Daniil Ozernyi: Outspoken Eccentric

After firmly insisting to do his interview in the Silent Room of the library, Daniil Ozernyi politely asks the students working around him if it was okay for him to do his interview next to them. For a 17-year-old, Daniil seems unapologetic about his business-man appearance. He is smartly dressed from head to toe in royal navy blue. Except for his neon yellow socks. His LGBTQ pride pin proudly sits on his linen blazer as he takes off his bowler hat from his neatly combed hair and brushes the lint off of it. He sets his messenger laptop briefcase against the table, eagerly leaning forward in his wheelie chair with one leg crossed over the other, waiting for the interview to begin. Though his maturity is considerably above the kids his age, one could very well argue that it makes him eccentric. But he already knows this. 

His English teacher, Reverend Mark Koyama, mentions that Daniil Ozernyi is well-respected among his peers: “Everybody is at the same time, impressed and amused” by him. This is probably because for someone who has a heavy, hard-to-make-out Ukrainian accent, he speaks very eloquently. Daniil likes to drop a substantial number of prodigious words (most notable: “outstanding!”) in his sentences and has a habit of quoting his favorite literary figures such as James Joyce and William Faulkner. “Daniil usually has a strong opinion,” Rev. Koyama says. “He makes it clear when he doesn’t like something.” Daniil is unapologetic about his values and is unafraid to present them. So though his brash confidence can be ample, at least he embraces it.

Daniil grew up in Dnipro, Ukraine, where he claims to have had a “particularly decent childhood,” though he confesses that Ukraine is “the least accepting place you can find.” He is not close to his family because they “wish for [him] to have a wife,” and, as he blatantly puts it: “I'm gay.” With reason, he never “substantially talked to people who were alive” at home, thus “indubitably” enjoys being at NMH because he feels understood here. He tells me that “not many people understand that [he] can be outstandingly sad: What is that idiom? Yes! Feeling blue. Interesting idiom indeed….” Regardless of his past, he “dismiss[es] recollecting [his] personal challenges” because they have made him more self-assured about his who he is today.

Daniil believes that “one needs to be efficiently balanced in hanging out,” thus, he spends most of his leisure time with friends. But what they do together, he is suspiciously unwilling to share. His close friend Avery Smith discloses that Daniil “takes good care of [Avery] and sometimes takes on a mothering role” as well. His dorm-mate, Miles Kaming-Thanassi, does not think that “Daniil’s brain ever turns off” because he also spends a lot of his leisure time interrogating faculty on subjects “ranging from philosophy to problems with the Ukrainian education system.” Daniil appears to be unafraid to address subjects that challenge his intellect. And he is unafraid to express his concerns about these topics as well. His classmate, Lizzie Platzner laughs when she tells me that Daniil is “obnoxiously chatty, but in a good way.” This rang true after realizing that Daniil had spent the three-hour interview answering only the first six questions asked. 

Inspired by his favorite writers and philosophers, including Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Daniil hopes to teach Linguistics - or anything that “involves talking” for that matter - in the future. He feels the need to explain this aspiration by justifying that he’s “okay with being poor because teachers don’t have money.” Daniil has strongly settled on teaching high school students because he “can’t deal with small kids, they’re disrespectful, and give [him] headaches.” He has had several “remarkable” experiences with teaching from writing Chemistry textbooks for kids to being a former English Language Teaching consultant for large Ukrainian institutions. These experiences reflect his competence in high-level subjects for a 17-year-old, demonstrating his maturity. He seems really excited to be sharing this with me because he is literally on the edge of his seat and has stood up twice to straighten out his pants. And when he was asked a follow-up question, Daniil blatantly raised his ink-stained left hand and told me to let him finish. As a matter of fact, he just seems really excited to be interviewed in general.

When the interview came to an end, I reminded him that I needed to have a reference person I could talk to about him. His eyes widened and he froze from putting on his bowler hat. “Noch nie! Warum? On ne peut pas trouver des gens aussi facilement!” This vaguely translates to “Why? Never! We cannot find people so easily!” in German and French -- two of the six and a half languages Daniil boasts about speaking. He grabbed his briefcase and quickly stumbled out of the room without another word.

Though Daniil claims that his most prevalent trait is his pragmatism, one could very argue that it is actually his outspoken nature. In my opinion, his eagerness to talk about himself and the world around him is on the brink of narcism but actually makes for a humorous conversation. All of his unapologetic characteristics allow him comfort knowing that he is a lot more mature than the typical high school teenager. And he is okay with that. He is okay with standing out. He is okay being outspokenly eccentric.