Brent Nevy

Brent Nevy - An [Incomplete] Autobiography

Written 25-26 May 2020

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I. I - John Brent Nevy II - was born at 3:35 AM on the 21st of February, 2002 at the Greater Baltimore Medical Centre in Towson, just a few miles outside of Baltimore.  My dad, John Brent Nevy I, is Italian from my grandfather Papa’s side and German-Scotch on my grandmother Nana’s side.  They lived in Dundalk for most of his life, although they would eventually move out into a suburb east of the city tucked in just a couple minutes from the Chesapeake.  My mom, Kristina Santo Nevy, comes from my grandfather Grandpa Ron of Italian descent, who sadly passed away in 1993, and my Grandmom, born to Polish parents (Bopcia and Dzia Dzai) at a refugee camp in Germany in 1946 before immigrating to the US when she was three.

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II. For the first few months of my life, I lived at the house of my mother’s family in a turn-of-the-century suburban community in West Baltimore.  Reflecting back as an adult, the neighbourhood seems fascinatingly historic.  But even as a child, I felt the house to be something special - a cryptic place hidden by enormous trees, with yards overgrown with a jungle of vines, hiding houses whose floors creaked and reeked rustically with age.  Even after the move to Garnet Valley, we (being my parents and (eventual) siblings) would periodically visit the house, and so some of my first memories derive from there.

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III. Briefly moving into a Delaware apartment as our house was being built in Pennsylvania, in the Spring of 2003 we finally moved into our house in Garnet Valley, which is where I have lived to this day.  My brother Christopher was born in 2004, with my sister Emily coming in 2007.  I have many memories of the places around this area, which are overlaid by my current understanding of them.  I much like the area in which we are, and I’m proud to be from this area.  For example, in contrast to the rest of my Baltimore raven-supporting family, I have been an Eagles fan.

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IV. I do not know much about my earliest years as a toddler - my parents can certainly recount a more accurate recollection of those nascent years - but I know some things.  I had a love of Thomas the Tank engine, with the films and toys, and even when I was nine or so I still liked going to the train festival in Strasburg, PA, having fond (though cursory) memories of the tents, the toys, and of course the trains.  I enjoyed other childrens’ programming of all sorts, including the Wiggles, Winnie the Pooh, and a lot of Disney movies of course.  I played with puzzles, had many toys and stuffed animals, read childrens’ books like Dr. Seuss, and altogether I hold very pleasant memories of the time.

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V. A clearer image emerges of my character from around the 1st grade onwards.  Tastes had changed.  I had a fairly strong inclination for scientific subjects, particularly marine life and animals such as dolphins, sharks, and sea turtles.  I loved to play with legos, going into middle school with enjoyment of them (still I imagine getting back into them or model toys as a hobby).  I had a deep liking for Star Wars, as well as many Cartoon Network, Disney, and (to a lesser extent) Nickelodeon shows and cartoons.  I liked doodling pictures, comics, and maps of imaginary places and towns, with the latter element striking me in hindsight as an illuminating foreshadow to my future interests.  I was a part of Cub Scouts with Cub Pack #191.  We went to Hershey Park a lot, as well as Disney World several occasions from elementary school onwards, certainly happy trips.

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VI. Frankly, I was an oddball in many respects throughout elementary school, either because of or contributing to my innate introversion.  I was very silly, often disobedient, and outwardly crazy at times, to say the least.  This was the picture of myself in Kindergarten (Concord Elementary School), but after some time I would evolve into the reserved enigma that I am to this day.  As such, I had few friends during elementary school (Bethel Springs Elementary School).  There was one kid named Michael Ferry with whom I was close friends, sharing a bond over Star Wars as we played during recess, but he moved away at some point.  In 4th grade, I became very close friends with Nick Cervino, with whom I shared at the time a love of a new passion of which I will now describe.

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VII. At the end of 2nd grade, I received a stuffed animal Stegosaurus, who I aptly dubbed Steg.  I cannot recall the mental change that must have occurred in me, but whatever must have happened, it was an extraordinary eruption unprecedented in my life.  All of a sudden, I came to acquire a deep, deep, deep (it is difficult to overestimate) love of dinosaurs, palaeontology, geology, and prehistoric history in general.  Over the next few years, I got hordes of books, some of them advanced and even legitimately intellectual.  I began a rock and mineral collection.  I learned the names of what must have been hundreds of different ancient organisms (I remember making a list of dinosaurs at Papa and Nana’s house at some point during my elementary years, and it was in the ballpark range of a hundred genuses memorised by heart), not to mention the different time periods, terminologies, and concepts associated with it.

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VIII. Later on in the elementary period of my life, I started to grow with new forms of creativity (or at least more sophisticated forms of them).  I got an iPod, which in November 2012 introduced me to YouTube and, in particular, an online animated show called Eddsworld, which I fell in love with and based my new art style upon.  I was inspired to begin creating my own animations.  I also found a website called NationStates, founding a virtual nation upon there and entrenching my already existing enjoyment of geography by putting me into an online community of people like me.  On Sunday 21 October 2012 (I still remember the exact date), I got my turtle “Doughnut,” who I still have to this day.

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IX. At Garnet Valley Middle School, I developed.  Ha!  Figure that, I grew up in many aspects.  But I did.  In 6th grade English, I began a love of writing during class freewrites, when I allowed the daftness in me to manifest itself through outlandish stories just as I had done previously through comics.  I also met many new friends from the other elementary school, GVES, including Clay Bromley, who became my closest friend throughout all of middle school.  I would join Clay’s Boy Scout Troop, #154, staying a part of it until I left in 10th grade.  I also met through my friend connection with Nick Maggie Herron, who I dated for a year starting in 8th grade.  In contrast to elementary school, in middle school onwards I could boast having plenty of good friends to be with.  Outside school, my family started to visit Colonial Williamsburg as well as Busch Gardens VA, and I have some very special and magical memories from there.

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X. Regarding academic interest, my love of palaeontology held steadfastly strong.  Watching Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey in 2014 broadened my palaeontology/geology interest to other subjects, namely chemistry and physics.  I started my first journal for scientific ideas, although I only ever put them into it on a few occasions in its history.  Regardless, the scientific love was there, and I was still set on palaeontology as I had been.

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XI. My liking for history, geography, language really began to appear in full force at this time.  In 7th grade, I won the school geography bee and went to Harrisburg to compete, finishing 6th place.  I picked German over French and Spanish in 6th grade from a combination of its novelty, its challenge, and the teacher, Herr Jones, who I must give the accolade of mein größter Lieblingslehrer.  On YouTube, I found a variety of historical map animating channels I admired such as EmperorTigerstar, Suomi, GalacticPenguinTV, and Ollie Bye, among others.  On 3 January 2016, I made my own YouTube account for history, DinosaurFilms.

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XII. Music was to come into my life.  I played trumpet in the school band since 5th grade, but I did this thoughtlessly and never interested myself in learning more than just a basic understanding of music.  In 7th grade music class, though, I began to get into classical music, that of Beethoven, Gershwin, Liszt, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff.  In 8th grade music class, we learned of the Beatles.  I found a new friend in Dan Cannon, and since he liked (still likes) rock music, I began to discover the Beatles on my own.  I left after 8th grade, right as I was actually becoming interested in music.

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XIII. The summer between 8th and 9th grade was one of monumental change.  Through the summer, the Beatles were my soundtrack.  As I began to write more short stories and began to construct my own conlang (self-made language), I decided to create a more proper journal for these creative ideas.  By the start of 2017, the journal went from a peripheral part of my life to the epicenter of my creative thought.  A renaissance!  At the heart of the journal were lyrics to rock songs I was creating.  Getting a keyboard for Christmas 2016, I began to learn piano (my choice of piano was no doubt influenced by my earlier interest in classical pianists), developing my knowledge of music theory.  I had great concept albums in mind, and as I learned more and my songcraft improved, these ideas became more fleshed out.

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XIV. And now we go back to high school, which by 9th grade I happened to be in (shocker).  My friend group quickly changed, and by the end of the year I formed the coalition of sorts which I still have today.  Particularly in Mrs. Gumpert’s honors Non-Western Civilisation class in the 2nd semester, I closened my friendships with Aayush Singh, Chris Tortorello, and Timmy Macchiarelli.  By tenth grade we, along with Dan, Zohaib Faisal, and Ben Loan would end up forming the “Friends and Timmy (we used to joke about how Timmy rarely showed up to things).”  At first it was mainly just me, Chris, and Aayush going out to the movies or bowling.  As we started getting our driver licenses, however, we began to go to new, often faraway places.  We made adventures to West Chester, King of Prussia, Chinatown in Philly, and even Lancaster.

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XV. Throughout these first two years of high school, I focused on my songcraft, honing down my style in 10th grade during Music Theory with Mr. Stewart.  I tried at many times to form a band, but nothing ever really worked out.  By 10th grade, I was listening to new bands such as Queen, Pink Floyd, ELO, and most especially Supertramp and the Beach Boys.  Even though I didn’t (and still don’t usually) recognise their direct influence on my songwriting, which I usually consider too idiosyncratically odd, these bands and the ones coming after would hold enormous influence upon my creative life.

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XVI. Towards the end of 9th grade, I finally got an interview with Jason Poole at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and by the summer 2017 I was an official volunteer of the museum, first working in the Dino Hall before getting to conduct actual preparation work upon the fossils from the Bighorn Basin of Montana - namely of the genuses Diplodocus, Suuwassea (discovered by scientists of the museum), Allosaurus, Hesperosaurus, with a few outliers like Triceratops.  The lab introduced me to a whole new world of scientific work and thought, as well as being in the community of the museum’s volunteer preparators, scientists, and museum workers.

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XVII. In late June and early July of 2018, I went on a school-backed EF tour to Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland.  The ten day trip was perhaps the most wonderful experience of my life so far.  Each of the cities or places we visited - Frankfurt’s Airport, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Neuschwanstein, Innsbruck, the Austrian Alps, Liechtenstein, Luzerne, Freiburg, and Heidelberg - has its own associated memories.  There is so much I find special about travelling to foreign countries, and the visceral influence of all that I experienced is hard to explain briefly as in here.  The least I can say is that I met so many new people, went to so many incredible places loaded with history and culture, and altogether had a very, very happy and inspiring time.

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XVIII. By the later half of high school, my interests in history were deepening, particularly in the ancient Graeco-Roman times, although European, American, and generally world history interests me.  Linguistically, I began to wander into learning bits Latin, Polish, and other languages.  With college tours and applications and decisions looming, I came to the conclusion that history, not palaeontology, was the direction I wanted to take.  Still, I still admired and wanted to be a part of science in some way.  As a compromise, I chose the path of classical history and archaeology, fusing together the elements of historical and societal understanding with the scientific background of exploration, discovery, research, and analysis.

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XIX. In high school (although starting before then) I’ve also begun to realise my political, religious, and philosophical orientation.  While my family is Roman Catholic and I went through CCD and all the sacraments possible at my age, it doesn’t play a major role in my family life.  I’ve undergone a personal revelation, albeit more like a gradual one of realisation, that has led to a spiritual reawakening in my life as an adult Roman Catholic.  Politically, I consider myself a conservative and classical liberal, although I try to understand the origins of others’ beliefs as well.  I associate myself with the centre-right parties of Europe, such as the Tories in Britain, CDU/CSU in Germany, and the ÖVP in Austria.  Overall I pay a lot of attention to diplomacy and geopolitical affairs, and I interest myself far more in European politics than I do in American ones.

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XX. Besides hanging out with my friends, my main hobbies and interests as of the last few years have been playing and writing music on piano and guitar (I started learning in 2018), as well as some other random instruments (mandolin, accordion).  My musical interests have broadened, from the Zombies, 10cc, Fleetwood Mac, Chicago, the Doobie Brothers, Madison Cunningham, and even the Sound of Music soundtrack.  I’ve started collecting and listening to vinyl records as well.  I love to collect books on topics I love, particularly foreign language dictionaries, guidebooks, atlases, classical literature (particularly British writers), historical/archaeological magazines, or other books relating primarily to history.  I like television shows like Impractical Jokers, the Office, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  Lately I’ve been watching more films as well.  And of course, I’ve kept writing my journals, which I’ve loaded with loads of lyrics, stories, sketches, concepts, illustrations, skits, etc.

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XXI. I also have worked upon my own creative pursuits.  On a YouTube channel called Napoleonic Beavers, I put up my own memes and even a couple more elaborate animations such as “Carl and the Wizard,” as well as a series of chaotic segments called “Fake News” that, while debuting to my friends and others, I have yet to upload.  In 2019 I began an Instagram @dinosaurfilms to supplement the rather quiet YouTube channel, and I enjoy uploading there on a fairly more frequent basis.  In school, I have participated in Model UN, German Club, and History Club my whole GV career, reaching the roles of President of History Club and Vice President of German Club this senior year.  I also joined Jazz Band in November this senior year, although it was cut short in March by the current “situation.”

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XXII. Now we return to the topic of tertiary education.  On the search for colleges, there were many choices.  Nearly all of 2019 I was going on college tours, sometimes great expeditions from Michigan to New England to Virginia (travels I greatly enjoyed).  Still, throughout all of that time, I was strongly drawn by colleges abroad.  Although a few German and Austrian universities interested me initially, I was also attracted to the United Kingdom’s wonderful unis as well.  As college season came, I decided to apply on the British UCAS application as well as the Common App domestically.  I got accepted to several universities, of which University College London (UCL) became my enthusiastic final choice.

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XXIII. And alas, senior year is here.  Tej Vyas joined the inner circle of us Friends and Timmy, and our group has been going out consistently since then (excluding the current COVID lockdown).  Throughout high school I’ve had many nice teachers, with many classes I’ve  In Ms Frost’s AP Bio classes (I got set into two separate classes by a fluke in the new scheduling), a jolly experience of a class by itself, I found a wonderful new girlfriend in Lizzy Nguyen earlier this year.  In 2019, I began to go to open mics at the Kennett Flash, and last February on the 14th I actually performed as one of a few headliners at a small show at Fenn’s Upstairs.

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XXIV. The COVID break hasn’t changed much of me.  I’ve been watching many more movies that I usually would, as well as going out on drives to parks and elsewhere to bide my time.  So long as I can be productive, this summer break I can accomplish many things.  I’m hoping to piece together an album’s worth of music by writing the rest of it, recording it (with the help of others), and producing it into existence.  I think I could also revive DinosaurFilms and Napoleonic Beavers with new historical and comedic content (respectively of course).  And that: that is where we stand with myself today.

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Dear Brent,

 

As your mother and I reflect on your upcoming graduation from high school, we can’t help but to become wistful of the journey you took to get here.  From that little boy who obsessed endlessly about his Thomas trains, spent hours studying maps and geography, and learned to identify literally every known dinosaur by site, we have seen you grow into an intelligent, headstrong young man eager to find his place in the world.  

 

You have always made both of us proud of your accomplishments and achievements.  Your polymath knowledge of the world around you has never ceased to amaze us.  From your passion for dinosaurs that led you to volunteer at the Academy of Natural Sciences, to your obsessive love of languages (particularly German), to your self-taught music writing and performing efforts, your talent and skill and passion have been obvious.

 

As you prepare to leave for college and embark on the great journey that will be your life, we would feel remiss if we did not impart some simple lessons that we have learned that will do more to drive your success and happiness than anything you will learn in school.

 

First, know who you are and what you want.  This is, for your, the easiest lesson as it is one that you have already demonstrated.  You have always known who you are and what you want and have never been embarrassed or ashamed of pursuing your passions.  This reflects a wisdom and strength of character rarely found in those twice your age.  Never lose that confidence.

 

Second, nothing good ever comes easy.  Everyone encounters challenges throughout their life. What differentiates those who succeed from those who don’t is the fortitude to face adversity and work harder rather than surrender to an easier path.  Nothing in life is ever guaranteed but working hard and being tenacious will do more to stack the odds in your favor than anything else.

 

Finally, always remember that failure is a normal part of learning.  You will fail from time to time.  Take these times as opportunities to reflect on what you did right, what you did wrong, and what you can do to move forward.  Resist the urge to wallow in self-pity and learn to turn the negative into a positive.  The parts of my life that were my most important and successful always came after something that I failed at.

 

Your mother and I could not be more proud of the man you have become.  We know that you have greatness inside of you if you have the strength of will to believe in yourself and the fortitude to persevere through thick and thin.  Throughout all that you pursue, remember that we will always love you and will always be there to support you.  Congratulations on graduating and good luck as you move on to college.

With Love,

Mom and Dad

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A Letter of Sorts to Future GVHS Students

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I do not have anything special to say to you, as I most likely do not know you, and so I will leave this brief.

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Keep your grades good.  I’m sure others in your life, your teachers and parents and more cognizant peers of yours, will remind you of this.  It’s quite important, not for the grades in themselves, but for college.  In fact, the most important reason is that you can build your work ethic up and and ability to deal with new problems and come up with new, brilliant solutions.

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Keep a good lot of friends which you can get close to and spend silly times with.  Particularly as you gain more freedom with drivers’ licenses and other liberties associated with coming of age, explore the world fervently and wisely.  There are dangers that you must look out for, but there are dangers everywhere that you got to be cognizant of and prepare for.  That does not mean you should not explore, to go to new places, try new foods, go to new events and venues, travel the world in our area.  There’s a lot to do, a lot accessible where Garnet Valley is.  Be adventurous, inquisitive, and good to people.  

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Do be good to people too.  Naturally, most about everyone says so, but often, sometimes subtly and sometimes explicitly, we come to believe that acting wrong to other certain people is justified.  Justice is justified; jealousy, disdain, resentment, revenge, and abstract hatred of others is not.  Turn the other cheek, for gentleness and kindness and stoicism are ultimately more effective than an endless tit for tat.

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Brent

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