The Evolution of Stev Part I

So awhile ago I mentioned that I would blog a little bit about my history. I have known all of you a very long time, by my standards, and perhaps you have learned a thing or two about who I am and where I've come from. Perhaps inspired by "Galfing: A Young Man's Guide" I've decided to take you guys on a little adventure down Stev's past lane, and see what we can find. In Mike's novel he talks a lot about the hardships in his past, I too suffered from different hurdles in life, as both of our families decided to immigrate to the States. However, my story will have to wait as I can only really take so much sadness at once. Instead I decided to talk to you about how it is that I became the person I am today, here is the story of the first part of my evolution into the person you guys came to know in your final years at UM.

First of all a little history. I was the most quiet child in my house at one point. Yeah I know, very difficult to believe or even perceive but it is true. I used to "suck my tongue" which in itself is a hard thing to explain. It's like sucking your thumb except I didn't use my thumb, yeah weird I know. In any case I spent much of my childhood observing the world and the happenings around me. The best way to observe, I learned, was to just be invisible and let events unfold around you without interfering. As a result, I learned not so much from my own experiences, but through the trials and errors of other people that I watched. So really by the time we moved back to Baltimore and I entered Middle School I was in trouble and had no real way to make friends. I formulated a plot of get myself noticed at Pine Grove Middle School. We all went through middle school and usually what happens is that everyone befriends other kids in 6th grade, and those friends you usually keep the next three years. I arrived the 2nd half of 7th grade year, so everyone was already clicked off and I was pretty much screwed. For some reason I remember sitting on the rainy bus stop one morning, reading "A Tale of Two  Cities" (oddly enough Sweeney, as this is your last post title) and seeing two worms crawl around on the sidewalk. Almost like an apple falling from a tree the idea came to me, "THAT's IT!" I said to myself. What better way to get everyone to notice you then to do something incredibly stupid in front of everyone. I would later learn to regret my specific choice because low and behold girls don't particularly want to kiss a guy who eats from the earth. But 7th grade me didn't really base all my decisions on girls at the time so I thought it was a flawless idea. I grabbed the two worms, nested them on my hardback copy of the book, and boarded the bus. On my way to school that day I did some trials to see if I could actually put the worms in my mouth. I had never eaten anything slimy or squishy before and I was actually a pretty picky eater growing up. So I placed the first, longer, worm in my mouth and held it there for awhile, to see what it felt like. I could feel it squirm around and then almost force itself down my throat so I spit it back up. It was then that I decided I would just have to go for it and no preparations could really be made, as I thought this my bus pulled up into its numbered spot and it was showtime.

Something about my middle school, it was a one story building with no windows. In the mornings all the students and a handful of faculty would wait under a pavilion in front of the school until the first bell rang. This was perhaps the biggest social event of the day, besides lunch. Because of this, people would often pull stunts here and everyone would draw their attention, Anything from public breakups to fights, so of course I figured this was the Perfect time to do my deed. I stepped off the bus, took and deep breath, and said something to get everyone's attention. I don't really remember what I said, but im sure it wasn't anything cool or didn't have any showmanship to it. Nevertheless, everyone reluctantly gave me their attention. This is probably the only time in my life I haven't gotten nervous before a big event, but perhaps I was so determined to make a statement that I just didn't have time to think about what I was doing. I slowly lifted the worm off the book, held it between my index finger and thumb, and lowered it directly into my throat. Swallowing something foreign and not seemingly edible is very similar to taking a beer bong. You have to open up the back of your throat, and swallow quickly without giving yourself enough time to think about it. In what seemed like minutes, the worm was down and a wave of mixed reactions went through the crowd. There was the common "EWWWWWWWWW" from most of the girls, some cheering from a couple of weird kids, a look of disgust from the teachers present, and some people just didn't know what to think or say. My guess is that most people thought I was bluffing and that I wouldn't actually eat it, so when I did they were just dumbfounded. I would like to say that there was a eruption of applause and I became an instant hit at my middle school, but unfortunately it was nothing like that. I don't really know what I thought would happen, but I def thought SOMETHING would happen. Soon after the bell rang and everyone went about their normal activites, I however, was unsatisfied. It was then I plotted my next move, ok so if a wide scale demonstration wasn't going to work then perhaps a smaller one would, what better place than HOMEROOM. I took care not to lose my second worm, and headed to my homeroom, which happened to be geography, my most hated subject (even to this day). When I got to the classroom people had apparently seen or heard about me as I could tell from the looks I was getting. Some of the more curious kids started to ask me how I did it, or how it tasted, or whatever and I told them that I would show them. Our homeroom teacher was a chaperon in the cafeteria during breakfast so she always arrived to the classroom late, it was during the time-frame that I made my move. This time I played with the worm, swishing it around in my mouth before I got ready for the final gulp....big mistake. Right before I swallowed, our teacher rushed in wondering what all the commotion was about. Instead of finishing my food, I spit it back out into my hands and turned around. She inquired what I had in my hand and of course I lied saying "nothing" but it's pretty hard to hide an alive worm covered in saliva. Eventually she found out and sent me to GUIDANCE!!!!! Apparently I was troubled and needed counseling after this. Surely enough I had to see the Counselor for the next full week of school to talk about why I did what I did.

The moral of the story here is that I actually made friends from this act. The first person to talk to me was a girl, oddly enough, named Erin. She was actually pretty cute from what I remember but I immediately placed her in the "friend" category. I think it was because of her that I made my core group of guy friends, as all of them ended up having a thing for her. The reason I mention this story is because it was really the first time in my life that I decided I had control of my social destiny. It was also the first time I really realized that I was "different" from everyone else and that a normal quiet way of life just wasn't for me. Coincidentally all my friends ended up being pretty intelligent and we all graduated with honors. In case you guys didnt' know, the "GT" (Gifted and Talented) kids and the "AP" (Advanced Placement) kids are usually always the weird kids in high school, so really I fit right into the mold.

On a side note, I was terrible with girls in middle school. I had become known as "the guy who ate the worm" and thus most girls wanted nothing to do with me. Thanks to Erin people started to see my differently and by 8th grade I was almost one of the normal kids, although no one forgot about me eating the worm, but I guess that was the point. Needless to say eventually some girls started talking to me. For some reason I decided the cool thing to do was write poems to girls I liked. As Mike O would say, this was my "nice guy" phase and let me tell you I def finished last. My biggest mistake of them all was that I wrote poems to an entire group of friends. I didn't realize at the time that once you pick one friend, the other ones become off limits. So while the girls all loved the poems and thought I was "really sweet" none of them really wanted to give me the time of day. This went on for all of middle school, where the only girl I dated dated me for a month because she "felt sorry" for me....yeah quite the ego booster right there. Anyways I eventually gave up and receded into my nerdy "GT" role and focused on school and video games.

It was in this next phase of my life, high school where I decided that it was time to make another change. Being the nerdy type was fine for my plans of college, but from a social standpoint, and for actually wanting to meet girls it was doing me no good. See all this cute girls in my school were in standard or honors classes, so I never got to talk to them in class, I would have to do something different, but I was too much of a punk or scaredy cat to try, until my sophmore year....