Highschool: Hated it or loved it?

[Shift-4]

1 minute ago, BaerOxHitman said:

You have no idea

Nothing that I listed from my experiences in high school had anything to do with luck  

[Putgolzin]

hated it.

dog eat dog world was in full effect and I was far from one of the alphas.

university was great, it was finally acceptable to be yourself...

later on I got a job at a lumber shipping place and all these 35 year old dudes had simply spent the previous 20 years perfecting their craft from high school!

[Baer.]

11 minutes ago, Shift-4 said:

Nothing that I listed from my experiences in high school had anything to do with luck  

You're kidding right?

Captain of basketball team: blessed with superior athletic genes. I grew up very slim and was an outcast when I tried to play sports. Always last picked and was never even that bad. Your peers liked you enough to make you their captain. Something I could only fantasize about.

I was incessantly bullied throughout promary school. I once tried to join student council in the 7th grade and was laughed at. 

I had decent grades but that only made me more of an outcast. Nobody cares if you're academically sufficient. That's one of the major problems of school culture.

Most of my days were spent alone or with the one friend I had who would end up betraying me.

It felt like high school was a prison. Where social status meant the most, I was at the bottom of the food chain. Eventually I fell into depression which kept me out of school for an entire semester in the 10th grade.

You had the life I dreamt of growing up.

I see what you are saying. You probably worked hard to get to where you were. But when it boils down to it, it's all about having the superior genetics. Which is pure luck.

[GLASSJAW]

high school was a drag, even when it wasn't

[-DLC-]

Was an A+ student in highschool when apparently I caught a popular (with the girls) bad boy's eye.   He was in a rough crowd and the girls were jealous of this attention, so would line the heaters on either side of the front door waiting to stare me down upon arrival each day.

It was intimidating, and so I ended up crossing over from a good girl to run with the wild crowd and be accepted by them.   And they turned out to be nice people, but the whole HS pecking order thing came into play. So stupid.

High school back then (100 years ago) was lax and ridiculous....they really didn't do us any favours.  Had an alcoholic science teacher, a dysfunctional English teacher and there was an out of control (in an anger management way) shop teacher who actually got fired for attacking kids.

We spent much of our time outside, smoking/etc. and no one cared.  They passed us because they were too lazy to follow up.  Sad and pathetic, really.

But it was one of the most amazing times of my life and is a huge part of my (fond) memories.  Learned to be street smart back then.  And the music was incredible and the back drop of our story.

Funny because FB has allowed a lot of us to reconnect and I find the people just as warm/receptive as I did back then and I truly do "like" them.

[Shift-4]

5 minutes ago, BaerOxHitman said:

You're kidding right?

 

Nope. Not kidding. 

I feel bad for you and your view on your experiences. Looks to me you are focusing on the negatives a little too much. I did the same in the early years of high school. I was bullied too (still want the bullies to have the $&!# kicked out of them, 30 years later). I was scrawny. Not very social. That drove me towards doing well with the schooling which set the foundation for later years when good grades really mattered.
Also grew up with severe acne. That was a thrill. Eventually I just said '&^@# it'. Not going to let this get me down.

Superior athletic genes?   Nope. Unless you are just referring to quickness. That is about all I had. And that was from playing outdoors non stop as a kid. I was not the most talented player. I just like b-ball. And I wasn't one of the taller kids in basketball terms. Because I was shorter I knew I better work on my ball handling skills. So I practiced my dribbling (no luck required, just hard work and dedication). That made me a point guard. That put me in a lot of pressure situations on the court. Pressure situations meant a lot of screaming at me from the coach   Maybe all those years of being bullied set me up for the criticism from the coach. He would shout my name for everyone to hear in not so flattering ways. I loved it, because I knew he wanted me to be better. All that pressure, all that practice and all that perseverance made me a leader. Couple that with the position of point guard and it was only natural to become captain. 
I am still laughing at the superior athletic genes. I now coach basketball. I pick out the valuable players based more on determination and drive than talent.

I feel for you though, man. Teenage years truly suck in a lot of ways. Other kids are cruel. Chemical changes in the body really screw with us in a lot of ways. 

I highly doubt anyone dreamt of being me though. I was just another guy trying to figure it all out.  

 

[Baer.]

18 minutes ago, Shift-4 said:

Nope. Not kidding. 

I feel bad for you and your view on your experiences. Looks to me you are focusing on the negatives a little too much. I did the same in the early years of high school. I was bullied too (still want the bullies to have the $&!# kicked out of them, 30 years later). 

There were no positives. That's the crummiest bs I used to hear all the time. "Just focus on the positive stuff. Stop being so negative." But there wasn't anything to be positive about.

I eventually had to drop out and go to an alternative school because of the time I missed in the 10th grade. I have to admit my time there was enjoyable. The last few months of my schooling career didn't feel like hell, so that was new. However at this point I had sacrificed my grades for social gain.

Obviously you had some sort of athletic skill. I tried to join sports but I was turned away because of my size despite how hard I tried. I loved playing floor hockey, but never had the chance at school. Later that year I joined a floor hockey league outside school and really enjoyed it. We didn't keep track of stats as it was a friendly league but I recall scoring a few points. The league had dissolved the following year due to lack of interest.

Come to think of it, I was in a lot of extra curricular programs out side of school. Removing myself from that environment really helped me.

Of course after all of this I didn't even mention my drug experimentation.

[aGENT]

Largely good, lots of fun parties, camping trips and shenanigans that are now fond memories. Somehow managed to get on the honour roll in grade 12 despite all the partying, drinking, pot smoking and not going to a LOT of classes.

That said, I literally see no one from my high school years anymore, reinforcing that sentiment that high school REALLY doesn't matter in the grand scheme of your life despite it seeming like EVERYTHING those few years your in it. So while I have some fond memories of good times...it all seems largely, sadly hollow and meaningless now  Meh.

Fortunately, my life since then has been filled with much more enriching experiences and people that very much do matter.

[Shift-4]

2 minutes ago, BaerOxHitman said:

There were no positives. That's the crummiest bs I used to hear all the time. "Just focus on the positive stuff. Stop being so negative." But there wasn't anything to be positive about.

I eventually had to drop out and go to an alternative school because of the time I missed in the 10th grade. I have to admit my time there was enjoyable. The last few months of my schooling career didn't feel like hell, so that was new. However at this point I had sacrificed my grades for social gain.

Obviously you had some sort of athletic skill. I tried to join sports but I was turned away because of my size despite how hard I tried. I loved playing floor hockey, but never had the chance. Later that year I joined a floor hockey league and really enjoyed it. We didn't keep track of stats as it was a friendly league but I recall scoring a few points. The league had dissolved the following year due to lack of interest.

Just trying to help you out.  

And I am sure you have really tough shins from the floor hockey  

[Putgolzin]

38 minutes ago, debluvscanucks said:

Was an A+ student in highschool when apparently I caught a popular (with the girls) bad boy's eye.

So whatever became of the bad boy Deb?!

[Ghostsof1915]

High School was a mix of good and bad. 

Grade 8. Hell.

Grade 9. Better, at least the history teachers could teach. I loved science and the science teachers sucked. Had the only Math teacher that was willing to teach in my entire run at high school. He even made the class fun with his jokes.

Grade 10. Last year of junior high. (You know Junior high?) Played backup linebacker on our football team. We sucked but won our last game. You'd think we won the Super Bowl. 

Grade 11-12. Cruise mode begins. Got great marks in English and Geography. Passed other courses and exceeded in my electives.

Once again the science teachers were ok, but definitely knowledgable. Too bad they only cared about how our experiment reports looked like. They didn't seem to care what the rationale of learning behind it. My history teacher was a US born Draft Dodger who didn't want to kill Vietnamese. He was the most innovative and cool teacher I had. If you were late. You wrote out the first page of War & Peace. No one was late more than once. Some of the teachers were senile and should have stopped teaching 20 years earlier. I didn't fit into the crowd. So I eventually hung out with other people the same way.

College was way more fun, and I learned more in English 100, and Math 100 than I did in high school. So college showed me you could really teach what you learn in high school in pretty much 6 months. 

[aGENT]

7 minutes ago, nzan said:

So whatever became of the bad boy Deb?!

Evidently Deb was the inspiration behind the musical Grease...

Deb before bad boy:

Deb after:

 

[Baer.]

27 minutes ago, Shift-4 said:

Just trying to help you out.  

And I am sure you have really tough shins from the floor hockey  

True. But the enjoyable parts are only mere months out of a decade long span of dispair. It was only nearing the end of the 11th grade that I accepted my social status and learned to live with it. This was a very important time of my life. Doing that made me a lot happier. I decided what I wanted to do.

I accepted the fact that I'm probably going to spend most of my life alone. I started focusing on other things. I have yet to decide whether I want to go to post secondary, but I do love travelling. I'm going to London next month and I am so stoked!!! I'm trying to find something I enjoy and I think travelling will open my mind to new ideals.

I never was the cultured type anyways.

Today I have a steady job, I rent a room and can afford basic luxuries. I pay my taxes and I'm overall self sufficient. I think I did OK with the cards I was dealt.

I just look at my time in my childhood and early teens with whatever the opposite of "rose coloured glasses" is.

[Tre Mac]

I was pretty much non existent in HS, kept my head down and barely talked to anyone unless they wanted to talk to me.  Had some good one liners though, I bet they caught everyone off guard.  Like one time in English we were discussing movies in class when a girl says 'I hate films were women are portrayed as stupid' and I responded with ' I believe those are called documentaries' and everyone laughed.  My motto in HS was 'bare minimum' and that helped maintained my C- average.   

[Shift-4]

3 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Evidently Deb was the inspiration behind the musical Grease...

 

Word is it didn't go too well for the bad boy

Before Deb

 

After Deb

 

[Shift-4]

5 minutes ago, BaerOxHitman said:

 

I accepted the fact that I'm probably going to spend most of my life alone. I started focusing on other things. I have yet to decide whether I want to go to post secondary, but I do love travelling. I'm going to London next month and I am so stoked!!! I'm trying to find something I enjoy and I think travelling will open my mind to new ideals.

 

And now I envy you.

 

[aGENT]

2 minutes ago, BaerOxHitman said:

True. But the enjoyable parts are only mere months out of a decade long span of dispair. It was only nearing the end of the 11th grade that I accepted my social status and learned to live with it. This was a very important time of my life. Doing that made me a lot happier. I decided what I wanted to do.

I accepted the fact that I'm probably going to spend most of my life alone. I started focusing on other things. I have yet to decide whether I want to go to post secondary, but I do love travelling. I'm going to London next month and I am so stoked!!! I'm trying to find something I enjoy and I think travelling will open my mind to new ideals.

I never was the cultured type anyways.

Today I have a steady job, I rent a room and can afford basic luxuries. I pay my taxes and I'm overall self sufficient. I think I did OK with the cards I was dealt.

I just look at my time in my childhood and early teens with whatever the opposite of "rose coloured glasses" is.

 

29 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Largely good, lots of fun parties, camping trips and shenanigans that are now fond memories. Somehow managed to get on the honour roll in grade 12 despite all the partying, drinking, pot smoking and not going to a LOT of classes.

That said, I literally see no one from my high school years anymore, reinforcing that sentiment that high school REALLY doesn't matter in the grand scheme of your life despite it seeming like EVERYTHING those few years your in it. So while I have some fond memories of good times...it all seems largely, sadly hollow and meaningless now  Meh.

Fortunately, my life since then has been filled with much more enriching experiences and people that very much do matter.

Pay particular attention to the underlined  Good or bad, highschool matters very little in the overall spectrum of your life and doesn't remotely define you.

Become who your meant to be. Seek out interesting and like minded people. Seek out enriching experiences and relationships. Challenge yourself.

[Jägermeister]

I didn't have any strong feelings towards it one way or the other until grade 12.  Grade 12 was a freakin' blast.

Looking back at it though, I miss all of it.  Easy, no responsibilities, got to hang out with your friends practically all day 5 days a week, and got to play organized sports that weren't astronomically expensive to join.  Not to mention high school house parties.  The days.

[Sean Monahan]

1 hour ago, BaerOxHitman said:

You're kidding right?

Captain of basketball team: blessed with superior athletic genes. I grew up very slim and was an outcast when I tried to play sports. Always last picked and was never even that bad. Your peers liked you enough to make you their captain. Something I could only fantasize about.

I was incessantly bullied throughout promary school. I once tried to join student council in the 7th grade and was laughed at. 

I had decent grades but that only made me more of an outcast. Nobody cares if you're academically sufficient. That's one of the major problems of school culture.

Most of my days were spent alone or with the one friend I had who would end up betraying me.

It felt like high school was a prison. Where social status meant the most, I was at the bottom of the food chain. Eventually I fell into depression which kept me out of school for an entire semester in the 10th grade.

You had the life I dreamt of growing up.

I see what you are saying. You probably worked hard to get to where you were. But when it boils down to it, it's all about having the superior genetics. Which is pure luck.

I'm in no way trying to marginalize or minimize your problems but I wanted to say...My high school path wasn't terribly different. In grade 8 I dropped out of school in March. I'd been suffering from bi-polar disorder, OCD, and a social "phobia"- none of which was suitable for any school enviroment, let alone a large high school like mine (~1500 kids). I hardly ever went to class, got into lots of trouble in and out of school and before I knew it I was the first kid in 26 years to fail beginner band class. After I dropped out of school I went for a stay in Children's Hospital for roughly 12 weeks. At first, I underwent tests because docs were positive I was either deaf or suffering from a moderately severe learning disability (which, FYI, I aced). I then did an aptitude test which I scored quite well on. That score gave me 3 options: IB Program at Semiahmoo, public high at a smaller HS here in Delta, or a super small, specialized program somewhere in Surrey (like, 30-kids-in-the-school specialized). I went with the small public school, which was only about 650-700 students. The environment was totally different from my old one. I was heavily medicated for my anxiety and temper, so my first year and a bit (grade 9) was kind of a write off. About halfway through grade 10 something clicked. I went from failing/barely passing to straight a's, I dropped weight from 245 down to 180 (I'm 6"2), and I started making a some friends (most of which I still have today). My new school seemed to nurture and encourage achievement and success, at least when compared to my old school. The athletics programs weren't strong (I was a big basketball player at the time) while my old school was but it didn't really matter. Basketball became something fun, not a route to college. Luckily my HS added a baseball academy and I joined that in grade 10. In baseball academy I met my best buddy (still is today). For me, the academy gave me a good core group of friends and an identity within the school. The coaches were great role models and really encouraged me to strive for success. Eventually I'd graduate with good-but-not-great grades (they slipped in grade 12 when I "decided" I wanted to play junior college baseball) and a scholarship to play baseball at a mid-major D1 school. Thirteen year old me would  never have foreseen any of that. I wasn't valedictorian, the most popular kid, the best athlete, or anything like that. Between grade 12 and my first 2 years in college I just really learned how to be me. I stopped wasting time on the people and things that didn't make me happy. I'd say I've actually grown to be a little more introverted and I tend to keep to myself more but my social anxiety and whatnot has actually eased up. From seeing your posts I'd venture a guess that you're roughly 18-20 years old, right? My 20 year old self would hardly recognize the high school me, and the current me wouldn't recognize the 22 year old self. IMO this is the point in your life when you'll really figure out who you are, what you want, who you want to be with, etc. You've just gotta come at it with the right mindset.

4 minutes ago, nzan said:

So whatever became of the bad boy Deb?!

Yeah, I'm curious too. Your current husband and father of four, a convict, registered sex offender...what became of him?

[smithers joe]

i don't know why but i was always well liked in school by everyone...maybe not all the teachers though...i wasn't all that good a baseball player, but i always got picked first...i was a good hitter...was that throughout my life...as much as we wanted to get out of school, i think we all realized that, that was the happiest days of our life.