  Shall I begin a series on tales of high school nothings? My stalking activities led me to unearth certain memories from the tenth grade, which is to me "the limbo year" because it lingered somewhere between the rebellious mayhem of ninth grade and the golden age of eleventh. Demographically, tenth grade was somewhere between the mass defection of fellow classmates to TAS and the last-minute arrivals of William and Tina. Academically, it was somewhere between "screw school" and "I better study for the SAT if I want to get out of here.
" It was during this time that a rather interesting angst-filled former goth-turned-bubblegum punk girl named Rui Cheng joined the 10B class. While Lisa and Sandra were busy with student council and Jenny was busy with then boyfriend, I amused myself in Rui's company during her long cigarette breaks on the fifth floor stairwell. Schooldays were spent listening to her stories about performing arts school, growing up in New York, picking on "that loser Macaulay Culkin", having a white (and apparently bonehead) boyfriend who thought Chinese people had gray eyes, ballet dancing in Shanghai, the safe and economical way of body piercing with large safety pins, and how she really really wanted to kill herself.
A few years later, she would've been the poster girl for Hot Topic; but in my opinion, she was the forerunner of all plastic lunchbox carrying Marilyn Manson-esque girls. I helped her cut out Hello Kitty pictures from popsicle boxes while she expounded on the reasons she hated her parents so much. After a rather dazed and confused semester, Miss Rui left. She came to me during afternoon cleanup one day and told me that her parents decided to let her go back to New York.
She asked me if I would miss her. I said I wouldn't miss her, but I'd think about her. I kept true to my word. April 26, 2004. Friendster Message: Rui wrote: holy shit!!! I remember you. It's funny, I just saw Emily wang yesterday. Talk about blast from the past..... How are you??? You're in New York? Hahah. What a small world. Call me if you're around... 
