"EYAC." HARRY SAID proudly. "What is this programme? EYAC; Empowering Youth and Communities. Its an organization put together for just that, to empower youth and help communities. I specifically like working with brats like you, for some strange reason, I enjoy helping you find yourselves and teaching you the real values of life. Some of my colleagues prefer working with parents or children, both of which I find more aggravating than adolescents, and I find adolescents VERY aggravating." Harry smiled at us. He seemed pleased. Honestly, I was pleased as well. I don't think I was here for the first class in which he most likely explained this, and I'm way too shy to raise my hand to ask. But now he's telling us. Now I know.

"So, I think part of the whole 'Empowering Youth' thing works with confidence, you know, self confidence. And self esteem. I think how you guys feel about yourself says a lot about the things you're willing to do, like I don't know, speak up in class. Maybe you think your comment would be stupid if you say it out loud, which is absolutely not the case." Harry sighed. "You know part of the reason for that is simply because of the world. Its such a cold, rigid place, so judgmental. Teenagers, especially, are so extremely vicious; its hard for others to actually be who they are. Of course you'd doubt yourself when living a world like this fucked--oh I sorry, I mean, cruel place." Harry ran his fingers through his hair. He took a seat at the head of the table today and remained there. He was staring at all of us as he spoke. "Usually they'd tell you to just ignore them and simply love yourself, but that shit is hard. Yeah, its hard, I get y'all." He winked. "I'm not going to tell you that -- that you should ignore them and everything would be all sunflowers and rainbows, because it won't. You're going to go through hell with finding and loving yourself but someone you know, you'll get there and you'll be happy."

He gasped. "Happy. Oh there's that word again." I stared at him. He's such a girl sometimes. "By show of hands, how many of you are happy with yourself? And please understand the difference. And don't lie." His hands were flat on the table and he stared around at us. I looked around as well, taking in if anyone else was going to raise their hands. I don't want to be the only idiot to raise mine. I don't even know my honest answer to that question. Am I happy with myself? Probably not. I'm not exactly the saint I'm supposed to be.

"Its okay guys, I'm not going to murder you for this," Harry said with a chuckle. "You look as though you just crapped your pants." He gave a reassuring smile. "What makes you unhappy about yourself?"

"Is that the right question?" Lee asked. First person to speak besides Harry, since we got here. We all sort of looked at her, but didn't. I tried not to make it obvious I was staring at her. She had her straight black hair in a ponytail and she wore about three different jackets although it wasn't really that cold. Although everyone was staring at her, her eyes remained ahead, on Harry.

"Is it? Maybe it is. Maybe asking you to point out your flaws is a bad thing. I can agree with that, honestly. But how would you change if you aren't aware of what you're doing wrong. Does that make sense?" He wasn't only speaking to Lee; his eyes travelled around the table, and seemed to lingered on me, which made me slightly uncomfortable. "Some of you probably hate that you steal from your parents, or uh that I don't know, you hate that your nose is too crooked, or maybe you just constantly lie to yourself. Whatever your flaw is, I want you to.. Oh! I want you to write it down on a tiny piece of paper, and I'll tell you what's going to happen after." Harry was all smiles. He pushes his chair backward and stood up. He walked to the lone teacher's desk in the far corner of the room, and pulled out paper. All the same small size, then a couple of pens. He passed a pen and paper to everyone around the table then told us to get to it, then sat and watched.

I stared at the small square of blank paper. I bit my bottom lip and furrowed my eyebrows. What am I supposed to do now? Write down my flaws? What am I supposed to write? I sighed softly. Of course I have flaws. If course there are things about myself I'd like to change. But I can't think of anything to put down. I look around and see Squirrel and Esther writing, and so are Jonny and Lee. I looked to Harry again, he wasn't watching me, so I stared at Jonny for a while.

Can another person be one of your flaws? Maybe your actions with another person... I don't know. Your feelings toward another person could be a flaw, right? I sighed softly and looked down to the paper again. I scribbled down something quickly, just as Harry called. "Okay, humans, times up. Fold them over twice and pass em up."

Everyone passed up the folded paper to Harry and he collected all five pieces -- there should have been more of us. "Are you going to read em out loud?"

"Yes. But you don't have to claim em. Hopefully, you don't know each other well enough go pinpoint who wrote what.." Harry said softly. I furrowed my eyebrows and looked around at the others. Do they know me well enough to know what I wrote?

"Can we just establish some trust?" Harry said. "Remember the 'What's said here stays here' thing, okay guys."

"Maybe this isn't a good idea.." Squirrel trailed off and stared at Harry.

"Did you write something down that's embarrassing?" Harry asked while shuffling the folded pieces of paper like a pack of cards. I stared at them in his hands. After shuffling them around, he placed them all on the table in front of him then took up one at random. "I really hope you guys didn't put something like 'I hate that I'm a horny teenager who masturbates to Asian comics' because that's just too much information."

"Okay, no reply, so let's go!" he smiled and unfolded the paper in his hand. He looked down at it and read it. I  bit my bottom lip. There is no way of telling the difference between mine or the other person's paper. So I would never know until he reads it out loud.

"Okay.. 'what makes me unhappy about myself is that I wish I wasn't as shy.' Honestly that's everyone of you." Harry said. "Now I know this isn't the beat advice ever, but you should really get out there. It will be hard as hell to ignore everyone and just be you, but I'm certain if you keep at it, you'll succeed. Oh, a tip for gaining confidence is to speak to the opposite sex and look them in the eye -- which is scary as hell, but whatever. Next." he passed the paper to the person closest to him, which was Esther.

I don't think I even want to figure out whose paper that was, because I don't want anyone to try to figure out mine, though I'm certain they would. I looked around the room. No one seemed uncomfortable, like me. I bit my bottom lip as I watched Harry choose another.

" 'I hate that I'm incapable of learning.' Wow. Okay, so you aren't incapable of learning. I'm sure half of you think that, but you aren't. Trust me, I think that as well sometimes. Its cool. But maybe you just learn slower or you need a better teacher. Or you learn differently." Is this how its going to be -- he's going to give us advice that is going to make absolutely no sense to us? I don't need advice from some guy I barely know. I sighed softly then looked down at the table. This is going to be complete rubbish.

" 'I'm stupid. I'm chasing someone who would never like me back. And yes it is a flaw because its now part of me to do any and everything for that person. So.' " Harry paused and looked around at us. That's Squirrel. Obviously. He sold himself out. Well, at least I think its Squirrel. I looked around for the hundredth time, no one was staring at him with raised eyebrows and judgmental eyes; or looks of disgust; or looks of disappointment. Everyone's eyes were on Harry. "I don't think I really know what to say to that." I blinked to Jonny.

"Perhaps that person is a very oblivious person. Perhaps they aren't aware of how you feel. You aren't stupid. But how do you know he/she doesn't like you back-"

"Because she's a lesbian!" Squirrel bursts out and I swore my jaw touched the ground.