THE END OF AN ERA

Memories of School

First of all, as you probably know by now, posts like these have no actual purpose for the world. People usually can't understand the desire to relive the past and not accept the present or the future - although this is not the case, however, because I do not want to relive most of my memories of school; the reason I am writing memories like these is that I reach a milestone in my life, an End of An Era, if you will.

I must state that school has always been a source of sadness and depression for me, although there have been moments of memorable importance to me, which I do not want to forget.

Primary School / Gymnasium

It all began with the first days of school of my life. My mother sent me to school when I was about to be 7 years old. Before the actual school year began, they've let me wander through the school for a bit, entering a few classrooms. I remember one of them; it was decorated in the old Communist style, with small benches which were grouped together in pairs of two, linked by wooden planks. The benches were tilted to such a degree that it was pretty easy for a 7-year old to sit in one and be able to write in a student's book without much hassle. I remember that I've actually liked that - not knowing, however, what kind of daily torture awaited me in the future, of course.

I don't remember much from year one, except for a few details, like the fact that my mother had made me wear a children's hat on my head most of the time - because in her mind the classroom was very cold, I remember that I felt scared and probably confused and that I didn't really understand what was the purpose of me having to stay in that place with so many other children - a class was usually composed of 28 to 32 children.

During year one and two, while I was learning how to make signs at school, I had always become dirty of fountain pen ink on my hands, which sometimes even got on and in my mouth - although I don't really understand how it got there; maybe I used to put my ink dirty fingers in my mouth.

We started learning how to count, add, and subtract. I could never memorize adding or subtracting pass number 10 and I've always performed calculations using my fingers and even my toes to count the result; this has been a problem I never understood, because a year later we started learning the multiplication and division tables and I was much better at those, although I failed miserably in the beginning...

In year two, after we were able to write sentences, my favorite kind of activity was text dictation; I used to be very good at that, having a much better memory for it than my colleagues. I guess I had to - or at least it was useful, because my handwriting speed wasn't much faster than that with which I am writing this now...

I remember a marking event of either first or second grade. Our educator let us go home early but I didn't know what time it was because I didn't learn how to tell the time yet, and I thought no one came for me to bring me home from school. My aunt was supposed to do that but when I saw that she didn't show up I started crying and tried going home on my own, although I was accompanied by some other parent with his son. I took the road I knew my aunt would take and finally arrived home but no one was there so I couldn't enter and I stayed at one of the neighbors for about an hour, instead.

My colleagues have always been somewhat of a problem to me. Given my nature and health problems I've always had trouble adapting to, and getting along with them. As I remember, at first, I had a girl as a desk mate but for some reason - probably me - she got moved and I got a new colleague, this time another male. We got along reasonably well for a while. I got another desk mate later on, also male, with which I got along well until I moved to another class, in year 5.

I do remember having another female colleague, though. She was of Roma ethnicity and the first contact I had with people like that. Her personality was pretty typical, I guess, and she also had richer parents than me; she always came to school with new toys, sometimes giving some of them away, but she never shared anything with me and had always acted in an awkward way to me. As I remember, the last desk mate I had - the one I got along with best - came after her.

Speaking of desk mates, it was one of our educator's ways of punishing us for when we did something bad to move us in the very last bench in the row - meaning that we would be behind all other children; at least it was for me and for the other more geeky children in the class. She did once move me in the very last bench in the middle row for something I don't really remember. For the remaining day we had art class and I remember modeling some small things like a tiny boat and vessels out of children's clay. The next day I couldn't tell my mother that I was punished so I went with her in my original spot in the first bench of the right row, but of course she found out from the educator. I was, however, able to keep staying there.

I did mention about my father in the story of my life. It was in year two that he had returned from the foreign country he was working in and brought home a video came console for me. It was a clone of the Nintendo Entertainment System, called "Terminator"; you can find information about it on Wikipedia; it was a pretty popular thing in third world countries at the time. This has no relevance to my school experience, by the way, but it is one of the first encounters I had with computers and it used to be the only way I had to relax and spend my free time at home.

About the same time my mother had begun "helping" me with my school homework, by which I mean that she actually used to do it for me entirely. Yes, it wasn't pretty nice of me but it was the only way for me to have some spare time to have fun and be happy, because already my colleagues had begun mocking and even beating me at school.

At first there were two problematic children in my class. One of them had always picked on me in different violent ways although he did sometimes show signs that he wasn't such a bad person overall. Maybe he was mentally ill or maybe he just had family problems and this was his way of venting; I really don't know. His last name was Branea and he was probably the first person to beat me at school. Interestingly enough, though, he got punished for the things he had done, maybe a bit too harsh, I guess. At first the mother of Francisc Cincasciuc beat him up really bad for what he did to her son who, as I remember, had some bad heart condition and emotional problems; then later on, in year 4, his mother died, leaving him either half or fully orphaned. I can't say I was sorry for him, though. In fact it was the exact opposite. It wasn't in my nature to be sorry for my enemies and it isn't now either.

Another way in which he got a taste of his own medicine was when a new student had been transferred to our class. His name was Cosmin Piţu and he was a very violent Roma kid; he used to beat Branea pretty bad, but he kept his violence towards me to a minimum.

Last, but not least, I must mention Adiţă (Adrian), of whom's last name I can't remember right now. He was the one that started calling me names, together with Branea. By the way, he was friends with him, without being violent, though - luckily for me. Thanks to him others have started calling me names and humiliating me in whatever way they could, including the now classic reason for me being overweight.

Although the girls had not been very nice to me overall, I tended to want to help them sometimes. In year two we were also introduced to the French language, thing which tortured me for 11 years, by the way. I swear the first time I heard that awful thing I thought it was a way of mocking people. I didn't even imagine it could be an actual language. Anyway... in French class there had been this one time when I wanted to help one of the girls so she wouldn't get a bad mark and the teacher saw me and gave me and graded me the lowest possible mark as a punishment - 1 out of 10. I didn't understand what she meant by what she said and no one ever told me that it was wrong to want to help a colleague. It was a harsh and unjustified punishment and I truly wish she got what she deserved for that.

At one point I tried fighting fire with fire when it came to being humiliated and called names by some of my colleagues. That is a very bad memory I would rather not talk about but I can mention the fact that no one was ever on my side throughout school, not even to state the truth about the fact that I just did the same thing to him he did to me. I called one of my bullies some silly childish names but my mistake was the fact that I wrote them all down on a piece of paper. He showed that paper to his father who came to school with him the next day. It didn't end pretty well. I do not regret what I did, though, and as always, I wish only death to my enemies.

I haven't mentioned about playing the piano. I did that for eight years, started before school. It all began when my father came back from Germany somewhere in 1993 or so. He brought back home a typewriter which someone gave him as a gift and a small electric organ (piano). I started playing with that, improvising stuff from what I heard on TV. I liked it, which was the reason for my mother to want to get me to a piano course at a building nearby, called the Children's Palace (another relic of the old Communist regime). There I learned how to play the piano and it was fun... for a while. I kept taking lessons there for about two years, meaning also in first grade. After that my mother asked me if I wanted to go further and enroll me to a music school, Music School of Bucharest no. 2, to be exact.

So I've continued my piano lessons for another few years. Unfortunately it was because of this that when I was in second or third grade my mother got hit by a car... on the sidewalk, while trying to hurry and catch a bus to get papers for me to continue my piano lessons. The reason why I've continued taking piano lessons all these years was for her. My enjoyment in this was long gone; I just wanted to make her happy. She wanted to learn how to play the piano so much in her childhood but she never got the chance to do that, so I wanted to make her happy and be able to play the piano for her.

Although, like normal school, music school hadn't brought me too much happiness of my own, having another source of exams and good marks was an advantage to me. Before I got my first computer, while I still enjoyed playing with toys, for every good mark in piano exams and very good final results at the end of a school trimester, my mother bought me my favorite type of toys, which were Transformers robots. I mentioned about this in the story of my life; I used to have a lot of them, and I still have my favorite ones. This was my only reward for how much suffering I had to endure. My favorite one of all time, and one of my cherished memories, is the first one I've ever got, a robot that transformed into a jet plane. I don't remember when I got it, probably somewhere around Christmas in first grade. By the way, I have a tape of the first Christmas class celebration, which was filmed by my desk mate's father with his camera.

Because of my nature people didn't like me too much - of course. I got kicked out from Music School of Bucharest no. 2 for a few reasons, but none of them were related to anything bad I had supposedly done. The director of that music school hated handicapped people and of course hated me as well, and my piano teacher has been probably pressured to kick me out for some time that one day she just bursted in anger all of a sudden, with the supposed reason that I was making funny faces at her, when in fact I was just humidifying my lips. After that for a few days I cried and wanted to stop playing the piano but my mother found another school which was willing to accept me. I didn't really want to continue but, again, I did it for her to make her happy; I did enjoy having lessons with my new piano teacher, at least for a while, because she had a sense of humor and every time I didn't play a note or forgot to repeat something she would draw glasses on my music sheet. At the end of 7th grade I finally put piano lessons to rest, as I had to prepare for my first official national exam of my life in eighth grade.

I must mention a bit about Religion class too. My mother had tried to make me a religious person, like herself, but in the end she failed, because religion is just not for me. Anyway, I used to like Religion class, maybe because of the different way it was approaching us, maybe because it was the easiest of all; I don't know... In fourth grade, however, we got a very weird and shy teacher who let us do pretty much whatever we wanted. That was his mistake because we, as kids, transformed Religion class into... Fun class. I was pretty quiet and calm although I did make tasteless jokes with one of the colleagues I got along with, but others weren't so good. They were screaming and running through the classroom, throwing objects around and more. All that ended when my mother found out about it, of course.

I mentioned about my mother doing my homework for me. It is not completely unethical, though. Starting the third grade our educator had never allowed us to have any recesses. She always made us stay in class and make grammar or math exercises - unless we needed to go to the bathroom, of course. In essence she used to constantly torture us with these things and she had always given us so much homework that I, at least, would not have had time for anything else between when I got home and when I had to go to bed. That was not fair. I really don't have to justify myself to anyone, but I just wanted to mention about this fact. By the way, the girls had been assigned the task of verifying if we did our homework, and they usually took our student books and gave them to the educator so she would evaluate them. That made them feel important, more important than the rest of us, in fact, and they were always acting highly arrogant.

At the end of fourth grade - 1998 - my father had come back home from work in Israel. He remained in Romania for about a year. At that time he and my mother had bought some electronics I shall always happily remember about. At first they bought the Philips Mini HiFi System we have, and which I recently let him use just for himself, then a new television set, a Panasonic with a computer and Teletext capabilities, then, after years of promises and months of me begging him, about two months before fourth grade ended he bought me my first personal computer, after which they bought a new, big refrigerator which we're still using today.

In the holidays between fourth and fifth grade my mother enrolled me to some computer lessons at the - now bankrupt - New Systems educational company. That and the place where I've learned some things about computer hardware have been the only places I've ever enjoyed school (before faculty). They were the only places where I could do what I am best at: working with computers. It was at New Systems where I've met my first mentor, which now I know that he had been exactly like me. This fact reminded me about wanting to be just like him when I grew up. He was the first and possibly the only true role model I've ever had. He was maybe even closer thing to a father to me than my real father had ever been. I'll never forget him... and how he always used to play Solitaire in the free time between studying sessions; it is from him I got that habit and also thanks to him that I saw an actual Windows 95 floppy edition installation, which is one of the most cherish able memories to me.

In fifth grade I had moved to another class, which was supposedly quieter and more disciplined than my old one, and we've finally been introduced to English class... after 3 long years of suffering with only that forsaken language which people like calling "the language of love" for absolutely no reason. I really enjoyed learning to speak English and I kind of liked the type of books we used.

Now we must return to the issues of my colleagues. After I moved to another class in fifth grade I noticed that my colleagues were - or at least they seemed to be - nice and calm. The reason for this was, unfortunately, because their educator thought them to always spy and tell on each other. I guess that wasn't much different from the... "Securitate" of Ceauşescu's regime. I guess some people can't change the way they've lived their lives; I should know, I don't want to change either...

Anyway, I tried being friends with some colleagues but that worked out in a rather weird and awkward way, not to mention that I made the mistake of trying to be friends - in my own awkward way - with one of the popular kids, whose name was Ionuţ Cătălin Drăgoi. My mother bought me the awkward and capitalistic game Monopoly and I didn't have anybody to play it with so I invited that guy at my home a few times, in which at least one of them we played that and I remember being somewhat mean. It was my mistake and I admit it. After that he didn't want to visit any more and he hated me, thing which I felt. Later on, in sixth grade he started humiliating and making fun of me for several reasons, among which was the fact that he had recently bought a personal computer of his own, which was much more powerful than mine, the fact that I was fat and so on. It was truly my fault and I had to suffer for it for the rest of Gymnasium (meaning until I finished eighth grade).

Fifth grade passed me by without memorable events, which had not also been the case for sixth grade, when the real trouble began. That's when I started having a true hatred for girls. Unlike in previous years, it was them that ripped on me the most, and the reason was my introverted personality and my highly formal behavior and way of talking. I didn't talk nor had subjects of interests like them. They found that a reason to mock me, along side the fact that I wanted to be one of the best children in class and my mother always supported me with a lot of things - including bringing me to and from school, so jealousy was also a factor. My colleagues used every possible opportunity to tell on me to the new educator for doing something wrong, even the most unimportant thing. Some girl named Bianca Rădulescu even stated that "he doesn't respect us anymore" although she had absolutely no reason to do that, and I hadn't done anything to her. That day I've cried quite a lot and my only consolation was that my mother went with me for a walk through town and bought me a calculator I wanted for some time and two video game cassettes for the latest little game console I had. The games were "The New Ghostbusters 2" and "Godzilla 2".

There was one girl I was - at least trying - to be friends with, which was also the first girl I've ever liked or have been somewhat attracted to. Her name was Viorica Ionescu and what I liked about her was her personality. She used to be kind to me, at least kinder than other colleagues. I think we had some project to do together once when I had to invite her over. After that she even came to visit me all of a sudden some day, without any reason, just to keep me company. At the time my computer wasn't functioning properly any more so my mother bought me another type of video game console that resembled those so called home computers of the 80's - a keyboard which you could connect to the TV set and even had a small word processor to play with. We used to play with that. I never told her that I liked her, though; I couldn't, for two good reasons, one of them being the way I was raised by my mother, and the other was my shy personality.

That had also been the year when I had a few failures in History class, which my mother has attributed to me watching the "Life with Louie" TV show and playing Worms Armageddon too much, but it wasn't true. I just couldn't memorize things properly, in the same way as I was never able to memorize anything for Geography class.

In seventh grade I started liking another girl, whom I kept liking and being more and more attracted to until the end of eight grade. Her name was Luciana Florea and she was the first girl I've ever actually told how I feel about her but she didn't seem to take too well. I didn't hate her for that, though. However, I didn't think that we were meant to be together in any way either, even though I liked her. She wasn't like me and she liked other types of boys than me. However it was somewhat nice to know what it feels like to be attracted to someone. Too bad my colleagues found that as a reason to make fun of both of us, besides the fact that they've kept calling her "the hen" although I never understood why. She was the last girl I liked.

My favorite teacher of sixth and seventh grade was the art class teacher, which was also a math teacher. She was the best math teacher I've ever had, and she had the best explaining technique. That reminds me of a thing I did when she congratulated me for getting a very good grade in an important test, and I got a higher grade than that of my "nemesis", Ionuţ Drăgoi. I ran on the school hallway that day screaming "I've beat him! I've finally beat him!!!" really loud. Unfortunately she couldn't teach pass 7th grade and years later I found out that she died of breast cancer. Rest in Peace, Mrs. Ştefan. You will be missed.

Starting the second half of sixth grade, by the way, we had a new Geography teacher, because the old one had some trouble, I guess. This new teacher had an awkward - and very difficult for me - way of grading. However it did have an advantage. He noted every partial or full right answer from every student on a paper and when they had accumulated enough of them he would give them a mark. It was a very difficult time for me as I was really struggling to pass the subject.

Sixth and seventh grade had also been awkward thanks to the Grammar and Literature teacher we had. We had the same teacher in Latin class in ninth grade, by the way. Her last name was Bojescu; I don't remember her full name. The reason why her class was so awkward was that whenever we had lessons with her she would usually either sit at the teacher's desk and do something weird like wear makeup or prepare her makeup, or go stare out the window and do the same thing. Instead of doing anything in class she would give us something - usually exercises - to do from our school manuals and that was it.

Her successor in eighth grade wasn't much better either. She made us fuse our desks in pairs so we would be four people at a desk instead of two and we would work something in a team. She didn't, however, explain anything, and she expected us to know everything on our own.

By the way, one event marked all of us in seventh grade. Two of my colleagues got asphyxiated in their home because of improper plumbing to their heating unit. They were both rushed to the hospital and been in a coma. They were brother and sister, and only the girl survived. Their name were Marian Romeo and Ioana Julieta Cănuţă.

As you probably guessed, their names were inspired by that play. I was friends with Romeo and he was one of the colleagues who never did anything bad to me. In fact I regret doing a tasteless joke to him once, by which I mean putting a thumbtack on his seat, and he actually did sit on it.

I truly regret the fact that my mother had not allowed me to go to his funeral. I wish I had the chance to say goodbye. Rest in Peace, my friend.

In eighth grade we also got a new math teacher, which had also been the Informatics teacher for the optional class which we had in 6th and 7th grade. That reminds me, the Informatics optional class was one of my favorite subjects, of course, if not my favorite of all. The teacher had also been my math tutor since sixth grade so I knew him pretty well. Pitty he was really obsessed with religion since he converted to Jehova's Witnesses. Anyway he did have a good way of explaining things and he has been my second mentor in Informatics. One thing which perhaps made my friend Viorica hate me was when my math teacher actually helped me cheat some math tests. He had done that mostly because he understood how much I suffered at least in eighth grade. Currently he doesn't want to talk to me anymore, because I said I don't like hearing about "God" and that it annoys me.

Speaking of which, in 8th grade I had tutoring in all subjects I had to take my national exams in, which were: Romanian, Math and History. Among those there was also French, because I hated it so much that I couldn't do much without help. I had tutoring nearly daily and in multiple subjects almost each day. I had about 8 hours of school every day and after that I had little to no time for myself because after those 8 hours of school another 4-6 hours of tutoring followed, most of them in literature and math.

In October my parents bought me my first printer, an HP DeskJet 960C. I printed a lot of stuff with it, most of it was useless but it didn't matter; I had some fun. I do remember printing something for the Physics teacher, though. I think it was something related to both Chemistry and Physics class; it probably was the only important thing I had printed – with the exception of a History essay, of course.

Speaking of October, this was the month I got a pretty funny mark in French class. It was a 10 on the 10th day of October...

A few months later, in January, after spending some time with my colleagues, playing Quake 3 Arena at a gaming place near the barber shop I just went to that day, my father had finally bought me a new computer, and this time it was even able to play games pretty well. Of course he didn't do that on his own. I had to constantly beg him for months even before that. Good thing he bought my PC before he bought his car - which he trashed a year later - or else I would've never gotten it in the first place. That was also the year I went to the dentist for the first time in my life, by the way.

Another activity I used to do together with my colleagues in the eighth grade, as a saying goodbye thing, I guess, was playing something called "Lapte Gros", in which the kids form a sort of a ramp with their backs and other kids jump on their backs. I used to be at the end of that ramp, keeping them from hitting their heads to the wall.

That didn’t mean that I was friends with all of them. There were a few colleagues who had always been mean to me in different ways, most of them disgusting, by the way. I remember I’ve actually beat one of them with my fist one day because I was so annoyed and so sad that I felt wouldn’t care even if I killed him; in fact I wish I had, he would’ve deserved it for his wasted and pointless life with no goal...

Over the years, throughout school, at the end of each ear - except for the first two and 8th grade - I've managed to get the so called "First Prize", which meant that I got to wear a commemorative crown of flowers when I got mentioned at the school year closing festivities, for outstanding results. I don't know how much I deserved getting that, but I do miss it. It used to be a thing that motivated me to have better and better school results.

When 8th grade was finally over I felt relieved and I took the time to watch the sunset in the park in the day right before the National Exams (at the time called "Capacity Exam") started.

That night I couldn't sleep. It was a Sunday and the next day the biggest exam of my life was supposed to begin. Of course this hasn't been without incidents, at least from my father's side. He insisted on driving us to the school I was supposed to take my exam at, and along the way he kept making both mine and my mother's lives miserable, as this is the only thing he had truly always known how to do.

At the designated hour we all went inside and awaited our exam papers. Fortunately everything went fine and I wrote enough to get more than just a passing grade. This happened 3 days in a row, one for each exam, in this order: Romanian, Math, and History.

High School

During eighth grade we were supposed to make a list of all the high schools where we would want to get sent to automatically by the central computer which would do that according to the results of the National Exams combined with the average results of the years of Gymnasium.

I got sent to the Petru Rareş Technical College, the section of Philology – which meant that I would put an accent on letters, instead of numbers and logic. That didn’t last too long, though, because I requested a transfer to Mathematics and Informatics the following year. However, I did have to endure a full year of Philology; by the way, I remember Philology in Petru Rareş to be about the hundredth option I had listed.

Anyway, in September 2002 I’ve started the new school year, continuing my studies. I remember the uniform I had worn that day and also for the rest of the year, with a green vest, white shirt and black pants; it made me feel pretty good and also somewhat proud of myself.

On the first day of study I was anxious to get in the classroom, so I stood near the door, which also happened to be at a higher level than the soil, so I guess that was the reason why my mother said “Don’t be higher than they are!” to me... although I don’t really understand what would be the problem; they didn’t care anyway and also they’ve proven to be lower than me over the years, in more ways than one...

As always, I did try to make some friends, and I failed for both my fault and theirs – also as always.

I had some pretty childish or... rather immature colleagues; I don’t understand why someone would make fun of someone else’s food; this was one of the topics of discussion between the members of a little group that mocked me pretty much for nothing. I don’t get what’s wrong with home cooked food like an omelette sandwich or salami.

By the way, their leader’s father died. I once sweared him in such a way to include that, so it would hurt him deep inside, the same way it hurts me every time someone doesn’t leave me alone; I do not regret what I’ve done and I would’ve sweared both his parents, if they were both dead. People like him do not deserve mercy when it comes to this, because they don’t show mercy towards others either.

By the way, in all my school experience, with the small exception of a large suitcase-like backpack which neither I or anyone actually else wore on our back, I’ve never had an actual – or normal – backpack. I’ve always used suitcases or briefcases; it wasn’t my idea but I didn’t dislike it either; on the contrary, having a suitcase made packing up a lot easier.

I did have some friends in ninth grade, one of them was my desk mate... probably the only one, but I’m not sure if even he wanted to be friends with me. I used to go to computer game rooms and play stuff like Counter-Strike with him from time to time but that was basically it.

Speaking of computer games, the game I’ve played the most during ninth grade, and probably also obsessed me a bit was Grand Theft Auto 3. I played that game so much that I knew where to find most secrets.

Anyway, overall year one of high school (ninth grade) didn’t leave so many scars. It did, however, leave some rather amusing experiences.

The History teacher, my favorite one, had a pretty interesting sense of humor. He always replied in a humorous way to students who were supposed to get graded that day but didn’t study; he would do things like pretend that our problems mattered somehow to our grading, and then he would do something mean like say “We’re sorry and we’re supporting you in these dark times... however I must grade you TODAY.”

Of course, my favorite subject still was Informatics, and luckily we had that in ninth grade, so I got to have a bit of fun. I met the head Informatics teacher, Emma Dornescu, one day when I pretended to be innocent when I entered the IT laboratory and she was writing something, most likely for the secretaries, because they were pretty much incompetent and lazy;

I remember the dialogue going something like this (quoted):

- Good afternoon. My name is Ionică Dumitru. I was wondering if you can tell me if I have a good computer or not. It’s a Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM, a 60 GB hard drive, and a GeForce 2 video card.
- And you’ve come here to brag?
- No. Of course not. I just wanted to know if it’s good and if I can help you with anything at the IT lab.
- Yes. It’s good, it’s very good.

Later on I started helping with stuff at that IT lab, including writing documents whenever I had the opportunity to go there because the teacher of the subject had not shown up to hold the lesson.

I remember that our Geography teacher also was pretty generous and humorous. He was the only Geography teacher I ever liked. There was this time when he had something to do and he had told us to stay inside the classroom; I felt the need to get some fresh air, however, so I went out and wandered a bit through the school garden. Meanwhile he came back and asked where I was. The students didn’t know so, knowing about me always going to the IT lab he looked for me there... but the IT lab was closed. When he came back in the classroom he saw me out the window and said “What are you doing? Get back inside this instant!” and then laughed at the end of the lesson when I wanted to apologize.

He wasn’t also not that severe when it came to grading us... or maybe it was just his sense of humor, for example when I had used “I’m sorry sir. I think I’ve missed that. I study by skip-reading...” as an excuse for not studying some details he wanted me to know.

As I mentioned, I wanted to move to another class, the one with Mathematics and Informatics. For that I had to study pretty hard throughout the whole year and in the summer vacation; I had to do that because there were things which the students in Philology didn’t study in Mathematics, Physics, and Informatics – especially basic computer programming knowledge.

During the summer vacation I had studied math with the help of my new tutor. She was pretty severe and gave me a lot of homework. I guess that proved useful in the end, even though – by the way – I had just joined the computer network my neighbors created between them and I had Internet access for the first time, and my homework left me quite little time for myself to use for fun with network computer games and talking to people over the Internet (or even within the local area network, with a program called Network Assistant).

I also had tutoring in Physics class, to understand some things I couldn’t in class, and also to catch up to the stuff my future colleagues learned. As a side story, this is the way I met and became close friends with my Physics teacher from ninth grade.

All the work I had to do during summer resumed to the special exams I had to take along with other children – who did not fully graduate the year. I had taken the exam in Informatics where I wrote a lot of things about computer hardware, and computer viruses. The head Informatics teacher seemed a bit disappointed about me not taking the subject in programming; I was only a beginner, though.

The Physics and Math exams didn’t go that well although the head Math teacher allowed me to pass them and thus to be able to move to his class – he was the class master of the Mathematics and Informatics class.

I wasn’t the only kid who wanted to transfer there, by the way. Some other student wanted to do that and in Informatics class the teacher allowed him to pretty much copy everything I wrote in my exam, in order for him to be allowed to pass. I did not like that.

So I passed and started the 10th grade with my new classmates. That’s when my worst troubles began.

I don’t really remember much from years 10 to 12, just a few events and details; I guess my mind doesn’t really want to remember much about that...

The thing that bothered me the most was one of my colleagues who was completely sexually obsessed, and not just that but he was extremely awkward, stupid looking and was proud of himself for everything he did, too.

I really hated that guy and I wasn’t afraid of showing it. The more he did, the more he talked to me, and just the way he talked to me made me hate him and his kind so much that I would’ve done anything to see him gone.

I remember asking him a simple question once, about something special he did. Don’t remember what that was, though, but his answer was, naturally, extremely stupid: “Through perseverance and a lot of sex.”

Sometimes when we had Biology class our teacher would move us to another special classroom. There my colleagues would always do something stupid like putting a bone in a skeleton’s crotch...

That also reminded me of eighth grade when we had Human Anatomy as a subject and, of course, my immature colleagues made fun in every possible way of whatever the teacher said, especially when it came to reproductive organs. I do not see the point in making fun of a part of your body.

In 10th grade the true nightmare regarding Geography class had only just begun. We didn’t have the same teacher as the Philology class. We had the worst teacher in school. I used to call her the “demon lady” because her eyes were so black you couldn’t make a difference between her iris and her pupil. She gave me my first very bad mark of high school because I couldn’t memorize 100 capitals of the World. I just couldn’t; my memory works differently. She had no heart, however, and forced me to memorize them. That effectively destroyed my memory forever. After that event I was effectively unable to memorize anything I didn’t like anymore, and she probably knew it. She hunted me throughout the years until she finally managed to make me fail at least one semester in 12th grade.

About in 11th grade the high school had received a donation of IBM computers so they made a new IT lab. It was managed by both my Informatics and my Physics teacher. I remember there was one funny event when I went to the IT lab and for some reason the Physics teacher on her knees or rather “on four legs” and she looked like she was doing something behind a computer while she was talking to the Informatics teacher; she was probably arranging some cables but she still said “It’s not what it looks like!!” to me...

Another interesting event was when my Informatics teacher did something pretty abusive, telling me that she’ll give me a very bad mark if I don’t help one of her friends or... rather one of the employees of the high school. I was supposed to install an operating system on his brand new personal computer, which I did. However, after that I had to visit him at his home for some reason, maybe to install some CD burning software and show him how to use it. I recall doing that too.

That day I’ve been away for a bit too long and my mother became worried. When I got home she knew where I was and she slapped me for lying to her about where I was going. I did not, however, know I was going to be away for that long; that day I didn’t have much to do and I thought I would be done pretty quickly.

Something I miss doing from that period of time is going to a computer store called “Best Computers” which resided basically on the same street where I had bought my first computer. I had a friend who worked for them and I visited him from time to time, talking about computer components and computer games. I guess it was a time when I really wanted to have someone to talk to...

Last, but not least, last required year of school, 12th grade. Throughout high school I kept being tutored in Math, Literature and French... for obvious reasons.

This was the last year of school and immediately after it the Baccalaureate exam would follow, the biggest and hardest exam of my life, which is also the reason why people call it “The Exam of Life”.

I barely managed to pass 11th grade and my sadness and depression grew more and more along the way. Throughout the years I’ve become more and more dark, sad and depressed, all because of school. My only happiness at the time was visiting some site called Husky.ro. I found out about huskies recently and I was a bit obsessed with them so I read about their personality and discovered that they were like me. They would make the perfect friends to me.

By the end of 11th grade I wanted to kill myself before reaching the age of 18. The thing that stopped me was the fact that we got new neighbors that summer and they had two Siberian huskies, so I got to spend time and play with the dogs, thing which made me happy for the first time in a long while. In a way huskies, especially the youngest one, saved my life – at least for now. My happiness had to be ruined by 12th grade when the demon Geography teacher finally managed to fail me, at least that semester.

That made me swear that if I wouldn’t even get a chance to take the Baccalaurate exam or, if I would fail it, I would kill myself.

From that point onward I was completely discouraged; I had lost all hope, especially because I had a 50% chance to also fail Math and even Physics. At the point of failing three subjects I would automatically repeat the whole year. I would not have accepted that, even if it meant I would have to die to finally be free.

Ironically, I got saved at the very last moment by the person I expected the least. My French teacher from 10th grade onward, with whom I had become good friends with over the years, had blackmailed both the Geography and Math teachers into allowing me to graduate. He was very severe regarding marks in his class and if I wasn’t allowed to pass, he would fail most of the other students as well... so the price for their lives was mine.

In a way I felt redeemed by that, because even if not by my own will, I would finally get my revenge for all they’ve done to me over the years.

During 12th grade I had taken a lot of pictures of myself and of other things with the – at the time – brand new VGA camera phone my mom bought me at the end of 11th grade; that was also the first ever type of camera I got and it really meant a lot to me. I’ve always wished to have my own camera, as much as I wished to have my first PC.

A few days before the Baccalaureate exam began I had taken a few last pictures of myself, at least I thought they were going to be. I entered the corridors of the place I had to take the exams thinking that I would directly fail it. However, that had not been the case, because I am writing this now, five years after this event.

The Baccalaureate exam was not without events, though. I had to take 6 exams, in the following order: Romanian – oral, French – oral, Romanian – written, Math, Biology, and English – written.

The written exam in Romanian has been a disaster throughout the country, as the largest exam created a lot of confusion regarding a character you would have to analyze him for being an intellectual. About half the contestants chose a bad character, and half of this number failed the exam because they chose the wrong one out of all possibilities. I was among the ones who made a wrong choice, but I did choose the good one to talk about, even though it wasn’t completely correct.

I had a great chance to fail the Math exam too, because of the subject papers they had given me; they didn’t fit the type of math I learned in high school and if I hadn’t asked for the right one I would’ve gotten 0 points; it didn’t matter if it wasn’t my fault, I would’ve had to take the exam again.

The Biology and English exams went well and in fact I got the highest mark in the English one; I had to write an essay about a time in my life where “one today is worth two tomorrows” but I couldn’t think of anything like that because I had no such event. I did, however, remember one of the episodes of Life with Louie, the one about the time when his grandmother died, and I adapted that story and wrote the essay about that. I hope my mother doesn’t think I wasted my time watching TV anymore...

The thing which made me proud of myself - and I’m still proud of it even today - is the fact that I had passed the Baccalaureate exam without even attempting to cheat, despite people advising me to do the opposite.

The Four + 1 years of Faculty

The worst part of my life was now finally over. Now that I had passed the Baccalaureate exam I was finally free and able to go to a faculty, where I hoped to find decent people and maybe a different atmosphere, and so it was.

The colleagues here were much different than what I’ve been used to so far. It didn’t lack undesirable people either, but the difference was huge. I had finally been able to make some friends and have topics of discussion and even play games, from paper games like “pen soccer” to PC video games through elaborate virtual local area networks.

It hasn’t been easy, though; of all the subjects I’ve only liked the Cisco Technologies courses which included the IT Essensials and CCNA Exploration courses.

Everything else felt boring to me, and sometimes completely useless. I had courses in Math, Physics, Electronics, Electronic Logic, and Computer Programming. I wasn’t really good at any of them and I struggled to pass them all; even if I did have a few remnant exams it was much different than all I’ve had to endure all these years.

There have been times when I thought I wouldn’t make it, meaning I wouldn’t graduate but I just kept going anyway. I guess I wanted to see where that road would take me.

The biggest problem I had, along with about half of the other students in my class, was with Electronics. The teacher, a politician whose name is Bobulescu, is quite severe in grading students and didn’t allow anybody to pass unless they’ve knew at least half of the entire subject matter. I’ve tried taking his exam three times and each time was a failure; the fourth time I had to pay a tax in order to be able to take the exam again, but I did finally manage to pass it that time, along with one or two other colleagues.

I must admit that exam was one of the hardest of my life. Compared to this the hard exams I had to pass at our Programming teacher were piece of cake – despite having to do one or two favors for him, because I still had to work a lot to get a passing grade.

Speaking of CISCO, I’ve passed most of its exams without cheating. The problem was that their exams are inflexible and if you fail the exam once you’ll probably get asked the same question again. I had failed the very final exam, the one for CISCO CCNA 4, and had to take it again. I really didn’t want to cheat but I had no choice, given the fact that in order to pass you need at least 8 out of 10 – and I’ve got 7.90 in my first attempt.

There haven’t been any memorable events, not bad or sad ones anyway. One of my first exam days, however, had been rather funny. We had to take two exams in the same day, one right after another. The was the first exam I had in year one, in Programming class. The teacher told us that when were ready we could go and leave the paper on his desk, to which, because I didn’t know much about what to write, I said “Really?”, meaning that it wouldn’t have been impossible for me to bring the blank pages...

In year two me and my colleagues used to have fun during the recess between Programming class by synchronizing our phones to sing the “Still Alive” song from Valve, from the game Portal. It was also a way for me to test my freshly bought Orange SPV E650 at the time; I bought that phone mostly out of my own earned money, because I had worked for the ISP called “Lightning-net” – the one that used to also be my ISP - for a few months.

I was pretty impressed with the phone’s capabilities at the time; true multitasking on a phone wasn’t something you would see every day.

Later on, in year 3 I became friends with more colleagues and we started doing a lot of stuff together, like going to pizza restaurants together, playing pool, air hockey, arcade video games and more.

In October that year I’ve also built my latest gaming computer, to commemorate a decade since I had bought my first computer.

Later on, also in year three whenever we were at faculty we would do something fun or stupid, depending on our mood; that went from playing “Chicken Invaders” and “Plants vs. Zombies” on the faculty’s computers to Counter-Strike, Quake III Arena, Warcraft 3 DoTA, playing with paper airplanes through class, and so on... while the teachers were telling stuff to whomever wanted to listen – but we weren’t among those people, of course.

Speaking of which, there was this teacher I had in GSM Technologies class that gave each of us a project, and at the end of the faculty year we presented it and we were supposed to get graded. I remember saying a pretty mean joke related to jews outloud that day, and the teacher looked at me in a pretty upset way; the thing that made me say that joke was a few Stars of David scratched into the desk I was sitting at. Anyway, the way our teacher looked at us made me wonder if I had failed in a horrible way, meaning that he was actually Jewish. I may never know...

Everything has to end sometime, however, so in year 4 we stopped doing all these things; one of the reasons for that was that we didn’t have to go to faculty anymore, and instead we had to write our graduation projects.

I chose mine in programming, the topic was about Algorithms. I chose to make it in such way to be like an introductive course.

Unrelated to all this was the fact that my mother had the idea to get me to do some voluntary work. She went to some NGO fest and found an interesting organization called The New Horizons Foundation; they do volunteering with their so called “IMPACT” clubs in high schools.

I decided to give it a try and see what can come of this, so I went to their little forming course, although working with people was definitely not for me. However, it was pretty cute; I could still help with IT, which was exactly what I did for about two years now.

I must admit that I couldn’t really stand one of the persons there, who was also the most charismatic. Unfortunately, when she had to leave, everything related to the volunteering in that school. Anyway thanks to the volunteer training I got to meet a few people and make a few new friends. One of them is an artist who has made two awesome gifts for me and for someone very special to me.

Speaking of which, in March 2010, about half of my last year of faculty, I’ve met a German girl, the person who turned out to be the love of my life, and the only one I’ve ever been able to truly love; it was a feeling I had never felt before, and much different than what I knew to be simple attraction.

It was the first time I felt truly happy in my entire life, and we are so much alike that I had felt her to be my true mate for life since the very first days.

It was also very unexpected too, given the nature of both of us, especially the fact that I’ve fallen in love with her for who she really is. I haven’t even seen her at first and yet it felt so wonderful that no words can ever describe it, and we’ve been doing everything together ever since.

It was the first time I was truly happy to be alive and the first time I had regretted my suicidal thoughts from 12th grade; I am extremely grateful I did not do that deed, otherwise I would’ve never met her, and she means everything to me.

Master and Faculty of Letters

The last chapter in this story, and also the reason for my last depression is the post graduate courses I tried to attend at the Polytechnics University, mostly because my mother had forced me to. My entire depression has been generated by the fact that I was extremely enthusiastic about these courses but in the end it turned out I am not capable of studying in that rhythm any more and I’ve lost several months of my life for nothing.

I also went to a second faculty, because I really wanted to learn German; I wanted that my entire life but I never got to. In the end I couldn’t keep up because I tried doing them both at the same time. It didn’t matter, however, because the faculty of letters wasn’t really for me. The first year has been enough for it to serve the purpose I went there in the first place: to get a good start with German.

I have resigned my studies at both of them, the master in December and the other in June; I know my limits.

It is when I have fully resigned that my depression started to fade away and I started feeling much better.

Anyway, if it wasn’t for literature I would’ve wanted to continue studies at the Faculty of Letters; however, I really can’t stand that, so therefore here ends this chapter of my life.

End of an era.

I have written this document because I am still sometimes haunted by memories of my past and I want to let go of them, at least not keeping them inside; those were the school memories of Dumitru-Mihail Ionică, an Aspie now graduate Engineer in Computers and Information Technology.

Thanks for reading.