AP Physics teacher, Mr. Kadekawa, offers some insight on his student life with engaging and funny stories from high school and college in the first Throwback Thursday feature of the school year.

What high school did you graduate from?

“Fossil Ridge High School in 2003.”

What kind of student were you in high school?

“I was a pretty decent student; not the greatest. I was top ten, but I didn’t want to try for the top. It’s a big fight and I wasn’t really into the stress.”

What was your most embarrassing memory in school?

“High schoolers take fashion and what they wear pretty seriously, so I had bought some new, good looking jeans and was talking to this girl that I actually had a crush on. She conveniently told me that the 32/32 size sticker was still on my jeans and all the tags were still on it. I thought it was very embarrassing.”

What clubs or after school activities were you involved in?

“I wasn’t involved in anything. I was that nerdy gamer guy. I just played games and did whatever I wanted, which is why I created the League of Legends club, because I wanted to have a place for kids like me to go and hang out.”

What’s your favorite memory from school?

“My favorite memory from high school actually pertains to now too. It was about Mr. Vopal. He was my assistant principal and was always by the lunch doors. I would stand there after lunch to wait to go to class and sometimes I would talk to him. One time, he asked me where I was going and I said I was going to take a test, so he said good luck and I responded, ‘It’s not about luck.” He said ‘Thats right. It’s not.'”

What was the most surprising fact about you that people normally wouldn’t expect?

“I was just like you guys. I made bad grades, too, and there were classes where I chose not to take an AP test because I just didn’t feel like it. Oh, and I was chubby when I was a kid.”

Would you have taken your class when you were in high school?

“Yeah, I would’ve taken it. It would’ve been hard and I’d have a difficult time, but, you know, that’s also why I teach the way I do, because I know what you guys are going through and what you guys try to skip by and try not to put your best effort in towards, because I was that guy. I was like you guys.”

What was your favorite class or teacher?

“I liked physics, so that was the cool class. The guy was pretty laid back. It’s pretty cliche, but physics was my favorite class. My favorite teacher was my biology teacher, though.”

Did you have a mentor or role model while you were in school?

“I did have a mentor in college. His name was Dr. Black and he’s passed away now, but during college he was my great mentor. He was a professor who, at his old age, had a walker to get around, and I would joke with him to the highest degree, because that was how good of a friend he was. I would put meter sticks in front of his doorway, so he has his walker with the tennis balls that he’s trying to move over the meter sticks. He would yell my name and I would hear it from across the building. I’d help him out, but it was funny. He would also take liquid nitrogen and pour it into two liter bottles, then toss them into classroom sinks. They’d explode and one time, he blew up the bottle inside the sink, so I went and looked and he had cracked the sink in half all the way down the middle. When I told him he went, ‘Oh. Welp, lets leave.’ We did a lot of cool stuff like that together.”

Did you go to prom and if you did, how was it?

“I went to prom. I had a date… and then I didn’t. She was this really classy girl and we were just friends. Two days before prom she told me, ‘I can’t go to prom with you. My parents won’t allow it, so I’m going to prom with a group of friends.’ I had already bought her ticket and everything. I went to prom stag, but it was cool, because I had gone to the same school district since kindergarten, so I knew everybody and everybody knew me. I got to hang out with everyone that I wanted to and danced with everyone from the prom queen to the wallflower girl.”

What is an interesting thing that you did during college?

“I did a lot of photography during college. I was a photographer for fashion shows around Dallas, so imagine me, sort of smart, out of place around all these models all the time.”