highschool experiences!

[smartgirl]

I'm sure as people go through highschool they have some sort of experience that they wont forget. I haven't been there yet, but I would like to hear some stories! If you would like share your highschool experiences!

[smartgirl]

Some people ask for it, and others don't. They never realize what it means. POPULARITY. They want it, to be known among people. Well, I was once stupid enough to do something I didn't want to, to be part of hte group that was the most popular. It was in jr. high, but it was stupid. I hope that you guys have something better to share then what happened to me.

[aabbcc]

My best high school experiences (I have one more year left of that hell before I finally go to university :() happened out of school itself, when we as a group cut some class usually, or after the school headed to café together, and ended up in pseudo-philosophic discussions (influenced by tea with rum :D) of the purpose of life, literature, formal education, and so on. Sometimes I actually believe I learnt more about the things from school repertoire in café when cutting lessons than in the actual classroom... because when professors were not around, when we spoke freely of those, not forced by some artificial atmosphere of "class dicussions", is when we actually debated things and learnt about them, and about each other.

Also, we all loved meeting our Latin professor at heavy metal concerts... "What a surprise, professor! A classical philologist in... in the graveyard of culture!" [:D], and I loved how he once, on our surprised, payed our drinks, twas quite... cool.

Oh, I tend to complain about high school a lot, but on a second though, it is really cool when you look back at it, so far it was probably the best part of my life:
Boycotted tests (:D), professors' strikes which were resulting in free days, playing incognito pocket-chess during particularly boring classics lessons, being caught playing some obscure Balcanic card games in school (after which they tried to take cards always from us because we supposedly "promoted gambling", but we got them back :D), playing those same Balcanic card games with professors on school travels (so much about "gambling", eh :D), all those travels with school (ah, Rome, ah, Athens, ah Prague! *cries in melancholy*), episodes with friends in alcoholised state during those travels which we later laughed upon (:D), meeting professors in the least expected places (on those travels we usually ended up all together drinking in some bar :D), then all those funny things we said in class... "menin aeide thea hosmala pola" and such. Then all that procastrinating, usually the night before the test caffeinising ourselves at somebody's place and still joking more than studying... And all the books we used to read, all literature classes in which we ended in hot-headed debates over "whether are we all Emma Bovary" or the never-discussed-enough Homeric question, or whatever - it did not matter what we were reading at the moment, anything could make us argue with each other, hell, we could argue even without any specific subject (:D).
And did I mention CAFES, CAFES and more CAFES?! It seems to me that we spent more time in those than in school, that was the place of "actual" events, we hanged in there for hours, sometimes even with professors... sometimes just drinking, everybody lost in their own thoughts and in their own smoke of cigarette, sometimes crying on each other's shoulder, sometimes debating the news, sometimes just playing cards... Cafe before school, cafe during school (:D), cafe after school... Balcanic lifestyle, what to say ;)
And all the things we read, out of the school repertoire! All those going to libraries together, borrowing some obscure Hungarian or Czech authors, whispering to each other verses during the dull lessons or drawing...
We were artists, artists in lifestyle, a bunch of crazy, wild teenagers put together, and we had such an awesome time together... and most of it is gone already, this is going to be our last year, everybody will be in rush over university, it will not be as cool any longer... :(

Though I cannot wait to get it done with, I must admit it was nice, and that in memory high school will probably be the best period of my life.

[Visionary3]

I was a cheer leader and got out on the football field in cold weather in Illinois wearing shorts to twirl a baton. Now I can hardly believe I did that.

[cranberry]

loOol interesting thread really :) I remember having breakfast with 3 friends
in college ...where one of us we really liked to play with :) all time and joke with...any way as she went to get something on her plate , we put some ice cream in her orange juice ,which made her furious :) and the one who put ice cream in the orange juice was me :) CoOol??

[Shalot]

I couldn't speak in high school. I spoke to about three people. It was bizarre.

This persisted through college. I would meet a few people that I wanted to and felt comfortable enough to talk to and that's about all I could manage.

I am pretty sure one of my speak buddies turned this on me also. Guess I wasn't such a good judge of character.

I switched schools and put on a confident face and this attracted the wrong kind of attention and those kids thought I was stuck up so I had a milk shake thrown at me.

People really are cruel aren't they? They hone in on your weakness and stick the knife in there and then turn it.

I hated high school. You don't seem strange but remember to be kind to the person that seems a little off. He/she just might be suffering inside.

[EAP]

I read too much.

[alejandra]

First of all I've noticed a big difference between the people that went to highschool in Europe and the ones that are from the states. Well I am in latin amerca so let me share my experiences now.

Well I was an A student back in highschool and let me tell you it was 12 years of hell (here we don't switch schools, so we go to the same school since kindergarden through senior year) I did have some things trown at me too, papers mostly so it wasn't that bad.

I never wanted to be a part of the popular crowd, and I think that bothered them even more, because I wasn't really trying to fit in, I actually was happy to be different. Girls were the meanest I have to say, guys were always nice to me, they weren't my best friends or anything, but they were never mean. I think people just don't like people who stand out. Even with all of that I was always lucky enough to have a group of friends that shielded me from everything else, so it wasn't completely terrible.

For the ones that are still in highschool, let me tell you that it is far from being the best time of your life. When I got into college it was like my life had just begun , and I bet I am going to feel that with every new begining in the future.

Even though i hated highschool and whenever I ran into someone from highschool i get in a crappy mood, when I look back there are things that make me smile like: the food we had during breaks, playing charades in english class, trying to cut class (my school was like a prison!), the guys running away from the gardener because they messed up the plants, cheeting on math exams (gosh it was an art) , hidding in the chem lab, the dvd afternoons after P.E..... and so many things.....

[applepie]

High school was not the most fun of times for me. I was a social outcast and during my junior and senior years, I had entire days where I didn't speak to another student. I've never really figured out what happend, because in elementary and middle-school I had plenty of friends. Then high school came around and we all had the honors and AP classes. I scored really well and it was clear that I wasn't the dumb blond they all assumed that I was, and poof, like magic, all my friends dropped me and learned to hate me. Oh well, I'm a better person for it, but the funny thing is that now whenever I meet the same people who shunned me, they want to act as if we are old friends.

There were some fun times, though. Well, at least happy memories. I do remember that my junior year had a great mid-day nap. I was taking AP Chemistry and AP U.S. History back to back. So first, since I didn't want to go to chemistry in the first place, I would always find some reason to dawdle and stay behind in my history class. My teacher, bless him:), always let me. I've never figured out why, but he would always help me to find a reason to get out of chemistry. Now Chemistry, I really loved that subject. I just didn't like the class. If was cold in there all year because of the computers and chemicals, plus no one in the class liked me. If there was one class where I could say everyone loathed me, this would have been the class. So, everyday I would show up late with a hall pass in hand to excuse my absence. Then I just opened my book, it made a lovely pillow;), and I would lay my head down for a nap. Now, the great thing about this class is it was two periods spread over lucnch so I got a nice 2 1/2 hour nap everyday. That was if I got there on time, but I still normally got in a nice 2 hour nap. My Chem teacher still swears I must have learned by osmosis or something. He never figured out that science just comes to me, so doing labs was enough for me to learn all the necessary material. It became a fun time for me, even if my pleasure came from irritating everyone else. They hated that I still did very well in the class.

This brings me to my favorite high school moment. It was one of those mean pleasures, but it is still my favorite. If you take AP classes, or are going to, you should know that at the end of the year you take a big test that counts towards college credit if you do well. The scoring goes from 1 to 5 and, generally, anything that's a 3 and up will get you some college credit. So, it's the end of the year and we've all taken our test. For my part, I finished each section and then proceeded to nap for twenty or thirty minutes until the start of the next section. By now this wasn't a big surprise to anyone, but it still had the ability to irritate them. We didn't get our scores until the middle of the summer, and I was pleased to see I had scored a 4. This was much better than anyone though I would do, and my chem teacher still tells stories to his classes about it. Anyway, I'm in the school before the school year starts to make some changes to my schedule. I happen to run into the one girl who hated me the most. Now, as I mentioned, no one expected me to do well on the test so up she walks all sly and says to me "I got a 3 on my AP Chem test. How did you do?" Now she just has that look about her that says she is waiting for me to say that I only got a 1 and she is going to get to gloat about how I wasted the year. So, some little demon in me prompts me to reply "Oh, I got a 4 on my test, but good job on your 3". You could almost literaly see her explode in temper at that news. She tosses her head and huffs off without another word. It is a mean pleasure, but I still love that I was able to set her down like that.

[Dori]

I'm going into my junior year of high school this fall. I have had many experiences thus far, too many perhaps to even keep count. Here are some of the more notable ones:

This last year (my sophomore year) I was placed in a gym class full of freshmen. I hated it. They all hated me and blamed me for cheating in various sports. During indoor soccer, I would often score 10-15 goals, single-handedly, which eventually led to everyone just quitting and calling me a show off (for being the only varsity soccer player in class, it seems). During our hockey unit, I, having played ice hockey for 8 years, had a bit of an advantage over everyone else which led to most people disliking me. One day wehn we were playing hockey, me and the gym teacher were virtually the only ones playing! The score ended up being something like 21-20 (we have very high scoring games) and I can vouch for at least 18 myself. My teacher also. Good times...
(I also loved being the only one with a varsity locker in the locker room.)

French class, however, was and remains the most memorable class. I must mention that I was the only male out of 8 people in that class. Our teacher, being trilingual (English, Spanish, French---she teaches the latter two), often gets her languages mixed up. It's hilarious. Also, she often gets distracted quite easily. We once had her talk about napoleon bonaparte for almost 20 minutes! That's half the class!

I've had many more experiences, due to the fact that most of my classes were similar to either of those I mentioned above. Good times.

[alejandra]

the funny thing is that now whenever I meet the same people who shunned me, they want to act as if we are old friends.


Same thing happens to me, Meg, and it makes me crazy! I guess I should be the bigger person and just be nice to them, but it is too damn hard. By the way I completely got your Ap chem story, similar things had happened to me and though it sounds mean it does feel great hehe

[Sweets America]

Shalot, I relate so much to your post!! I was the exact same way at school, couldn't speak to anyone because I was very scared of people, for some reason. I had anxiety which made me sick, and even more when I was compelled to speak in front of an entire class! It gave me the most awful feelings. As Dickinson would say, 'I felt a funeral in my brain'.

So, people thought I was strange and either didn't speak to me or were mean to me. I was just suffering, as you say. From kindergarten it had been this way. It was like being abandonned every morning and having to survive among those kids till late afternoon came and I could leave. But the next morning would invariably come.

I was always very scared to be myself and to do what I wanted to do. All those fears made me lack friends seriously. It was strange because I feared human beings, but at the meantime I was scared of remaining alone.

It took a long time for me to be self confident and face my own desires. To tell the horrible truth, it took four years of College. Four years in a field of studies that was NOT what I wanted to do, but that I had still chosen because I was afraid of doing what I really wanted to do. How sick is that? Well, at least I have woken up and started to trust myself, and now I'm doing the studies that have always been close to my heart. I'm studying the English language. The English language has always been a true friend to me. I don't know why those words soothe me and make me feel at home and welcomed. But when I was going through childhood and teenage years, whenenver I felt bad those words where there.

Now that I'm finally doing what I love, it's like a breath of fresh air! I'm still shy but it's getting better because I'm surrounded by more mature people, and since I don't look that closed, some of them come to talk to me. It is hard to feel comfortable among others but I'm struggling. I think all my previous school years have made me stronger.

Yes, Shalot, people are cruel. But sometimes you find some really nice people who help you to open your shell, and you tell yourself that you might have the right to be happy after all. I hope you're feeling better today. I hope all of you who have suffered through those school years are doing better now.

And to the original poster, never forget to be yourself so that you will attract people who are interested in who you really are. That is a very simple advice but sometimes we easily forget it. And if you happen to see one guy or girl who's alone in a corner, try to talk to him/her, because he might secretly be praying that you do so. And who knows, this person might become your best friend.

[Noisms]

I'm from the UK, so we don't really have 'high school'. Secondary school starts at 11 and finishes at 16, and that's the end of school. From 16 to 18 we go to college, which has a very different atmosphere. Kind of like a half way stage between school and university.

I loved my school. I played cricket and football a lot, made good interesting friends, got drunk too much. One thing I've noticed is that schools in the UK seem less divided. Everything I hear about American high schools tells me that there's a strict divide between who's cool and who isn't. In British schools everyone seems to get on fairly well with each other - for example, people would often invite their whole class to the parties they had for their birthdays and whatnot.

The main thing to remember is that what goes on in school seems important while you're there, but it really isn't. Whether you're popular or cool or whatever at school is no indication of how happy you'll be as an adult or whether you'll "succeed" in life.

The absolute best thing I can remember my school doing was going on strike. It was a stupidly hot day in summer and at lunch it got spread around from group to group in the 5th year (16 year olds) that we should call a strike on the grounds that it was too hot to be studying and it would violate our human rights. (Yeah, ridiculous, I know.) So when it got time for lunch to be over, everyone went to the football fields behind the school and sat out there refusing to go to class. There must have been three hundred of us - the entire 5th year - out there. Eventually after about an hour some teachers came out and told us that if we didn't come back to school there would be "dire consequences". Most of us just ran away, which kind of spoiled the image of standing up to authority and fighting for our rights. Our parents got letters from the Head Master telling them how idiotic their children were, and the entire year had to sit through an hour of detention every day for a week.

[Pensive]

The absolute best thing I can remember my school doing was going on strike.

Hehe, my classfellows once tried to do it as well on a very hot day at school when electricity was gone too. Planned it, but as soon as they heard the teacher shouting they all came back to their original class-room seats as quickly as lightning.

[formality hater]

I was never a mischief-maker and spent most of the time hiding in books.Though I remember one incident:
We really hated our History teacher and one day we became too tired to bear her.So we came up with the plan to be away from her for at least one day.One of my friend had discovered the Power Switch of the school so all we had to do was slam the handle down.So we did, and the whole school went out of lights and air.We could not study in the hot weather and no lights so we went straight to the grounds(along with the whole school,thanx to us;).Someone discovered the closed switch later but we did not get caught.What a foolish thing to do!:D

[Pensive]

I was never a mischief-maker and spent most of the time hiding in books.Though I remember one incident:
We really hated our History teacher and one day we became too tired to bear her.So we came up with the plan to be away from her for at least one day.One of my friend had discovered the Power Switch of the school so all we had to do was slam the handle down.So we did, and the whole school went out of lights and air.We could not study in the hot weather and no lights so we went straight to the grounds(along with the whole school,thanx to us;).Someone discovered the closed switch later but we did not get caught.What a foolish thing to do!:D

And poor us have to even study when the electricity is gone and it's very hot!

*edit to add*

Well, no poor us. After all, these studies are for our own good! :D

[alejandra]

I don't know if highschool studies are actually useful, don't get me wrong of course there are things you need to know, but from my experience about only 20% of the things I learnt in high school are useful for me right now, then I learnt a lot of things that didn't make sense then or now

[smartgirl]

this is some really good stuff. I like how each of you can feel that you can share this stuff with everyone. thanx to everyone!

[motherhubbard]

I didn’t care for high school. It was hard for me to relate with others and I wasn’t interested in the same things that my classmates seemed to enjoy. And, I’ve always been socially awkward, unless I’m faking as I often do. So I went to summer school and was able to graduate a year early. Everyone said that someday I would regret it like I was giving up the best time of my life, but I never have. I was sixteen when I graduated high school, and that was a little scary. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get a job or that people would think I had just dropped out of school. I knew I wasn’t really old enough to fit into the adult world, but I was still happy to be out of there.

[rabid reader]

In highschool I was kind of too differnet people. At the beginning a made a niche for myself as the class clown who got good grads, then I become the kid who makes dumb jokes and gets booted out of class (but I was careful which classes so I wouldn't be suspended), later in highschool, I failed both English and Physics and went throguh a rough year decided to mature a little and then I become a 90 student, graduated with honours. One this I loved about highschool (and now also about university) was how you can be friends with everyone. I had atheletes as friends, brainers, and drug dealers all as my friends as I progressed through highschool. The dramas you see on tv never happened at my school. It was a graduating class of close knit friendships and I am now two years since gaduation (three since my freshmen class graduated) and I still have many of the same friends plus my uni buddies.

When going into highschool you have to remember not to take stuff so seriously. People will piss you off, teachers will try to bully you around, just stand your ground take your licks and move on.

[Dikagami]

I dont care about highschool, I'd rather forget about it, quite frankly. It annoyed me and more so the cliques who are the most superficial beings on the face of the planet.

[smartgirl]

i no i haven't been in for a while, but thanx all.

I'm sorry that you dikagami would rather forget about it. true, true, I hate the cliques too, but I figured that i'd try to blend in. Some of those cliques kind of helped me. I get ur point on them being the "most superficial beings on the face of the planet." Still, i wish that they would become not so.

[amanda_isabel]

still in high school, yes i am, and loving it so far.

i'm thankful that here there really aren't any cliques.. i mean, there are groups, but at any rate they exceed superficial in even the smallest way.

i would love to share my experiences here but i have more than three years of journals (and more that i have to catch up on) to shre with you.. loking back at thee first one makes me feel pretty superficial and shallow, but hey, who isn;t superificial when younger? haha.. besides i was only 12 then, not sure of who i was... i;ve changed a lot, and it's fun o look back on that stuff, especially when with a big group of friends...