Jean Kirschtein | Cis Male | 16 | Sophmore Student
Jean spent most of his childhood alone. With his father a bank manager and his mother a cop, many of Jean’s dinners were spent in a long dining room with only the eerie clack of silverware on ceramic to keep him company. Despite this, he learned kindness from his nanny, Rita, who homeschooled him for the first seven years of his life.
When he was finally introduced into the private school system at age 8, he got a harsh lesson in bullying. He quickly learned that he needed thicker skin to survive after coming home every afternoon with a new bruise for Rita to cure.
He learns how to fend for himself. He fights with other kids often, for fun. He never gets into fights he knows he can’t win. He becomes strategic with his fights.
His parents started to pay more attention to him as a result but, not in the way he wanted. They sit down with him, have a long talk about feelings, then ship him off to a boarding school in Chicago, then London, then New York: school after school where Jean is asked politely to not come back next year.
By the time he’s fifteen his mother has had enough, his parents have divorced, and his father gives him an ultimatum: he either comes back to Sina and finishes his studies or he gets shipped off to China, never to be heard from again.
It’s not really a difficult choice. So he comes back to his birthplace, ready to shake then town by its foundations yet again, in the only way the Kirschtein men can.
Jean is a harshly honest person. His mouth’s too big, always running off without his permission. This gets him into more trouble than it’s worth. Although there’s bravado and confidence, he cares deeply what people think of him. There’s definitely an ego there as well: a belief of being meant for better things than just this. There’s an air of arrogance that comes with this. His façade quickly crumbles when there’s a big decision lying on his shoulders, though. This is ironic because he works best under pressure—whether on the hockey ice or off.
He is not a team player at all. He is skilled when it comes to sports, but his refusal to play with a team, to help others, has made it almost impossible for him to get into teams in the past. Nowadays, though, thanks to his school counselor, he’s growing in this respect, although, by his own stubbornness, he still has a lot of learning to do.
Although his mother was never one to interact much with him, she left a lasting impression on him. He dreams of growing up and joining the police force of Sina City. He wants to protect and serve the people of this small town, but ultimately, he wishes to be more than his circumstances.
Rita, his nanny/homeschool kindergarten teacher, taught him Spanish, so he is now mostly fluent in it.
He is claustrophobic and often needs to look at the sky, look at how open it is, to calm himself down.
He is a human furnace—he’s almost never cold.
Chosen Electives: Art and Home Ec.
