drip drip drip, the water was still leaking in from the cieling after the hard rain. Even though most of the other kids seemed to be paying attention in the class just fine what they were teaching just seemed so boring. On the x day of.. which is important because.. it just seemed so uninteresting that watching the water drip off the ceiling and hit a chair in the corner of the room seemed like a better use of my time. So, thats what I did for a good 45 minutes until the teacher had had enough. I was sent to the office like every other day, oh what a terrible tragedy I thought, now I can talk to the receptionist and drink some lemon honey tea. I really liked the office better than the classroom most of the time. Against her will, even though the receptionist really liked me, she had to call my mother. About 10 minutes later mom came down and got me. We were sitting on the curb talking, and she really showed sympathy to the situatoin. We talked and talked and eventually after talking for a while we decided that I would go and see a psychologist as a hail mary. I was reluctant, but whatever I thought. It would be quitet in the psychologist’s office which was always nice. The next day I missed school, which was absolutely amazing I thought, more work on more things that I just dont want to do. When I got to the psychologists office I saw what looked like the office of a mathamatician not a psychologist. She had drawings of fractals and klein bottles, and an infinite mirror with a little picture of a hotel in it. Her name was Ms. Li the most energetic psychologist I could have ever imagined. We didnt do any talking about feelings, or about my childhood, or any of that stuff. We ended up just talking about different ideas in math and other things. I asked her why she just talked to me about math the whole time, and she said that when she was going into studies after college the registrar messed up her paperwork, she hardly went to class because she competed in different math competitions, so by the time she realized, it was too late. Although, she noted, it worked out pretty good in the end. For a very specific type of individual the type of psychologist they need is not one that asks them a question and discusses the solution, but one that gives them a problem and lets them figure out the solution. I was a bit taken aback, but I asked her for a question. A bit dubious that this was helping me pay attention in history class, but atleast it was interesting. She said this “Suppose I am given the sum and difference of two numbers. How can I figure out the numbers themselves?” I worked on the problem for a while until I had it. Whatever their sum is you make that many vertical lines. then place a dot either between the middle or on the top of the middle line. If their sum is even, divide their difference and move that many spaces between the lines to the left. On the left and right side of the dot are the same number of lines as are your original numbers. If you have an odd sum, first start on the middle and add 1 to their difference, divide by 2 and move that many spaces to the right. She was jotting down so many notes that I thought the lead in her pencil was going to break. “This is really great stuff” she said. I didnt know it as the time but this was a sort of rorshoch test. I would meet with her every week for about six months doing these puzzles and her taking notes. History was still the same terrible, but atleast being in her office was nice. After a little while longer she offered me a place in this new program called TDRC. The Teen Development Research Center. From it’s bland name you wouldnt guess it was anything more than some wing of a university, but I would soon find out what it was hiding behind the boringness. I accepted the offer and she made a call to some unknown number. I didnt think much of it, but it wasnt 30 minutes later when an all black van came to pick me up. Josh willson they said “Yeah?” I replied. You’re with us now. The confusion masked any anxiety I had so I got in and we were off.

Part 1 Fin