It was the summer of 2004. A 14-year old guy (ahem...me) was dealing with what one might say a "major" life decision. His first one, to be more precise. As much much as I enjoyed the tv series "How I met your mother" I promise not to span this story on 9 seasons.😱

I've graduated middle school with a pretty high grade (8.89/10). In Romania, the education system back then was divided into three categories:

1. nursery - or creche (fr) from 0-3 years old

This is where our parents left usafter maternity leave.

2. Kindergarten

Parents would drop the kids early in the morning, and somebody picked them up around lunch time (usually that task was assigned to one of the grandparents) or Kindergarten II - Extended Version, my case - when mom dropped me in the morning around 8 :

I had breakfast + playtime + storytelling time+lunch+sleep+story telling time again. (Usually, they let me draw around story telling time no.2 - that was cool)

Pictures from holiday breaks in Kindergarten II

A subdivision of the kindergarten is pre-school or translated as the "preparing class" around age six where we drew on lined notebooks sticks and circles and parts of letters. I had a B+ in calligraphy. Part of that is it took me a while not to blur the page because of how a left handed person typically holds a pen. Part of the population considered being a left handed almost a crime and tried to correct it if spotted early on. Usually, it was by forcing the poor kids to write with the right hand. (this could have implied multiple slapping in some cases, or hitting one's left palm with a wooden ruler).

This concept was wide-spread among the teachers in schools and high schools - probably because of the position of "authority" that they held in society for no other reason than being teachers. I was lucky. My father knew that I was left handed and told the teachers not to try that or "there will be trouble."

3. After kindergarten, there was middle school - which was divided into two parts: from age 7 to 10 and from age 10 to 14.

Class of IV C

We were organized in "classes"(grades) (I was Class I C - IV C and then Class V D - VII D). Between class IV and V, you could take a special exam to apply for a "special" (everything was called special around that time) Class V (I got into it at my school and failed at another - but that's another story). The only difference between a special class and a normal class was one class. You studied informatics - on old Pentium 486 - prior to Pentium I - MS DOS and Pascal Programming - allegedly, but we played Warcraft I for an entire hour. I got friends with T. the lab-man (he was supervising the network) and got to use the computers after-hours. That's when I first learned how to change a video card and used internet for the first time. (Remember that thing called mIRC?)

I like to believe that I learned something from each teacher I had from school and a small part of me is made of those learnings.

Somehow I got all the way through 8th grade and passed our General Knowledge exam. It was a test that wanted to find out what we learned from all these years in school. Based on that grade you could get in a good or bad high school. You could get into art school with any grade, but still, I studied for that exam.

I was around 14, and my parents were putting pressure on me to take the admission exam for the art-school. Part of me wanted that, but part of me didn't because I didn't want to lose friendships formed in middle school. (8 years was the longest at that point with V. )

(Don't ask about the moustache)

Growing up I liked to draw but was more of a slacker (that's probably why I couldn't find any drawing from pre-high school era). I didn't require an intense time of practicing to get better at drawing, but I was more of a boom-based kid. Once I got better, I didn't practice enough to be good at it. (There's a Romanian saying for that that goes like this (roughly translated): Good cheese in a dog's skin. - Google tells me that the English equivalent is a rough diamond).

In the end, I followed my parents' advice, and I took the exam (I think I did it mostly for them). It was in another city. Woke up on the day of the exam a bit light headed (the night before I partied at a place called Rockoteque - I'll get to that in a future post.) There was no water due to a plumbing issue happening right then. I put my "Korn" t-shirt on, run some gel through my hair (don't ask), grabbed my pencils, and we got up in the car (My folks usually are supportive people). My dad's car is known for generating high temperatures inside with no cooling options other than the window.

I was pretty set on failing the exam because of that middle school friendship issue I described above.

I first arrived at the "Victor Brauner" Art Highschool on a hot and humid July morning. All the other kids seemed to know each other. I stood there quietly observing how they act and react. My father was sweaty and trying to encourage me. They were going to visit the city once I got into the exam.

I turned my head, and I saw her. That moment changed my life forever.

--- To be continued...

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