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[PATV]: Season 3, Episode 8: Mitigated (4th Panel)
Robert Khoo
Registered User, ClubPA staff
Registered User, ClubPA staff
Some guy.
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At first I was chuckling... but then I heard his voice and really looked and saw the teary eyes and... shit.
Well now I remember something for myself.
Spoiler for long:
So one day when we were in the 7th grade, we were all taken to the closest High School. It was a common thing until recently so that kids could decide which High School to go to and help convince their parents.
We did the tour of the facilities, had a laugh with an older friend of mine who was demoing all the cool chemicals and shit we'd get to play with, with the science teacher when he singed his eyebrow off. It was pretty great.
Then we all went to the hall, where the principal was supposed to tell us how awesome it would be if we all decided to come to their school. While I was waiting someone came to sit next to me. I didn't recognize her at first, but soon I remembered. Lisa was the older sister of a neighbor girl I was best buds with ages ago before the moved away. Turns out she was Head-Girl there. She said she recognized me and hat to come say hi. I was honestly really touched.
Then the principal came up. He talked a bit about their Rugby team and how awesome they were (they weren't, one of the worst teams in the city really... still are) and their Hotel School (this was actually cool, they were the first school to offer Hospitality Management as an actual subject and even ran a small restaurant staffed by students on the weekends) and then he got to their Comp-Sci section.
"What some of you kids might not know is we have a pretty advanced supercomputer here."
Me: What?
"It's pretty amazing, I tell ya! You can type in any question and it will spit out the answer on the screen. Anything! And it's always right!"
I'm thinking this guy is a moron.
"Why we asked it a question today even. And it spat the answer right out, and I'm pretty sure it's right as usual hahaha!"
Whatever man get on with it, I got books to read at home.
"We asked it, 'Computer: Who is the smartest person..."
No
"...in (my primary school)?"
nononononopleasenopleasepleasepleasenonono
"And it said: Falx! Where are you son? Stand up so we can see the smartest kid in there!"
fuckfuckfuckfuxkfucknoplease
I stood up.
Lisa applauded looking pleased.
I wanted to die, everyone was staring at me. The kids, teachers parents who came with to get info.
"So you're pretty smart then I guess, eh? Whats the highest score you've ever gotten on maths? I bet it was at least 95% right?"
Maths was my worst subject. I'd always hated it. 81%.
"Really? Oh... I see..."
He looked displeased.
"Well you're pretty big too aren't ya, strong looking as well as smart!"
I was the tallest kid in school and kinda hefty.
"You'd do great in our Rugby team, we can work something out to keep your grades up too!"
I couldn't play rugby. Asthma and a grass allergy meant I was wheezing no matter how fit I was if it was on a grassy field.
I can't remember when I was asked to sit down again.
It was only much later that I realized Lisa probably didn't really want to talk to me either, but was asked to try and butter me up.
STEAM
Then I unpaused the video and saw that he wasn't over it at all. Haha, I guess I sorta feel bad about it now. Kinda wish he'd get over it now though. I mean, we've read tales of absolutely soul-crushing moments (remember the guy who was trying to spell "I am poor" in pennies?) on this forum, and most people can laugh about it afterwards.
I guess we can all be thankful that Mike didn't turn into a supervillain.
I'm guessing we won't be getting more details about this, but I sort of wonder what his father was doing. If I had a son and this happened to him, I'd be pissed.
Reminds me of when people sarcastically cheer ice hockey goalies when they make a routine save after letting in many goals. I'll probably go ballistic if this ever happens to me.
Who would allow that kind of a monster to interact with children!?
But anyway, a useful reminder to me: never patronise my children.
Too Galactic for you.
I was the smart kid in my elementary school, and at the end of the year they had one of those award ceremonies where they give out the ribbons for the kids with perfect attendance, and all that shit. And ended up going up to the stage several times to get stuff. Nothing really amazing, just you know, things that a kid who reads for fun and is good at arithmetic can do without too much effort, in grade school, where most kids don't. Well, after about the third time, someone sitting behind me had put a 'kick me' sign or something on my back so most of the whole auditorium was laughing at me as I went up. I was pretty mortified.
Damn.
I feel pretty lucky now that I think back, that for the most part my teachers recognized my painful shyness and didn't do shit like that to me.
Like the closest thing to it was a teacher reading a poem I wrote (God!) in front of the class... but at least she was nice enough not to tell the class who wrote it.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
It still sucked though, because they immediately took me out after that and were giving me all the bullshit praise. Feels fucking terrible and I swore I'd never play ever again. Sort of resented my father for a good while after that.
i told him i was really bad at it!
and he said 'oh, but you play videogames right? doesn't that improve your coordination?'
i think i still love him a little bit to this day
On the black screen
I won't go into detail, but essentially I was in with/was one of the dweebs and the wierdos pretty much all throughout elementary-middle school. We were the nerds who just accepted everyone who was weird or ostracized. I guess I don't think about it now much, but that story resonated strongly with me. The mentally disabled kid part especially, 'cause I had many a friend like that- the kid with epilepsy that all the stupid "cool" kids wouldn't hang out with, the kid who didn't speak English well 'cause it wasn't his native language, etc. I had those friends. They were great people. We just didn't mix well with sports. Or, I guess, other kids our age. Actually, now that I think of it I kinda was thrown out of the loop around high school and only could hang out comfortably with people 2-3 years older, since people in my age grouping got REALLY clique-y around then. But anyway, that stuff does stick with you- but it's important to remember it was not your fault and it's one hell of a badge of pride now. It is for me, at least. It definitely gave me a newfound respect for Mike, too.
And this is a little off-topic but, seriously, screw dodge ball. It is an evil game for cruel people.
For an nonathletic wuss, I had aim.
I had one of these moments too, but it was of my own creation, I guess. Creative writing, I was bored and didn't wanna actually do it, so I just copied the plot of Dragonball Z into the medieval fantasy framework we were supposed to do. Names and Ki powers and all.
Then oh joy of joys, the teacher declared it great and read it to the class.
Every Gym Teacher Ever: HUMILIATING CHILDREN MAKES ME HARD >:-D
To be fair, humiliating a gym teacher as a child is amazingly orgasmic too.
I remember it was grade 6, I had this beast of a gym teacher, he said he used to be a pro football player.
So we were playing football for the first time of the year, he decided to join in the game. Six foot three inches man who pretty closely resembles a fridge running around a field with 4-5 foot kids.
Somehow, through no action I approved of, I ended up with the ball and this abomination running down towards me.
So um, I might have panicked, and kicked the ball. It hit him right in the nose.
It was *unbelievably* satisfying watching him stumble around with a bit of a bleeding nose.
I got hit with the puberty stick pretty early. I remember crying in the bath at 9 because I found hair on my balls. So I had enough facial hair growing to justify shaving by 12... except I couldn't because I had such a massive case of acne the Dr. wrote a letter for the school saying I was forbidden from shaving until I clear up. So I was a 13 year old kid taller than some of the male teachers, with a massive beard with huge swollen red pustules poking their way through the hair all over my face.
I didn't get much shit in school about it... I was pretty big after all. I can still remember the stares in public though, especially if I had my school uniform on.
STEAM
Oh, he did, but at least he's OUR super villain.
edit: come to think of it that might have been in a Daily Affirmation or Morning After or something.
It also seems like one of those stories that maybe you don't realize how bad it was while you were experiencing it, but looking back on it and relating it to someone else, you realize that at least it sounds pretty bad.
Pain is pain. Our memories and experiences make us who we are. If I recall correctly, Mike Krahulik is on Lexapro, which is an anti-anxiety med. Disorder aside, it's not at all unreasonable to think some of that anxiety comes from a shit childhood. Pain (especially childhood pain) stays with you no matter how far upward your life may be trending. Of course he's not dwelling on it, but I can't begrudge the guy if it still bothers him to think about.
It's not weird that their parents don't get brought up much on PATV; no weirder than the wives and kids not appearing much in the first season. Past a certain point, that much exposure of someone's private life is creepy.
I like to think of myself as athletic now(at the age of 27) thanks to years of forced activity, but back then my job was to stand underneath the basket and get rebounds.
I never made a basket that I can recall.
I was also thrown into the soccer world ages 5-12, that wasn't much better.
I remember sitting out an entire game once, and on a separate occasion being on a team with a scoreless season and getting the opportunity on our last game to make an easy penalty shot.
Making it shouldn't of been as exciting as it was, we were celebrating the easiest goal anyone could make with the equivalency of a team that just won the championship.
Long, but not super long:
But the worst was when I was a freshman in high school (so 14) and some of my friends were going to join the swim team. I knew how to swim, but not super well, but I thought, well, I'm a freshman, might as well give it a shot, right? I think there was a kind of acceptance that the freshman wouldn't be good and it was okay, and I had this kind of brief impetus that high school was a new place and maybe I would try new things. So I go to a practice. Maybe a second practice. Don't recall. But the freshmen were in a different pool and we were just being taught some of the different strokes, practicing, etc. But towards the end they put us in the big lap pool with everybody else and dispersed us and we were all doing some kind of relay, or something. Basically you had to swim to one end of the pool and back. I could swim, at least the basic stroke, and I didn't give up or anything. But I was painfully slow. Slower than anybody, even the other freshman. At some point on the way back I realize that everyone else was done and everyone was waiting for me. But it seemed like, stupid to just stop at that point (and it would probably just prolong it) so I kept going. It took...forever. So when I get there?
Everybody starts cheering for me. Since I was in a handy body of water already it took a lot of willpower to not drown myself. I said nothing and waited until we could all go back to the locker room. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. You'd think the story couldn't get better, but later I was lectured by an older girl (the older sister of a friend of my little brother's - I think he came over that day or something) about how *I* was in the wrong because *I* was being a bitch because THEY were just trying to be supportive and *I* ignored them all. So I guess when you wonder, why would someone do something like that, that might give you an inkling - because they actually think they're being nice.
I never went back to practice.
That was around eighteen years ago. It's not something I dwell on but the pain is not all that dimmed by time. It's easy to recall.
It's a hard thing, I think, to make sure you don't hurt the kids but that you don't...give them no recognition at all. I mean obviously you never do THAT to a child. My older boy has played soccer for I think five years now. He's eight. He is not good. He's usually one of the weakest players on the team - at least the last couple of years now that kids with skill have really started to develop (4-5 year olds playing soccer is not really something that has any kind of structure). Every year I tell him that he can play if he wants to, and that I won't force him, but that if I pay for him to play he has to commit for a whole season. I actually get afraid I'm too hard on him - I don't care that he's not good but sometimes it seems like he's just screwing around out there and I come down on him for it. But I guess I'm afraid that I might over praise him when he does something well or has a good game. It's certainly genuine and not patronizing. If you don't have kids I'm not sure I can explain how it feels, to root for them. I don't want him to think it's not deserved or make him feel worse, but then I also think it'd be a dick thing to do to say something like "oh, good job on that block, it's too bad it was only once time in the whole game" or let it go by because it wasn't spectacular, or something.
I try really hard to ascertain how he feels about it without coming out and saying anything negative about his performance, but it's difficult to figure out. It seems like if he knows he isn't a very good player it doesn't seem to bother him. I suppose at some point that might change.
But yeah, kids are hard, and I suppose that there could be people out there who just think so differently from most of us here. They figure, everyone likes praise and so this is something appropriate to do. And it's hard to know from the outside which event is going to haunt some kid for the rest of their lives.
Wii: 4521 1146 5179 1333 Pearl: 3394 4642 8367 HG: 1849 3913 3132
November 2006, I was working with a Navy recruiter to enlist. Of course - thinking I'd like to be some kind of Rambo - I start looking at the Special Warfare rates. In particular, I was really interested in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Warfare_Combatant-craft_Crewmen. Or SWCC, for short. Smaller boats, big guns, pick up and drop off SEALs - yadda, yadda, yadda.
I figured the job would be PT-intensive, but I didn't realize how much. So I started a work-out regimen with my recruiter. Only thing was, he was an FC (Fire Controlman). He launched missiles and crap; not exactly a PT-intensive job. Dude was not the guy to go to in preparation for something like what I had chosen. In fact, I should have been seeing what they called "Dive Motivators." Basically, retired SEALs, Navy Divers, SWCC, etc. who helped young potential recruits train for what lay ahead.
Weeks go by and my recruiter calls me up one day, tells me I have to pass a PT test just to qualify for the SWCC contract the following day. That is, before shipping to boot, before even signing my name on the dotted line. I figure its the standard Navy PRT (Push-ups, Sit-ups and 1 1/2 mile run).
Yeah... No.
It was push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, run and then a swim using the combat side stroke.
Now, I don't know about you guys, but the side stroke is a very, very awkward swim for me. Given the fact that I hadn't been notified of this until a day before my test, and I had no clue how to do a proper side-stroke, you could say I showed up less than prepared. Well, I pass the push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and run. I wasn't really sweating those. It was the swim and its strict guidelines that terrified me. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I was the smallest guy there. 5'6', 145 lbs. The rest of the guys there ranged from super fit to meat-head bulky.
I notified the Motivator who was conducting the swim test that I had no clue how to do the side stroke. He gives me a quick tutorial and then orders me into my pool lane. The other guys take off, perfect form, and here I am left doing some kind of hybrid, f'd up version of I don't know what. Now there was a time limit to this swim (complete a certain distance under dictated time). Let me put it this way; I went so far over my time limit (choking on water at this point because I'm just utterly bombing this side stroke thing) that the motivator walks over and says, "Just get out of the pool."
I've never been more embarrassed in my entire life.
This wasn't being made fun of by the high school jocks. It wasn't being humiliated by the pretty girl. It was looking like a complete and utter wimp in front of not only grizzled "old salts," but also in front of guys that were used to competing, used to being the best and who were serious about qualifying for Special Warfare training. Needless to say, I got quite a few "what the hell is this guy doing here" glances.
I've never felt so alone, so stupid and so humiliated in my entire life. Rage burned inside of me thinking about how I hadn't been notified about this test until it was too late. It didn't help that the Motivator took me aside and berated me, demanding to know if I thought that this was some kind of joke.
Anyway...
I ended up shipping to boot in February of 2007 - with a different rate. But I'll never forget that damned test and how humiliated I had felt. It felt like a "nerd gets humiliated" scene from any 1980's high school drama.
P.S. Sorry for the long post. I'm a bit long-winded.