I was somehow coerced into joining the volleyball team. I have never played volleyball in my life, and as soon as I signed up they put me in a game. A real game and one that mattered. We won and I didn’t really do anything good (since they had no time to teach me anything so they told me to stand at the net and jump (jumping is my specialty) and I actually hit a few balls back that way) but I didn’t do anything really bad either. The scary part was that I actually liked it. And even scarier still I got relatively good, relatively quickly and within two weeks I was starting on Varsity. Yes, the Varsity Volleyball team. We ended up second in the league and getting beat in the first round of the playoffs.
For the first month of school, room 215 went without a chemistry teacher, and though I missed half of it I had the pleasure of the substitute teacher Mrs. Washington. However, soon we were given back our wonderful chemistry teacher Mr. Lohse.
Chemistry class was pretty nice for a number of reasons. Primarily, I really like science classes and sincerely doubt that I will ever find a science class that I don’t like. This has its roots deep within the past. When I was young my mom gave me the pleasure of a number of science related classes at the Museum of Science and Technology. I also took a few classes at King/Drew Medical School when they still offered classes for students in middle school, but now they don’t anymore, though when they still did I took them for about two years. Most of my classes had a major focus on biology and physiological for reasons beyond me though I always had a greater passing interest in classes that related more to physics, particularly astrophysics. However, the biology related classes are part of what made me want to be a doctor because though they weren’t my top choice, I thought the classes were wonderful and learned them well. Through this it seemed I gained a very solid background in science (I learned the mechanisms behind glycolysis and the Krebs Cycle in sixth grade and my school science never caught up to that until ninth grade. After all this science in my early years it seemed only natural I would like it through my school years, which I do. My best science experience came in a ninth grade Biology class that was at a rather higher level than the average freshman take (global science), which I had to test to with a science placement test (I got a perfect score). Some people say that the best working people are the ones doing what they love and that they do it well. So, it can be thought that those doing what they love do well. If you look at how well I did in that class, you can see how much I liked that class; 99.87 percent combined from both semesters. Probably the best part of my other high school was the science classes.
This year in science was actually very similar to last years in two respects. The first was the way I was able to learn most of the year, sponge-like. I absorbed knowledge very easily this year, probably because of the way it was given to us, i.e. with lots of talking with stories included, practical applications, and demonstrations. The second reason was how much I liked going to the class. Generally, as a principal, I don’t like going to most of my classes, because they are boring, pointless, or I don’t like the teachers, but I go anyway and usually do rather well. However with your class and a few others over time, most notably my science class from last year, I anticipate the period just because I really do want to learn and see what is going to happen. Thank you Mr. Lohse for making the class so educational as well as fun for me. However, through all this my reading patterns have remained steady.
As I’ve said earlier, much of my early life was spent reading. I’ve also noticed that by making lists of books I’ve read, how long they are, and when I’ve finished them can show me a lot about myself. During my stay at Loyola (about a month past a full twelve = thirteen months) I read exactly (give or take 10) forty books, which is only slightly more than half of my regular amount. This is because a) I was busy with sports and b) I was messing around in class often and at home (being bad). Yes, in retrospective, I realize I was bad at Loyola and furthermore, I can pinpoint exactly when this change occurred by the sudden drop in books being. I read almost twenty books in the first two and a half months at Loyola. In the following part of the school year and summer and even beginning of the next year, I barely finished another twenty. The pattern was easily apparent.
Well, another pattern is emerging in the books I read and the speed with which I do. I have gone from a rather respectable 2 books a week down to an average 1 and 1/3. Kindred, The Bluest Eye, and poetry are now parts of this new trend, a pattern whose origins can be seen and originating from a particular figure and a specific date. March 7th and it’s a story of a girl (aren’t they all?).
March 7th marked the date of the last Loyola dance of their school year outside of the prom. A certain male student from “That School” could still get in to any function at his old school he saw fit to with use of a ID card obtained before an early 1st semester transfer. My mother inveigled me into chaperoning my brother at the dance (I went alone last year, why cant he? I was in ninth grade and he was in ninth grade). So there I was, trapped in the senseless dancing of prepubescent ninth grade girls, friendless, bored witless, and thoughtless save for a small urge to find a corner and ride the storm out. Yet, I had expected this and was well prepared for a night of standing around and waiting for it to just end which is why the next few events surprised me so much.
As one of the ever-ready circles of youth solidified around a few people brave, or foolish, enough to dance under the hard stares of their peers, or something like that, an odd thing happened. A face burst forth from the dark, shocking me in its sharp and stark beauty (I’m blind so it is always odd when I see something so clearly and rarer than you might think). As the face retreated into the dark I realized, I must know this face, I must meet the possessor of such beauty. A task far more easily said, or thought in my case, than done. It took hours of tracking through the dense, hot, tightly packed, forest of humans and their appendages, but at long last I reached my goal. Wait, what is this? She is ferreted away right from under my very nose by this guy I know who took her on a tour ending with her meeting my brother. Me foiled? What is this blasphemy? I continued my tracking. When he finally released his captive, I confronted the usurper on what had occurred. What was said cannot be repeated but it suffices to say that it was sufficient to heighten my need to meet and talk to the owner of such an exquisite face and take it upon myself to affect such a meeting.
Irene Rose DeLily. A name I had just learned but soon became very familiar to me. A writer, poet, master debater, who likes forest green, seafood and taking pictures. We talked for about two hours with the promise of more. We ended up talking a lot more as it became a daily thing. Then there was another test of courage as I asked her out, poetically. 1 and ¾ books a week, and I read Kindred a historical fiction novel the likes of which I would have never picked up on my own. She is certainly an influence on me, a good influence to be sure, but an influence nonetheless.
It turns out that she is a wonderful girl: intelligent, humorous, creative, and with a dazzling smile, absolutely stunning, a wellspring of good ideas and cheer, a boon of a friend. She perpetually occupied a significant portion of a capacious mind a considerable amount of the time. In this way she became rather special for rather good reasons, which is the best reason for mentioning her in the first place. 1 and ½ books a week and a poetry anthology.
2 and ½ months later, another question seeps into the mind of a besotted boy’s mind and seeps out the tip of his pen. Somewhat easier in writing for you need not speak un-retractable words. A note, a card. A girlfriend. 1and ¼ books read a week, one of them being The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Nobody saw that coming, and with good reason as the unlikely events that led to it. Or not really as it happened: unnecessarily chaperoning my brother to a school dance at a school I don’t attend. But isn’t that how things like this happens? Isn’t it how anything happens? If not I’m thank the fate that set forth such odds.
Imagine a perfect stoic, always calm, collected, totally in control of himself to the point that to indulge in the simple conversation of his physical (though not intellectual) peers would be an utter betrayal of his very nature. Now have him be a modestly stated genius and intellectual giant gifted in all academic pursuits with a great aptitude for politics. One whose powers of perception are powerful enough to pierce through the thin veils wrought by mere mortals. One who would, in the most opportune occasion, utter phrases of such simple relevancy and profound wisdom that all who witnessed them would marvel in their application. Such a being would be Christopher Sax, or simply Sax.
With the termination of the school year, I realized I had the summer stretching out before me ready to contort itself to my very whim and fancy. And the school passed into its final week also known as “Finals Week,” where grades were made or broken. A time that could leave kids ready to check the mail every day of the next three months in vain hopes to find and hide report cards before parents can read the assortment of oddly shaped letters that were supposed to be A’s. A’s that found themselves crippled and legless (due to poor test scores and lack of homework), and whose advent on said report card would leave the child in similar condition. I found that I was expected to miss this week to be in a summer camp for a week.
Summer camps, either fun filled adventures to reminisce on once you’ve become to old to do anything but reminisce, or a capital punishment for no offense when parents decide you need year round school and send to an educational one. Well I was either too old to go to the fun camps, or my parents decided that I needed more school so I was sent to a six day Step Up to Leadership program at Claremont McKenna, a college in Claremont, California. |
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