"Hey, guys, let's all just step back and take a breather, okay? Okay."
"You can call me Joey!"
Joseph " Joey" Rodrick Sarinelli
Age:
"Look at me, all grown and mature. Well, supposedly."
22
Date of Birth:
"Planning on buying me a present?"
June 14th
Education:
"Still in school, unfortunately."
Joey is currently working towards a Masters in Nursing, actually.
Sexuality:
"Whoa- not one to beat around the bush, are you?"
Bisexual, with no particular leaning
Hometown:
"Born 'n raised right here."
Corolla Hills
Class:
"Are you new here?"
Upper Class- he's a Sarinelli, after all!
Occupation:
"I definitely do stuff- and it's fun stuff!"
He works at the Ice Cream shop- popular for birthdays.
Skateboarding
Surfing
Ice cream
Helping Others
Cheesy Jokes
Warm Days
Summer Time
The Beach
Parties
People
Large Crowds
Romantic Gestures
Break dancing
People Crying
Rain
Being Alone
Meat
Bigotry
Generalizations
People Mocking his Major
Laziness
Cynicism
Screamo Music
Skinny Jeans
Organization
Intentional Rudeness
Quirks:
Joey has the tendency to play with his hair when he's trying to avoid saying something, and it is definitely a sign to those that know him that he's hiding something from them- it makes him rather bad at keeping secrets, as well. He also gets this stupid grin on his face whenever he's impressed, as though he is genuinely happy for the person who is being awesome. He also constantly has a skateboard on him, even if it's just a penny skateboard.
Fears:
Of all of his fears, Joey's most prominent is probably disappointing others, and he seems almost overly eager to please as a result of this. He hates to see others unhappy, and definitely is afraid of being the source of unhappiness. Another fear of his is being buried alive, though what brought about this fear is unknown- probably some movie he saw. He just avoids uncovered graves, which is relatively easy. He also has a childish fear of thunderstorms, and refuses to go outside in them.
Skills:
Joey has a special skill for making people smile, even when they are in the worst of moods. Other than that, he has a talent with kids, making an ideal babysitter and party host. As skating is one of his hobbies, he has grown quite good at it, though he doesn't do tricks as often as he used to. As far as dancing goes, he specializes in breakdancing, a town favorite.
Romance: Wait until Relationship thread is up, I guess?
Thoughts on the Auditore Family:
"Hm? They're just another family, y'know? I don't have any particular emotions towards them, and don't generally view them as a collective- each person is unique, after all. This is a kind of weird question.
]When he was younger, Joey was the sort of child who seemed to constantly smile at others, the one that would bring someone a flower and, when they smiled about it, proceed to continue doing so until he had stripped his mother's garden completely dry. He's always been overly eager to please, and always goes out of his way to make others smile. It seems that personal convenience is of no concern to him, because he'll walk a person to the end of town, even if his own destination is on the other side of the town. He simply hates the idea of disappointing others or making them sad, and thus works his hardest in order to help others to smile, laugh, and feel good about themselves. Being around him is a self esteem booster, and it isn't because he has a low self esteem himself, because he doesn't. He just has a way of treating people that makes them feel important. When the young man speaks to someone, his entire focus is on them, and he is a very involved listener. As far as he is concerned, everything people say to him is important, and he has a gift for remembering the things that other people view as completely trivial. He can meet a person once, and yet from that know their birthday, hobbies, fears, etc, because his expressions and reactions make people feel comfortable, and he is the type of guy that people spill their guts to without even realizing that they're doing it. Luckily, he isn't the type to gossip, so those things which are shared with him remain confidential until he is told to act otherwise.
He is an eternal optimist, and always sees the best in people, even if there isn't actually must to see. Joey believes that everyone has good in them, and that no one is entirely one thing or another- life isn't quite that black and white. When it comes to people, he is in love- he loves to be around others, to hear their stories, and to simply drink in the joy of the company of others'. As far as he is concerned, nothing is more valuable than experiences and forging relationships with others, because those are the things that mold a person into who they will continue to be for the rest of their lives. This is probably why he puts so much weight on the opinions and criticisms of others. If someone criticizes him, rather than becoming defensive, he will resolve to change himself for the better. Of course, not all criticisms are constructive, but he is rather naive and often doesn't bother to actually find the difference, and thus may end up trying to change himself in a way that isn't necessarily positive. Luckily, he has a strong support of friends that help him to avoid being too foolish in the way that he reacts to the statements and insults thrown at him. Friends and family are the most important things in in the world to the young man, and he would trust them with his life without hesitation.
While he may be a sweetheart and a hard worker, Joey can actually be something of an airhead at times, this mostly coming from an occasionally dreamy nature and the tendency to make rather stupid mistakes. While he loves details, he is terrible at seeing the big picture and, therefore, can often misconceive a situation entirely. This is rather unfortunate in many ways, one of them being the fact that, despite his love for making people smile, he may be prone to not completely understanding the desires or intentions of others, because he focuses on little things but doesn't have the same aptitude for stringing all of the pieces together to create a solution. Still, he does try his best, and that counts for something. He's a bit like a kid at times, to be honest, but has a passion and work ethic that kind of make up for that. He's a hopeless romantic, as well, the sort who believes in things like old timey picnics and dressing nicely for dates, etc. Regardless of who the person he likes is, he will treat them like royalty, and typically isn't the sort to make an effort in hiding his affections. Of course, he acts like a gentlemen towards most people, and seems to be perpetually holding open doors or giving his umbrellas to others.
Kind || Listener || Eager to Please || Detail-oriented || Optimistic || Extroverted || Romantic || Naive || Trustworthy || Airhead || Hardworking
History:
Joseph Rodrick Sarinelli was born into, as one might have guessed, the Sarinelli family of Corolla Hills. This means that he was born into a family of wealth, influence, and closeness. Sure, there are occasional arguments, as there are in most families, but otherwise the family is one that he would never regret being born into. When he was younger, Joey was always a sweetheart of a child, the kind who would bring flowers to his mother every morning or, when put on a sports team, would wander off to search for snails in the nearby creek, because he just wasn't interested. He possessed a wanderlust as a child that meant he was always getting lost, and was the sort of child who is a handful not because of their manners, but because of their slightly absent-minded tendencies. As a child, he never really thought much about his family's wealth or high social standing, because he was a child, and such things weren't really big deals to him. This disinterested mindset would remain with him for the rest of his life, as the young man far prefers to focus on who a person is over what class they are in or who their parents are- those things, in his mind, have nothing to do with each other, after all. He was always his mother's sweetheart, and probably spent more time with her in his youth than he ever did with his father, whose favorite was always quite obviously the youngest child and only daughter, Sofia.
When Sofia was first born, Joey adored her from the beginning, and has always had a special place in his heart for his baby sister, over whom he is uncharacteristically protective. He was still young when she was born, only five, and delighted in the strange quirks that babies had, including those that his sister had, like eating flowers or getting this smile on her face that was far too big for her infant head. He is the sort of elder brother who brags about his younger sister to others, because he's simply proud of her, almost like a father would be. But, anyway, if she was the apple of their father's eye, he was the apple of their mother's. He wasn't as much of an athlete as the parents might have liked, but he was always polite and, from the beginning, was a little gentleman, albeit a rather goofy one. He was that little kid who showed up to school the first day in a suit and tie, despite his mother trying to tell him that, in all honesty, it wasn't really necessary. When other kids teased him about it, he just laughed and grinned at them, telling them that he "Thought it'd be funny." This easily adaptable personality made him rather popular with his peers, and it wasn't just because he was wealthy or, as he grew older, attractive. He was the sort of person that could be considered popular because he was just a genuinely nice guy who attracted people with a mellow and friendly, and somehow magnetic, personality.
When Joey was in middle school, he got really sick for a while. As in, there were concerns that he wouldn't be getting better anytime soon kind of sick. Possible Death kind of sick. He was barely in school for three years, having to get a private tutor and do most of his work from the hospital. It was a bit of a rough patch for him and his family, and during that time he seemed to grow even more optimistic, as though trying to convince everyone of something that he wasn't sure of himself: that it was going to be okay. He was diagnosed with Leukemia, and spent three years in and out of Chemo, rarely staying out of the hospital for more than a month or so at the time. There were times when it seemed like he was going to get better, but they were always false beams of light, and he would fall back into the cancer, as though he was being played with. After two and a half years, he got really bad. His parents were terrified that they would lose their son. But, somehow, he pulled through. The treatments started working, and within a few months he was declared to have no signs of remaining cancer. It definitely gave Joey an appreciation for life. It also gave him an appreciation for good nurses, and is why he decided that he wanted to become a Nurse at a children's hospitable, where he could helps kids like him.
For the first year after the cancer seemed to go away, everyone was very careful about him, as though they were terrified that there would be a sudden relapse and he would leave remission. Life never went completely back to normal, of course, but his personality helped in getting people to be a bit less careful about him, and he slowly reformed connections that had been strained by the sense of helplessness experienced by his friends. He was back, and planned on staying. After graduating high school, Joey enrolled in a local university, and is currently studying to be a nurse still. He's slowly making his way towards a Master's degree, though, and tries to pay for as much of his own tuition as he can by working at an ice cream shop near the beach.
