As for starters, I can say that I am reading the same book Eddie is, but to elaborate more onto his harassment. Mark was ridiculed by his younger brother, harassed by his middle school orchastra and is occasionally made fun of by his "Sensei" or Teacher of Kung Fu. I'm going to start with his middle school orchastra, "I started the violin when I was four, and showed some promise. When I was five the music teacher at our school invited me to join the orchestra. When I walked into the music room for my first rehearsal, however, it so happened that the teacher had just stepped out of the room for a moment. That was all the older kids needed to reduce me to tears with their teasing - 'Look at the baby! Ha, ha!' - and that was the end of the violin for me. (pg. 51)" Although his music teacher was confident he was a great player, he ended up leaving band the first day because of how he was treated the moment he walked in, he was only five at the time and probably didn't understand why people were making fun of him, so he ran out on the spot.
As for his younger brother Erich, he would harass him with his dream of being a Zen Monk. He would make fun of him while they were eating dinner by just doing obnoxious things. "Erich would rush to empty his plate, then point to my still-unfinished dinner and say, 'If you ate with a fork and knife like a normal person you'd be done by now and we could eat dessert.' (pg.54)" Little things like that from your family can really ruin your self esteem.
As for his Kung Fu teacher, well he's a real piece of work. Whenever he was drunk and made at something Mark did he would say something along the lines of, "I don't want to see any more of that pussy bullshit, I want you to do what I've been telling you every goddamned lesson, which i: Forget all your fancy book learning and your pretty technique and forget about protecting your pretty little face! (pg. 44)" I would go on with the quote, however it is literally a page long rant on how much of a "candy ass" Mark is.
Me personally, I was ridiculed for the littlest things. I enjoy playing online games, which are labeled something that thirty-something year olds do in their parents basement while eating hot pockets and weighing over 400lbs. I also get ridiculed sometimes for just how I dress, how I look, however what I did was dish something back to them. I would respond to them in ways that would make these small minded fools back off immediatly. Sometimes I would play on their homophobia (Even though I am heterosexual I found this hilarious), I would look them straight in the eye and tell them that they were "cute". After a while of doing this they finally just stayed away from me, either grossed out or the knowledge that I am getting a rise out of them making fun of me rather than them getting a rise out of me getting mad.
(Not part of the word count even though I vastly exceeded it), I'm not sure if everyone would get why I put the Pheonix as a picture for this post, so just so you don't think it's just some random, cool, bird that is born of fire. I put it here as a symbol to show how people can be "Reborn from ashes" from being ridiculed or harassed by someone.
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