All About Justin
or
What The Heck Happened To Justin To Make Him Turn Out This Way
| Once upon a time, Justin, who likes to talk about himself in the third person, was born in Illinois in a little place called Centralia. For the first six or seven years of his life he lived in Skokie where he attended the Jane Stenson Elementary School. Justin was one of the few Asians in the school ("Look maw, an ayshun.") and, as can be expected, short for his stature. In fact, one of the girls would occasionally piggy back him around, he was so small. Justin was quite the ladies' man back then. One of his earliest birthday memories is being invited over to a girl's house after school. Unfortunately, Justin forgot to tell his mother he was doing so, and after the extensive manhunt turned him up at the girl's house ("Your mother is very worried."), his mother demonstrated her love and fear for his safety by beating the living daylights out of him. This is probably why Justin associates girls with pain. Extreme pain. And although Justin got to play ice hockey, which was fun, his mother also forced him to learn how to figure skate. Guess how many guys were in the class with him. Right. Justin was well on his way to being psychotically scarred at the tender age of five. Around this time is also when he picked up his best friend, the pink elephant. So to recap, coming out of Illinois, Justin associates girls with extreme pain. Justin has to cope with being a sissy. And, leaving everyone behind, Justin's best friend is a small pink elephant. |
Illinois: Sam Lang, in a strange inverse, was born in Arizona and moved to Illinois. |
| For two years Justin lived in Tucson, Arizona. This is when Justin began playing the violin. His mother loved to hear Justin play. She was ecstatic and it must have made her very happy. Justin knows this because that has got to be the only reason she made him practice like THREE STINKING HOURS A DAY. Although Justin got very good at it, Justin also developed a strong aversion to practicing. So to recap, Justin is now a skinny little Asian kid, wearing thick plastic framed glasses, who has to carry a violin around all the time. And his mom dresses him funny. He associates girls with extreme pain, and his best friend, since he was in two different schools over two years, is still a small pink elephant, who has started to gather a number of other furry friends. This, incidentally, is when his mother tried to break him of his attachment to his elephant (see the story section for details) but only made him very paranoid about his elephant's safety. |
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Serena Lei: Serena was in the same grade as Justin at Travilah, although she didn't really know him except by sight. However, she would show up in his InterVarsity small group Freshman or Sophomore year, at Hopkins, in a bizarre coincidence. Joan Chen: Apparently, Joan Chen was poking around Bethesda sometime around then, although they didn't attend the same school, and so never had any contact. |
Now in the sixth grade, Justin was in Gaithersburg, Maryland, at Travilah Elementary. Seventh and eighth grade saw Justin move to Bethesda and attend the TW Pyle Junior High. These stand out as two of the worst years in Justin's entire life, although only a small part of this was due to school.
At this point, his mom is no longer dressing him funny. However, since he doesn't know any better, Justin is now dressing HIMSELF funny. In fact, Justin is still dressing himself funny to this day. |
| Freshman year in high school was particularly bad as Justin entered Radnor High School, the richest and most incredibly snobby high school in the area. This place had an enormous indoor swimming pool, about ten lighted tennis courts, etc. etc. Problems at home had Justin failing in so many of his classes that the counselors decided to test Justin's IQ to see if he belonged in the "special" classes instead. However, lo and behold, to his great amusement Justin tested out as gifted, and failing in many of his classes, Justin was offered a place in the gifted program. However, Justin didn't get a chance to savor the irony of this because around December, Justin's parents decided to send him to military school. However, due to two flat tires in a row, they decided this was a "sign" and sent him to stay with relatives in Singapore indefinitely. Which meant six months. The place was so hot and humid, there were palm trees in the backyard. Justin didn't speak Chinese, (the kids spoke perfect English. However, many of the adults spoke little to none.) so, every so often on the way to his nominal classes with a tutor, Justin would miss his stop and ride it all the way to the end of the line. And the family owned a dog so vicious that it was later sent to be a factory guard dog because it kept mauling people. Including Justin, who was trapped with the dog, once, when it got free in the house. Justin's other favorite Singapore story is riding a tandem bike with his cousin. Going down a very steep hill, they were going very fast when suddenly Justin's leg was sucked between the rear tire and the mudguard, which sheared into Justin's leg. Ten years later the scar is still there, although it's finally starting to fade. |
Mag Tan: Mag was somewhere in Singapore/Malaysia around the time Justin was bumming around Singapore. Like Joan, however, she never had the privilege (or curse, as you see it) to meet Justin |
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Returning to Pennsylvania, the year is now the fall of 1990 and Justin resumed school at Radnor with many of his old teachers ...but with one addition; he is now in many of the same classes as his little brother, who he is not on good terms with at the moment. However, he buckles down to classes, makes friends, and ends up around 27th in his class at the end of his Sophomore year. This is also when he first begins to become involved with a church through youth group, (initially, NOT by choice) although he's fallen away for ten years or so, and was never really a Christian in the first place. Halfway through Sophomore year, however, Justin's father passed away. Junior year saw the last switch in schools as he began the last two years in Haverford High School, where the students were considerably less intelligent than Radnor's, but also much less snobby. Senior year, Justin ended with an absurdly high GPA ...but wasn't even in the top 10% of his class because of the switch halfway through high school. Justin is not that bitter about this. Not even when his mother got on his case about being ranked so low. Really. Why would he be. But, since that was ages ago now, it's all in the past, right? Right. |
Albert Jung: Albert was actually a student at Radnor High School at the same time Justin was, but due to the fact that they were years apart, and Justin was shy and nerdy, while Albert was popular and athletic, they never encountered one another in the three years Justin was at Radnor. (Justin is going to have to go looking through his old Radnor yearbook) |
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