Dr. Manny Schneider [Greek/Roman Mythology Professor]

Manny Schenider. He has no nicknames that he normally goes by. His parents tend to call him Man a times, but normally they call him Manny. His two daughters, Aphrodite and Athena, call him Dad and Daddy respectively. 

Forty-three Years Old. His birthday is on November 18th.

Manny is known for being an extremely tough professor, especially towards those who are in his upper division classes. He expects nothing but the best from his students and expected them to show respect for him, his classes, and the work he gives them. His loads are known to be heavy, especially his introductory courses into Greek and Roman mythology where they have just about one hundred pages to read every week. It causes students to turn a snide nose up at him, but he expects them to gather the information and use it critically, even in an introductory course given that most of them are sophomores when first beginning to trial of classical mythology classes. Everyone has to call him by Dr. otherwise he won't answer. Outside the classroom he is always willing to help his students; he keeps his office hours long and keeps his door open for anyone to come in and ask questions. He's really a nice guy who wants to see his students exceed, but with his quite disposition he can come off as an asshole to his classes. It's funny to him how his reputation is already so large on campus when this is only his first year teaching at Metric College. Word travels fast. He forgot about that when in college himself.

Manny works as a professor at Metric College who teaches Greek and Roman mythology classes.

SCHOOL/SOCIAL INFORMATION    

Metric College. He teaches generally from Sophomores to seniors, his classes generally upper level and taking at least a year of prereq. work to be able to apply for his classes. He teaches Greek and Roman Mythology, going from the classics to the real meat of what mythology really means and how it encompasses the world today.

TBA 

None that he knows of, though it wouldn't be past him to have enemies out of some of his students. But maybe enemies would be too harsh of a word to put on them; he probably put them off by his large syllabus and caused them to drop his class. What could he say, that could be a reason why people wouldn't like him. He likes to think that he's cordial and nice with the faculty of the major he focuses on, even if he is new and quite awkward.

Heterosexual  

Single. Once he had been married, ten years ago, but since he has not been in a relationship. It's more the fear of being walked out on again to take care of his girls and coddle their needs in the absence of a feminine figure that keeps him from looking for a relationship. He tells himself that he's happy just with his girls, even if Aphrodite lives on the Metric Academy campus now, and with his job, but his girls think other wise. Every chance they've made to get him in a relationship he's tossed the idea off as if it were nothing but a stray fly.

APPEARANCE    

Manny stands six feet even, with a relatively well build. Nothing significant or good about it as far as he's concerned, just the average dad build aside from the keg stomach. It's something that he's tried to keep off of himself, and is something that he has been relatively successful in since he hasn't had the opportunity to sit around and snack all day with having to take care of the twins and go to school and work at a job previously. He's been told that he looks a lot like his dad; good looking for his age with a full head of hair and dark skin.

Dark brown, basically black. It's well defined and fluffed up most of the time. He takes good care of it.

Brown.

He likes to wear v-neck shirts when he can, especially when warm, but during the school year and especially when teaching he likes to keep an air of professionalism on him, meaning that he wears mostly button down shirts with some sort of jacket to go along with it. No tie since he doesn't want to come off as too stoic and stiff, but he always has a nice pair of shoes on. What can he say, he loves good, formal shoes.

Caucasian; Greek American

John Stamos

PERSONALITY    

Greek food, Greek and Roman Culture, Mythology, his daughters, reading, teaching, telling stories, family, 

His daughters arguing with each other, feeling pressured, students who don't take his classes seriously, people who talk down on mythology, feeling alone (he gets in those moods at times)

Fatherly, caring, empathetic, compassionate, dutiful, studious, honorable

Awkward, stern, orderly, calculating, trust issues

He doesn't do much now that he's working at a better school with bigger classes and more things to grade at once, but he still likes to dabble in the story telling elements that is mythology. He loves to sit around with his daughter, or even by himself, and read and tell the stories that he has read and heard over hundreds of times. The majesty of them never wanes for him and he could read the same stories over and over again.

BACKGROUND/FAMILY    

Aphrodite Schneider - Daugher - Metric Academy Student || Aphrodite is Manny's oldest daughter, but only by fifteen minutes--minutes that had seemed to stretch out for hours in his mind. He's always been the one more attuned to the stories that he told his twins when they were younger, and even now still enjoys sitting on the floor in front of his chair as he reads off a story from a Myth that the both of them enjoy. She was the daughter that wanted the most attention as a newborn; always crying for the attention of one of her parents, and for a while it seemed as if he was the only one that could keep her calm; not even her mother could stop the baby from wailing. She's a daddy's girl to the purest extent of the word, talented as well with a gifted voice. He misses her being in the house with himself and Athena since she now lives in one of the houses at Metric Academy, but often times before he heads home for the night after classes he'll drive over to the Academy campus and check on her. She welcomes his presence, or so he thinks, and wishes her well before he always goes home to cook for himself and Athena if she hasn't already tried to whip something up herself. 

Athena Schneider - Daughter - Salem High School Student || Athena is Manny's youngest daughter by fifteen minutes. She's always been more of the tom boy out of the two twins, but she's never been afraid to get dressed up and girly either. While she'll listen to the myths that she's been told thousands of times, she isn't as invested in them as Aphrodite seems to be; it doesn't put off Manny, however. He knows his youngest daughter is more of a free spirit, someone who likes to live life on the fast lane, and while the thought scares him, he also encourages Athena to follow her dreams and to never give up. His lessons and reasoning with her have become increasingly difficult since the move and since Aphrodite was accepted to Metric and she was rejected after her audition. Her jealousy has started to spout, especially in the empty house that's now with him and her, and he's beginning to worry. He is happy that she's found an outlet in Soccer at the school that she was able to bring over from their other school, and is overall trying to be a rock for her in this difficult time. They've become closer over the months since the move.

While he's lived in America all his life--a born and raised American citizen--he's spent a lot of his life in Greece as well with the rest of his family. His mother and father emigrated to America in order for a better life and soon had him there after deciding that they were going to stay and do what they can to survive. He helped them out a lot when he grew older; by getting jobs and getting money he was able to help pay the bills. His life certainly hadn't been easy, but Manny has never had anything to complain about, he thought. He's always had a roof over his head and has always had a plate of food put in front of him--a lot of the time too much food--but most of all he's had his family behind him through everything. It's the most important thing to Manny and to this day he still believes it.

Growing up in a Greek family wasn't as astounding as everyone seemed to make it out to be--while his parents were religious he wasn't and still isn't, and while they would have rathered he had married another Greek girl to keep within the culture, they didn't patronize him when he brought home Celia, his at one point wife but now ex-wife. They ate a lot of food for dinner, not a lot for lunch, but had hardy breakfasts. Overall, it was pretty good. It was challenging going through the society that continued to look at him, but he also knew that he hadn't dealt with anything near as hard as other ethnic groups that he lived around.

His father, throughout Manny's life, told his son of the Mythology that he himself had always been told. Manny had always been enraptured with the tales that he had been told, always envisioning what the Gods were like and wondering what it would have been like if they were actually real and if those situations had actually happened. He liked to envision himself going to a ritual or a sacrifice and being immersed in what it was that the Greeks of that time did in order to worship those Gods. He never forgot the stories and, for a while, they became his life. He wanted to know the deeper meaning behind them and wanted to understand what they really meant to the people of that time. So he focused his studies in that in college. That was where he met Celia and quickly fell in love with her. They were head over heels, too caught up in their feelings, and one day Celia ended up pregnant. Not with the twins--she ended up miscarrying, a sign of absolute horror that shook the couple. They took a break for a while. It wasn't until after college that they got back together, got engaged, and them got married. Not long after that they got pregnant and had the two twins; to Manny, life seemed all right. He worked at a museum, not at all doing what he had wished for his life, but with his family he wasn't able to complete his schooling with a masters or a PHD. He hadn't been able to get the best job and always came home to screaming babies and a mother who did nothing but sit on the couch with the television blasting to drown out the noises.

Not only was Manny the bread winner of the family, but he was also the mother and the father, the cook and the cleaner. 

He didn't know why or when it happened, not the specific date or even the specific time. He was at work on the day, giving a group of people a tour around the museum, expecting to go through the day with the same mildness that always came with it. But it turned four o'clock and he got a call. It was from the elementary school his daughters went to. Worried, he took a break and answered the phone, only to find out that they twins were still at school, not picked up, and scared for what happened to there parents. Is everything okay? Manny rushed to the school, meanwhile trying to call Celia. She never answered. The phone always went straight to voicemail. He tried to play off to the girls as if nothing was wrong, as if Mommy had something else to do and forgot to tell him.

When he got home Celia wasn't there. There was no note, but her clothes were gone, as were the rest of her possessions. 

It didn't take him long to figure out what happened, especially not when she called two weeks later to tell him that she wanted a divorce, that she didn't want to have anything to do with the girls. I can't handle it. I'm sorry. And that was it. He hadn't heard from her since. The girls were devastated, wondering about their mother, and it was the hardest thing trying to explain to them what happened, especially when they were young, and then again when they were older and could really understand. For a while the both of them were recluse, and he didn't have anyone to take care of them while he went to work. For a while, he didn't know what to do. He didn't know what he was going to do.

Luckily h had his parents. The three moved in with them and Manny was able to go to work again after nearly haven lost the job. The girls were getting better living with their grandparents, but Manny felt stifled. He wanted to be better, to provide for his girls and not have to live under the roof of his parents, no matter how much he loved them. It wasn't until he read to the girls every night that his dream of studying mythology fully came back.

So he decided to go back to school.

It was hard. Getting a Masters and then a PHD was a long process that had its hardships that he didn't think he would have been able to make it out of. Juggling night school with work was difficult, but never being able to sleep or properly say good night to his daughters was the hardest thing. He felt as if he was never able to see them or spend time with them like a father should. It hurt. Especially when they asked why he was always away and if he was going to leave like Mommy had.

Getting his degrees were the best achievement he could have ever hoped for. He grabbed his daughters and spun them around and got a better job at a community college. He worked there for years, but when the girls had turned sixteen he got a job offer from all the way from Salem California. It was hard moving away from his parents and uprooting the girls, but he thought it was the best thing for them all. A new place, a new life with new memories to be created. He's happier, even if it was an adjustment for the girls, especially with the schools. Now he works at Metric College, a college university. He's excited for it.