Topic: What Were You Like In High School?

[nickclone]

While I was outside smoking I saw a bus go by, it got me thinking about high school and what it was like. I went to a school full of redneck white kids, so I took advanced classes to get out of that school and ended up at an urban school in the city and I hated it. Not only did I get in a lot of trouble there, but I had to repeat the ninth grade just to take those classes.

When I eventually came back a year and a half later to my redneck school, people were afraid of me, I was known as the "new black kid" for three weeks and whenever I walked down the hallways it would part like the red sea. I wasn't super popular, but I was known by everyone and I was liked by everybody. I even had one kid denounce his KKK ways and be my friend (we didn't get along at first at all), the people there were very nice.

If I had to sum up my HS career, I would have to categorize myself as "the drug guy". I was popular, but I wasn't a loser, I had my smart moments, but I wasn't a dork and every bullcrap pile of shenanigans I pulled was the talk of the town. Seeing as how we're all friends here, what was your role in high school? Where you a dork, jock, cheerleader, student council, prom king/king or a complete outcast?

[Raisa]

I've always been either the youngest or one of the oldest in all the schools I've been to.  (And yes, I've been to a lot, the longest I ever stayed in one school was 2 years.. changing schools sucks btw)

I was one of the quiet "popular" girls who could do a lot of things and had many talents. When I spoke up, classmates paid attention.  But i was also considered as "strange and unconventional" and a prankster.  I didn't speak like most people, my habits were different, especially my eating habits because I didn't like having rice every meal which was how "Filipinos" were perceived (a school I went to had a strict schedule and I would have to be there by 7 am, and I'd go home past 5 PM or later.. thus I ended up having three meals at school).  I wasn't a party person, so i'd hardly ever go to birthday parties.  I wasn't into things most people were in to.  I kept to myself even when part of a group. 

Then I went to a boarding school for my last year in highschool.  That was a bit tough having to be around everyone 24/7 for 12 months.  I was really irritable and anti-social during free time since I wanted to be alone but never really managed to stay alone.  What I liked about that place was how they try to give you every skill you may need throughout your life, there were lessons in plumbing, electronics, computers, crafts, arts, home economics, communications, sports, gardening, music, stage, management, etc.  They give you a taste of all the different careers so you have an idea of what's out there.

[nickclone]

Interesting! I always thought private school would be fun, full of misfits and whatnot waiting to get into trouble. My parents wanted to send me to Fort Union Military Academy at one point,, but I was lucky enough not to be that much of a problem child.

So Rasia, you're Filipino? I never knew that about you. The things you learn here...I tell you what.

[Raisa]

Yes.. that's right.. I guess I really don't look that Filipino or you missed the pictures?  Recently, people mistake me for being Pakistani or Indian or something other than Filipino.  It's quite funny...  I NEED A TAN!!! Maybe I should post a recent one.

Military Academy...  thank god they didn't send you!  Most are just insane.  The things that go on in those places would be enough to give a person second thoughts.  Private school was fun, and there were a lot of trouble but we never got into major trouble cause we knew how to fix problems before they got bigger so the headmistress never heard about it all till a few years later! Some of the schoolmates ended up falling into the wrong crowds after they left.. Some are quite successful in the worldly sense.

Are you having a better time now?  I remember a while back you were having some issues with your parents.

[nickclone]

I'm still living at home, but I have brand new issues now. I'm suing my old job because I got hurt at the work place and they not only refused my worker's comp, but they canceled my insurance and left me with about 40k in medical bills. I couldn't even continue with my rehabilitation for my arm (which is now sporting a hideous scar) and I lost motion in my arm.

Anyways, I've never seen any pictures of you. Link it up!

[Raisa]

   I hope you win your case.  Do you have a tight case against them?

I need to upload the pictures.  I was going to do one of those "a day in the life.." like what Que and Idol and others have done.  But I'll have to do a week since my days are too varied.

Are you going to uni or you're focusing on working right now?

[nickclone]

I'm not doing anything right now, I've been told I have a tight case by my lawyer. However, I have to start the rehab I skipped and I need to find a job. I really never wanted to do rehab, but its needed to to help me win. I also don't want a job, but I've done all of my taxes in the past three years and I have no more money to spend. Looks like I need to get off my ass and become a part of society.

[idolminds]

What I was like in high school: nonexistent.

[angrykeebler]

i was a geek lol

[TheOtherBelmont]

High school was kinda fun for me, I'm still friends with a few of my high school buddies and kept in touch with them even after I moved to Phoenix for 3 years.  I don't really know what I was known as by others since I really didn't care, but several people knew my name in a good majority of the cliques, since I'll get along with most people as long as they aren't assholes.    I was friends with a few of the "popular" people and the ones that got teased a lot.  I goofed around a lot and usually kept people laughing, kind of like I do with my friends now.  I really didn't start having fun till my sophomore year though.  My freshman year I hung out with only maybe 3 guys, then my sophomore year I got to know a lot more people.

I got an odd story about friends in high school I didn't knew I had:

I was walking home and some guy was following me in his car because I crossed the street at a crosswalk when he wanted to turn right at red and he honked at me and gave me the finger so I told him to fuck off, as he is cursing at me while slowly following me I'm just ignoring him now with my headphones so I can barely make out what he's saying, about 20 seconds later, six huge guys who were in a local gang that I never talked to except for one (I helped him in Chemistry and Algebra class a lot) came up from behind me and started yelling back at the guy telling him to piss off and two of the guys push his car and shake it a little in the process, at that point the driver gets scared and speeds off.  Really odd experience.

[Jedi]

I was something of a geek. I was skinny and always being picked on so a few times a year I'd rage out and start punching the poor bastard that just happened to say something smart at me.
My friends weren't very good friends and I found those years pretty tough, so I left them and found some new ones who were equal parts cooler and geeky. They were alright for the last 2 years I was at school but many of my old friends followed me and started hanging out and on one day when they were giving me shit the newer friends stuck up for me - which was good.
Yeah those last 2 years were ok went to parties and did some crazy stuff, even found a girl friend! The coolest bit was I was involved in the final year leavers prank on the school, that was choice fun. interestingly I did this with 2 of my older friends who were a little cooler towards me by this stage, we stole a road sign (one used for duck crossings), went up on the roof of the school took down the phoenix (school emblem) and replaced it with the duck! haha from day one we used to call that thing the duck so we though hey why not!

So yeah I was never popular or sporty and it never felt right until the very last year I was there, that was a good year, but I would never do it again!

[beo]

I was part of the rocker clique. I had long hair, smoked and drank at lunch, and got into a lot of fights. I didnt pay much attention to the academic side of school, although i wasnt really one of the bad kids. I guess i was just a typical angsty teen.

[Quemaqua]

You smoked and drank at lunch and that doesn't qualify you as one of the bad kids?  What more would you have to do?  Murder hookers?  I mean, I'm not bashing you or anything, but I would think that would qualify you on the lower end of the totem pole.

Of course, I'm in no place to attempt to figure out that sort of thing because I went to fucking crazy, tiny schools with horrible ghetto kids.  They were pretty much *all* bad kids.  Had a bunch of freaks and gang bangers and druggies and whatever.  I really didn't get into trouble.  I guess I would have been considered by many to be a sort of nerd-like type, but not because I was antisocially shy or geeky or overly academic.  I just wasn't ghetto as fuck like the rest of them hence they didn't take me all that seriously.  I think what it came down to was that I had a couple of friends at all times and also a few enemies at all times, but I was on the whole pretty much in the middle.  Most people on both sides liked me well enough to leave me alone but not well enough to really get to know me.

My one enemy was this short ass little black kid who had a problem with me for some unknown reason, but I couldn't ever do anything about it because he had like 5 super huge giant friends who were on the basketball team.  Now I was big enough to hold my own, but I didn't have my own clique to back me up like they all did.  At the same time, I was well liked enough that beating me up would have been frowned upon, and he'd probably have had trouble convincing his buddies to actually do anything aggressive.  And there was no way in hell he could do it himself.  I'd have ripped him apart.  So on the last day of school (I wasn't going back the next year because I graduated 2 years early) I picked up him and threw his ass down the hall.  The floor had been freshly waxed so he just slid from one end of the hall to the other.  I ran like a maniac down the stairs and to the car just as a bunch of his friends came flying out after me.  It was awesome.  Also, one time after my first girlfriend broke up with me (I was devastated), the kid was giving me lip like usual and I got so mad I just punched my locker.  It hurt like nobody's business but I actually dented the freaking door like a couple of inches.  He left me alone for a good couple months after that.

Those are about the only stories of note.  I was also on the basketball team just because I was tall, but I was starting center and I really wasn't a very good player.  It just didn't matter because I've been nearly the height I am now (six feet) since like 14 or something.  So while I'm not that tall now, in high school I was pretty big.  I think it saved me a lot of trouble, really.

In the end, I hated every fucking second of high school.  I don't miss it even a little bit.

[iPPi]

High school ... the good old days.  I miss them.

[sirean_syan]

I was a journalism and debate geek, but I wasn't so far gone that I was a complete dork. Mostly, I was just into the geeky things and only kinda a dork who didn't know how to hang around other people. I got along with most everyone and while I utterly hated a few people I'd be sorta surprised to find out if the feeling was mutual. That said, I spent most of my time with a couple small groups of friends and we really didn't party or anything. We mostly just hung out, played a few games, or did random little things. In terms of how I was in class I was someone would could have discussions and usually put people in their place (which I enjoyed), but I wasn't one of those debaters who would go completely out of their way turn everything into an argument. I was easily one of the smart kids as well, but stuff like that is apparently fleeting.

This stuff is mostly just true of my last two years though. Before I was kinda fumbling around quietly and slowly working up connections to friends and activities to what I described. I went to a private school during elementary and junior high so only knew a few people when I enrolled in high school. They ended up being the people I spent the most time with during my first year, but I probably wouldn't have been more than acquaintances if we hadn't gone to our old school together. Activities outside of a few sports were also new to me, so I didn't bother with anything during my freshman year either.

[Raisa]

Someone told me that highschool years are some of the most crucial years of a person's life.. it's interesting how a person either hates or loves their highschool years. Anyway

[beo]

You smoked and drank at lunch and that doesn't qualify you as one of the bad kids?  What more would you have to do?  Murder hookers?

heh, well it's all relative and compared to the other kids, i was pretty mild. i never did anything more than pot until i was 18, but every other kid at our school was a complete mess-head. for example, my best friend's little brother smoked crack and munched on heroin laced ecstacy tabs which he called "speckled eggs" at the age of fourteen. sounds a bit scary, but he's a real nice guy - not a bad bone in his body.

the bad kids at our school were really fucking scary. one of them beat up an exchange student so bad that he had to have his face surgically reconstructed. teachers were threatened with violence every day (which was followed through on more than once), and if a teacher pissed off the wrong kid, they'd get their car keyed, or a brick through their window. one kid in my year was found to be abusing the younger boys in the school toilets, and got properly beaten before he was expelled. there were a couple of suicides, and one of them was under suspicious circumstances. the violence was really out of control (which, as a bit of a mentalist, i kind of enjoyed). one time, another kid pissed me off, so i knocked him to the ground, kicked the shit out of him and then beat him with a chair. this was in the middle of a class and the teacher didn't seem to give a shit.

this is only the surface of how fucked up our school was. i guess it makes sense though - it's in a really nice city, the kind of place old people go to die, or tourists go to take photos and sip overpriced coffee. basically, there's nothing to do for teenagers. at all. we only got a cinema about five years ago. when you have a few hundred bratty, middleclass teenagers, with too much money and fuck all to do, you find that they're going to make their own entertainment.

[Quemaqua]

Sounds like a nice place.  If I ever visit, I'll remember to bring a bat.

Also, for some reason in my post I forgot to mention the fighting.  Just smoking and drinking wouldn't have raised much of an eyebrow with me.  My own schools had plenty of that... just not too much fighting.  I think the teachers might have actually gotten off their asses to do change something if that had been the case.

Oh, and I forgot to mention my other good high school story.  I was kind of a prankster at times, but since I was really mild mannered and a little on the reserved side the teachers always liked me and never suspected me of anything.  Hence I managed to get a "virus" written in BASIC on all the lab computers (it was just an obscenely long ECHO loop).  They had no idea how to get rid of it so ended up coming to ask *me* how to fix it, haha.  And then another time when the ladies were out of the office upstairs, I went in and stole the mouse balls from the computer mice.  It took them forever to figure out why the things weren't working.

That was about the worst I ever did, and I mostly did it because the teachers wouldn't discipline the kids at all so I felt like I was barely even getting an education.  I could never concentrate because the other kids were always going apeshit over something.  I actually talked to a couple teachers about it to see what they'd say and they just sort of said that if kids had no discipline in the home there wasn't anything they could do, which was bullshit.  They were just lazy and didn't want to deal with problem kids.  So I got pissed and took my little revenge before I graduated.

[HxCeddie]

Eh, high school was ok. My teachers were all stuck up bastards that kept telling us how lucky we were to go to such a prestigious school. Most of my school was made up of really smart asian kids or degenerate assholes that got in because of the racial quota that had to be met. So you'd get really smart kids and some ghetto kids that just always caused trouble.

I was one of the ghetto kids that caused trouble. HA!

But anyways, I found a clique of friends, we drank and smoked in school, skipped classes to wander around Boston and get into stupid shit. I eventually smartened up and decided to study so I could get into college. But yeah...high school was ok, lots of stupid shit to deal with and lots of fun times.

[nickclone]

I was one of those kids that drank during lunch ( I didn't smoke back then), but I used to pop pills to the point where people would have to drag me to class or take me home so I wouldn't get busted. I got caught drinking at school one time (well I was actually drunk at school) and the school officer made me call my parents and I got sent home.

I was also very outspoken in certain classes, enough to a clown, but intelligent enough to get my point across.

I had this one English teacher named Mr. Knight, everyone hated him but me, but he used to give me a hard time...cause I gave him one too. He moved me so I was sitting right in front of his desk and next to his dest was this fake plant about three feet high that would sit next me. This plant had to be older than I was, it was covered in dust, gum, people had written all over it and was missing a bunch of leaves. I would always play, pet and poke at the plant and Mr. Knight would always yell at me to stop. So one day, after a liquid lunch and bout 4 percesect, I stumbled into his class, took my seat and started petting his plant. He told me that if I really loved his plant so much I should hold it to keep it warm. For the next hour he made me hold the plant in my lap while trying to take a test, people would walk by the door and ask me why I was holding a plant in my lap and I really couldn't explain it.

[Cobra951]

I matured quickly in high school.  I went to an American-Jesuit school in Puerto Rico since junior high.  The early years were brutal.  There's a lot of machismo in Latin American countries, and I was not spared the bullying.  But when I got to be 15, I grew up close to my current 6-ft height, along with grown-up frame & muscle.  (Competitive swimming helped.)  Suddenly, I wasn't getting picked on anymore, and school went from a nightmare to a mere annoyance.  The interesting thing is that we moved to Cincinnati after my Junior year, so I went to my last HS year in a local Jesuit school.  That was so different.  People here are, or at least were, in the '70s, very docile.  Good people with good hearts.  I had no trouble with anyone.  I remember one day this kid bumped into me hard on the hallway.  It was an accident, but my facial reaction must have been fierce.  I was holding his arm.  Then I saw the fear in his eyes.  He was frozen.  It seemed he couldn't even talk.  I realized quickly I was being the same kind of asshole I hated years earlier.  So I eased up in a hurry.  Funny how things turn around.

I was always shy in high school.  Being new here didn't help, and I didn't make any friends there during that one year.  It's ironic how they're still sending me school literature (usually asking for money) over 30 years later.  I stumbled my way through that one year, and I certainly don't feel like it's my alma mater.