When I entered 8th Grade
all the smart kids were put into this new educational program called
Gifted and Talented Education, or GATE as we called it. But it wasn't
science or math based, well not really. The two GATE classes we took
were English and I think History. Albert Einstein Middle School already
had advanced classes for advanced Math and Science students, and a fair
number of GATE kids were in those classes, but maybe half weren't.
We had one or two classes worth of GATE students. It was a long time
ago so let's assume that everything I'm writing is as best as I can
remember or what my mind deludes itself into remembering. The sixty or
so kids in those two classes were pretty much the advanced kids when we
went to Hiram Johnson High School. We did get an influx of bright kids
from the other feeder middle school and over the course of 4 or 6 years
I had a lot of classes with these people.
Angela Marie Cauch was just another girl in the GATE program. Since
GATE wasn't hard science based we had a lot of girls actually. Brown
haired, somewhat lithe and probably taller than me -- though back then
(and even today) I don't really notice if people are taller than me,
only that they're taller or shorter than other people I see -- a
relatively normal looking pretty, white girl. Mostly I remember she had
long straight brown hair that went down her back, unusually long for
girls in my school.
I'm not too sure if Angela was in any of my math or science classes. I
was an advanced student in those areas and she wasn't. But she was very
bright and due to the close-knit GATE program, I think she was in all
English/History classes in middle school and probably half those clases
in high school. Back then I sat way in the back (and continued to do so
until I met Fu Shawn in high school and he made me sit up front with
him). Angela tended to sit farther up front. No regular contact, and I
was very shy and hung out with my friends in any case.
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Actually she was more than
pretty. She was beautiful on the outside. But that's something she grew
into during high school. What I noticed first was that she was
beautiful on the inside. Our 8th grade English teacher, whose name I
unforunately forgot, tended to experiment since this was a GATE class.
Hey, she ran the after school roleplaying games club where I met the
6th person of our school clique, Jack Ren.
In 8th grade English we wrote in our journal during the first 10
minutes of class. This is where I started writing my 10-minute RPG
fanzine. Amazing what you can think of in 10 minutes. Lots of new races
and classes and monsters and short adventures and magic items
(everything was AD&D back then). Even multi-part articles if I ran
out of time. But I'm digressing.
Anyway, one day we had a visualization session in English class. Heads
down, relax breath. The teacher talked us through the breathing thing,
clearing our minds, picturing nothing. And then picturing a peaceful
place, with a cabin. And she then asked us to detail it out and spend
time in this peaceful place self actualizing or whatever we were
supposed to do.
Naturally, being a guy I didn't take it that seriously. I had my
octagonal cabin in the forest with a great computer setup and lots of
defenses to repel invaders. Secret tunnel, game room, just a lot of
stuff because this whole session was pretty much the whole 40 minutes
of class. Although I could picture everything clearly I still couldn't
make the leap and actually put myself there.
And then someone was crying. It was Angela. She was sitting on one of
the front-left corner desks sobbing quietly to herself. I looked up,
lots of kids looked up. Our teacher was comforting Angela, who
apparently had gotten really into the whole exercise. That left an
impression on me. And the first indication that I later came to realize
that Angela was a very special person. The first hint that she was a
lot more alive inside than I was.
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