G059 - Nguyen, Kimberly

[Ares]

Name: Kimberly Nguyen
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: Senior
School: Bayview Secondary School
Hobbies and Interests: Poetry, guitar, horror novels, the "emo" scene

Appearance: Kimberly is a short (5'4") girl. She is thin, weighing only 125 pounds. Her figure is not particularly feminine; she has few curves due to her lack of body fat. She has shoulder length black hair, a lock of which is bleached. She usually brushes her hair so that some of it is in front of her eyes. Kimberly has dark brown eyes, and wears square glasses at all times. She is somewhat nearsighted, but eschews contacts, feeling that they don't match her image.

Kimberly wears almost exclusively black. She prefers tight jeans and bulky sweatshirts, which she uses to draw attention away from her modestly-sized chest. She often includes elements in her wardrobe that are almost costume-like: fedoras, spiked collars, elbow-length fingerless gloves, so forth. She wears large amounts of makeup, principally black eyeshadow, which does not contrast with her tan skin as well as she would like. She has good complexion; on the rare occasions when she does break out, she gets pimples along her hairline, which she hides under hats.

Kimberly is half Vietnamese and it shows, particularly in the shape of her eyes and nose.

Biography: Kimberly is Vietnamese-American. Her maternal grandparents moved to the United States in 1975, fleeing Vietnam because her grandfather, an outspoken proponent of the American intervention, feared reprisal from the new government. Kimberly's mother was born a month after their arrival in their new country, in Saint Paul Minnesota, where the family was able to rent a home and find work.

Kimberly's mother was not a particularly cautious woman, rebelling against her parents' strict rules at every opportunity. She got pregnant in her sophomore year of high school, and continued her schooling, leaving the newborn Kimberly to be raised by her grandparents. They were more than happy to take her, being somewhat disappointed with how their own daughter had turned out. Her mother moved away after high school, and while Kimberly speaks with her often and sees her several times a year she feels much closer to her grandparents, with whom she lives full time. Kimberly met her father when she was younger, but he went his own way later on and she has not seen him in years. He still sends some child support money to Kimberly's family, though, and sends her a card every year on her birthday. Lately, she's actually begun to reply.

Her grandparents raised her very liberally, hoping to avoid the mistakes they made with her mother by teaching her restraint through example rather than punishment. Kimberly was always allowed to voice her opinions, and was rarely disciplined in any way. She grew to expect to be able to do whatever she wanted. This has given her great self-confidence, but it has also made her pushy. She often does not consider the feelings of others, assuming that they'll do what they like and leave her to do the same. She does not understand that her friends often do things her way just to minimize conflict. Though she conforms to her social group in appearance and behavior, she always likes to be in charge of a given situation.  When she does have conflicts with others, she tries to convince them of her point of view, but if that fails she simply leaves, walking away in the middle of sentences if she feels the conversation is over.

One downside of Kimberly's upbringing is that her grandparents rarely express any disapproval of her whatsoever. If they don't believe that she is doing something well, they simply don't say anything, letting their silence speak for them. They are not particularly encouraging when Kimberly does things well, either. This, and her distance from her parents, has lead Kimberly to feel somewhat emotionally starved at home. She fell in with the "emo" crowd because she is fascinated with people willing to express their negative emotions and dissatisfaction with the way their lives are going. She writes poetry about the hardships of her own suburban middle-class life, albeit not particularly well. Her true artistic talents lie in music. She learned to play guitar from a friend's father, and has fallen in love with the music of the 1960s and 70s, which she was introduced to in her elementary school music class. She particularly likes Vietnam War protest songs because she feels personally connected to them; she does not realize at all how upsetting this is to her grandfather, who has never explained to her that the songs are hurtful to him.

Kimberly's favorite subject in school is English, and her favorite part of the class is reading Gothic novels. She finds that horrific tales of the supernatural really allow human courage to shine through. She is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Chambers, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, and Stephen King, and recommends their books to her friends at every opportunity. She does not like realistic literature of any sort, particularly mundane horror, which she finds too frightening. Lately, she has considered expanding her writing to prose fiction of her favorite genre, but she has yet to begin.

Kimberly is a fairly good student. She is smart and willing to put some effort into her education, so she mostly gets As and Bs, with the occasional C. She does not call attention to this fact among her friends, though, feeling it would harm her image. Most of her friends are just barely passing, and view school with great disdain. Because of her desire to fit in with her peer group she pretends not to care about school at all, never participating in class unless forced to.

Kimberly's grandparents mostly failed at keeping her behavior more moderate than her mother's; she's just safer about it. She has experimented with drugs and alcohol, along with her friends, and smokes semi-regularly. She has been in a few relationships, three sexual, all relatively short. The one area in which her grandparents did influence her successfully was birth control; Kimberly has taken precautions to avoid ending up in the same situation as her mother.

Advantages: Kimberly is smart, and decently dedicated. She has good self confidence, and is willing to keep at things even when they get hard.
Disadvantages: Kimberly does not work well with other people unless they follow her. She is prone to simply leave a group if it doesn't do things how she likes. She also sometimes alienates people by being overly forceful, something she is completely unaware of.

Designated Number: Female student no. 59

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Designated Weapon: Grappling Hook + Rope
Conclusion: "Some folks are born, made to wave that flag, oh that red, white and blue." Sorry G059 but nobody cares about Vietnam anymore, and with your, "I'm in charge" attitude, no one is going to care about you.