David Cordell

[Iceblock*]

Name: David Cordell
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12th
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Jokes, flute, band, surfing the web

Appearance: David is average in height and weight, at 5 feet 8 inches and 155 pounds. While not physically imposing, he looks sturdy enough.

Generally, his skin is pale in color, though he tends to burn easily in the sun. He also shaves often, and the resulting stubble is unnoticeable. He tends to comb his short blonde hair to make sure that it does not stick up, but does not bother with making it look particularly neat.

A pair of black, rectangular glasses frames his green eyes, and rest upon his slightly long, concave-bridged nose. His eyebrows are a little thin, and his mouth is a little thin as well.

David usually wears short sleeved shirts - polo shirts, T-shirts, etc. He also wears jeans, and a pair of sneakers, usually white, grey, or black.

Biography: David was born to Alexander and Cheryl Cordell in a hospital in Seattle. David was a happy and intelligent child, learning more quickly than others in most cases. He was rather proud of how quickly he could learn things, especially with his parents' encouragement, but he learned never to brag about it. He was not a particularly needy child, but despite that, his parents never decided to have any other children. In elementary school, it took him a while to adjust, and he never had quite as many friends as others. He didn't quite mind, though, since he had a few close friends that he could play with.

His grades were never an issue in elementary or middle school; he managed straight A's in most classes, if not all. Middle school allowed David to experiment with his social image. He took to cracking jokes, albeit a little self-consciously. He tried joining after-school clubs, such as ones that went to math competitions. He joined the band, playing flute. He's not particularly good at it, but he does practice and work at getting better.

In high school was when he probably got the most comfortable. He is generally known for his relaxed demeanor, and the fact that he's relatively easy to hang out with. He doesn't usually discuss serious topics, instead just choosing to shoot the breeze and chat, though he never descends into crude topics. When he's not feeling self-conscious, he will even crack a few jokes, or tell a few bad puns. They mostly pop up spontaneously, especially the puns, but he has done extensive research on bar jokes in the past. He's pretty comfortable around crowds, and would even maybe be considered popular, though he doesn't usually attempt to be the center of attention. He also continued in the band in high school, which constitutes some of the people he is most close to. However, he stopped participating in the math clubs, mostly because he didn't actually like math all that much. He also felt he didn't measure up to some of the other people in the club in terms of the speed in which they solved problems, as well, though this could have been mostly from his own perception.

He is intelligent, as his grades from elementary and middle school show, as well as his ability to learn faster than others, but he tends not to try especially hard in class, scraping by with A minuses or even occasional B pluses when he could probably get solid A's. It's mostly because David has problems with self-esteem. It started when he first got into high school - throughout elementary and middle school, he had a reputation for being quite intelligent, although not the most intelligent. Although he tried not to be prideful about it, he remembered the comments his peers made about his intelligence. Once he got into high school, he found himself among a lot of other students who were just as intelligent as he was, or at least good at pretending they were. He dealt with this by telling himself that he had never been that intelligent anyway, and that his classmates had just been trying to boost his ego in the previous years. So he settled for being average, and his grades and his social life reflect this. He tends not to show his low self-esteem to his friends, which he usually covers by making jokes and chatting about everyday topics. In fact, it makes him pretty good at self-deprecating jokes. As a result of his low self-esteem, he generally dislikes being a leader or taking on a major role in any project.

He's pretty content with his social life most of the time, relegating himself to the friendly, non-obtrusive comedian role. Sometimes, however, he wishes he had more friends that he could actually confide in regarding his self-worth issues, but he reasons that no one would want to hear about it, anyway.

Outside of school, David enjoys hanging out with friends, and surfing the web. He'll spend hours sometimes just browsing through Wikipedia, picking up tidbits of information about this or that. On occasion, it's come in handy. He'll browse through internet forums looking at debates about current events, but he's not particularly opinionated about politics. For college, he's applied under computer/electrical engineering, even though he doesn't know much about it. He reasons that they make good money, though, despite not being quite sure if he'll like it or if he'll be good at it. He hopes that someday he'll find a job he's passionate about, whether it has to do with electronics or not.

His family has always been encouraging to him, and they tend to support him on his endeavors, whatever they may be. David formed a strong bond with his parents from early childhood, especially because of his lack of siblings. In particular, David tends to confide in and look to his mother for advice whenever he's feeling down. His father tends to run the typical family activities like sports in the backyard, etc. Recently, though, his father has been teaching David how to cook instead, citing old age as a factor. David isn't sure if his father is joking or not.

Advantages: Being known as a mostly friendly and humorous person makes him less of a perceived threat. He also has a higher intelligence than he usually shows.
Disadvantages: His low self-esteem could be a problem when morale is on the line, especially if it leads to a lack of motivation or self-preservation. He has a tendency to place others' opinions before his own. He primarily sees himself as a follower, not a leader, and will therefore be hesitant to take matters into his own hands.