Walking into School 45 in September of 1983, I felt completely out of place. A bare neck in a sea of red галстуки, a hazy understanding of roughly one-quarter of what was said, and only a guess as to which 6th-form class I belonged to (A? B?). Walking back through those doors in June of 1987 was entirely different: the graduating 10th-formers were long past neckties, Russian speech greeted my ears like an old friend, and there was no doubt where I belonged. An honorary diploma that is one of my dearest treasures made it official:
