"At least now you know I have them."

The students on the island have a fairly well established hierarchy. It has been quite easy to pick out where each individual fits in this heirarchy. One of the gammas seems to percieve himself as beta as demonstrated by the fact that he is the most likely to express aggression, give commands to other students, and in general engage in posturing. Testosterone flows freely in this void of seratonin.

The island also has a very obvious omega. Whenever something is missing, this student is accused. All the boys take opportunities to order him around, criticize him for weakness, and in general harrass him. This last week more physical forms of
harrasment increased to the tune of multi-student gangs taking punches or kicking and the victim lying in the fetal position covering his head with his hands.

There are arguments going around about how to help this kid make some personal progress and the social environment now complicates it. He consistently refuses to stand up for himself and tries, sometimes literally to hide behind the staff. The fact is he cannot possibly feel safe. But at the same time he cannot possibly be safe if he requires a constant adult bodyguard. This is something the victimizing students like to frequently point out often as a justification for their abuses. "We're trying to help you learn to stick up for yourself", they say. That claim is of course complete crap. It is quite simply the power-trip. These guys are just getting off on dominating someone, and doing it quite completely.

His cowardice is not entirely unfounded. It's not like this is an average ability kid who's merely psychologically blocking himself. He's kind of tall but he has very little physical strength and poor coordination: products of his background. I'd hoped that my pathetic attempts to participate in island athletics would encourage him to get out with the others and get some exercise. After all, if I can get out there and play as poorly as I do and make it back okay, surely he would see that he could as well. Unfortunately as ill-suited as I am, my abilities are much closer to that of the other folks than the omega's are to mine.

One of both the funniest and saddest events involving him occurred the other night. A few people were in the kitchen where teh alpha started tease the omega by feigning and eventually kicking him. In fact one kick landed right in that special place no true male wants to get kicked. "I didn't mean to kick your nuts", the kicker protested laughing. He continued to apologize profusely while the kicker was bent over in pain. "At least now you know I have them", he said. Indeed he has them. Now if only he could find them.