What were/are you in school?

travelgal

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 17, 2006
Messages
521
Reaction score
66
Location
South Korea
Yep, inspired by the thread "Who did you go to school with?", I'm curious. Obviously.;) There's an episode in CSI where Warwick has a run-in with a school bully: Warwick the hunky dude with the gorgeous eyes got beat up all the time, Sarah was the science nerd and Katherine the bully.

I had to the misfortune to have a younger, prettier, more popular sister in my year, and boy, did we get compared/ our names mixed up all the time (we don't look alike). I'm grateful we didn't go to a school with boys.

I was the awkward nerd forever lost in Doctor Who land who knew obcsure and not-so obscure stuff the other girls didn't have a clue about, and that included my best friend, who was known as "The Brain."
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2005
Messages
47,985
Reaction score
13,245
I was the loner. There were two girls I hung around with but that was by default, because no-one else would be their friend. One started mixing with the in-crowd and that took priority over us other two outcasts.

I had messy hair, bad skin, glasses and the worse thing of all - a brain. I was called a swot, but I never did any revising. I sailed through all tests and exams without even trying, so you can imagine the piss-taking I got for that. Picked last for teams during P.E., never had a boyfriend, boys only asked me out for a dare to see if I'd fall for it...it was during this time I perfected my 'fuck off' stare which today can make a grown man's balls shrivel (trust me. My last boyfriend said I had that effect on him).

So, my brain, my appearance and my lack of friends conspired to drive me even more deeply into the world of books and I still feel like a schoolgirl on occasions. Hated, hated, hated every single day of high school and couldn't wait to leave. I came out of it all with virtually no self-esteem and still have issues along those lines today, fifteen years later.
 

EriRae

:P
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 12, 2007
Messages
1,481
Reaction score
1,358
Location
The State of Marriage Equality.
Wow SP...that's me. Too bad we didn't live in the same country and go to the same school. We could've been the coolest girls there, together (even if we were the only ones who believed it).

I was a loner. I still have crazy naturally curly hair and fought acne until a few years ago (not because it went away, but because I found benzoil peroxide). I got contacts in junior high, but my eyes changed shape my freshman year and my mom refused to pay for more contacts until I was a junior... :( back to glasses. Seemed like forever.

SP can probably run mental circles around me, though...I was good at school, but not THAT good.

I've taken back my self esteem, only because I had it beaten from me by an abusive college boyfriend. I will not be a victim again!
 

akiwiguy

AW Inmate #90976
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
711
Reaction score
619
A few years ago a former teacher, by then very old, was discussing our class with a friend, and apparently I terrified the shit out of maths teachers because I was kind of gifted and they didn't have a clue what I was on about. I did love and devour maths and physics. Something that surprised me was that he said that our class was the standout of his entire career.

I was the class clown, always entertaining people with my bufoonery, and I think quite deliberately worked on a bit of a bad image maybe to counter the risk of seeming too academic. By say sixteen I was really quite bored with it all and was hanging out with a genuinely rough crowd doing way too much drugs and alcohol. Something that was really bizarre at our school, and teachers apparently look back at that era with bewilderment, were these ongoing racial wars we'd be having. Nearly every lunchtime all the Maori kids would be in one big group, all the Pakeha in another and then at some point it was guaranteed to be all on, everyone in. I hated violence, but always seemed to be on the periphery of it.

I think if you're from a pretty dysfunctional family and have big issues (fuck, looking back I can't believe the mess my head was in) the shit will eventually hit the fan, and it did with me big time.
 

Mandy-Jane

venturing ever further into the unknown
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 20, 2005
Messages
3,263
Reaction score
754
Location
I will complete a play this year! I will!
I was the shy one. Hardly any friends, softly spoken, low self-esteem, victim of bullies, glasses, etc. Yuk Yuk Yuk. Always got school reports that said "Mandy needs to make more of an effort to contribute to class discussion." "Mandy has great potential, but needs to speak up." "Mandy needs to be more confident" and on it went.

I still liked school though. I liked learning, not socialising.
 

akiwiguy

AW Inmate #90976
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
711
Reaction score
619
never had a boyfriend, boys only asked me out for a dare to see if I'd fall for it...
:
:
I came out of it all with virtually no self-esteem and still have issues along those lines today, fifteen years later.

I was a loner. I still have crazy naturally curly hair and fought acne until a few years ago (not because it went away, but because I found benzoil peroxide).


It's strange how lack of self esteem gets masked in so many different ways. If I'd have had any self esteem I think I'd have been doing the obvious thing and asking out the quieter more academic girls in the class with whom I'd have actually had some real compatibility. The really weird thing is, the same girls who were sitting there feeling left out, I was probably thinking "shit, they're just so straight and together, they wouldn't want a bar of of a fucked up idiot like me."

A lot of "cool" behaviour is exactly the same lack of self esteem coming out in a totally different way. I found it easy to socialise when I was in a crowd who were all loaded with substances. But underlying it all can be quite intense self-loathing.

In about my mid-twenties I had a real revelation, a paradigm shift that happened one day in an instance. I was in a drug/alcohol rehabilitation group that was made up of people from every imgaginable background. From high-ranking bankers, to people with pretty serious criminal histories. And I suddenly realised that we were actually all the same. If you took anyone's hopes, loves, fears, inner struggles... there was actually no difference. We were all just people wearing different masks. I can't say it totally healed me, but it is something that I still hold quite close in the way that I view other people.

I think the struggle to really accept and love who we are is perhaps the most universal ill within mankind. Yet it's odd how we think we're the only one afflicted with it. Then we have one of those moments when someone who we've always perceived as the most together person imaginable spills their guts, and we think "Fuck, I jsut never would have thought...". Sometimes a brief true intimacy, till we all decide, "Fuck, what was all that about?", and on the masks go again. Smile.
 

ErylRavenwell

Banned
Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Messages
852
Reaction score
166
You know what my high school nickname was? The Postman. Because I carried an "indestructible" leather bag that looked just like a postman's. Hehe.

Like that

leather-postman-bags.jpg



I still have crazy naturally curly hair

You make it sounds like it is a bad thing. Naturally curly hair are nice. And Erin, that's gotta be my-yet-to-be-born future daughter's name. Either that or Beryl. ;)
 

EriRae

:P
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 12, 2007
Messages
1,481
Reaction score
1,358
Location
The State of Marriage Equality.
You make it sounds like it is a bad thing. Naturally curly hair are nice. And Erin, that's gotta be my-yet-to-be-born future daughter's name. Either that or Beryl. ;)

LOL--no seriously, it's CRAZY. As in my mom kept it military short until I was in high school. Once I grew it out, I didn't have the right product (gel), so it was CRAZY. I also have enough hair for three people. I shave the back part from just above my ear. Can't even tell. Still looks like I have too much hair.

I used to pretend that all the girls were just so JEALOUS of me that they made fun of me and put me down...and then I'd just cry some more.

Erin and Beryl are beautiful names :) Hope you use 'em both!

ETA: My avatar is not an average day...that's as good as it gets. It's usually much CRAZIER than that.
 
Last edited:

ErylRavenwell

Banned
Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Messages
852
Reaction score
166
I used to pretend that all the girls were just so JEALOUS of me that they made fun of me and put me down...and then I'd just cry some more.

Damn right they were jealous...because they had "unstylable", plain hair. My hair is about like yours (raven-black hair though and much shorter of course). The hairdresser always compliments about my hair.

And Medusa rules.
 

EriRae

:P
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 12, 2007
Messages
1,481
Reaction score
1,358
Location
The State of Marriage Equality.
Damn right they were jealous...because they had "unstylable", plain hair. My hair is about like yours (raven-black hair though and much shorter of course). The hairdresser always compliments about my hair.

And Medusa rules.

Agreed, Medusa rules :)

"Wow, you've got a lot of hair," is my usual hairdresser comment. And then I show them that the back is shaved.
 

EriRae

:P
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 12, 2007
Messages
1,481
Reaction score
1,358
Location
The State of Marriage Equality.
Jebus, she told me the same thing. Did she massage your hair as well?

No, but I did have one girl ask another girl to come take a look, and then they decided that girl #2 would be the better choice to cut my hair, b/c girl #1 was too afraid! LOL--girl #2 is my regular hairdresser now :)
 

ErylRavenwell

Banned
Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Messages
852
Reaction score
166
No, but I did have one girl ask another girl to come take a look, and then they decided that girl #2 would be the better choice to cut my hair, b/c girl #1 was too afraid! LOL--girl #2 is my regular hairdresser now :)


I see; they need a skilled hairdresser to deal with the snakes in our hair. Proof of our superiority over the common of mortals. ;)
 

acharity

fantabulous!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
181
Reaction score
84
Location
Ontario
Hmmmmm...

Elementary school: The Tomboy :) Popular, I guess, I talked to everyone and everyone talked with me *rubs chin*

Middle school: The nerd. I was always so worried about being late to class and not getting good marks, etc. I didn't really pay attention to my clothes (sometimes went with my shirt inside out, lol) or makeup or anything... I wore my glasses all the time even though I didn't really have to (and they weren't trendy glasses). I had my clique of friends... I talked with everyone but only felt comfortable with my group. Out of the... eight of us? I talk with one- that is me best friend ^^

High school: 9-10, meh, same as middle school! 11-12, I paid more attention to my apperance, lightened up over being late (sometimes it just can't be helped!) and made more friends :)

Uni: In my third year now... ugh, I start today! But I'm very mellow... I make friends easily and find the work tedious. Blech! Stupid expenses... but I want that paper -_- I'd like to think that I'm well liked but I guess I don't really know. I'm pretty quiet, unless I'm with people I know, and I have a soft voice. A lot of people have told me that I tend to appear snobbish until they get to know me... hmmmmmm... ah well ^^ It is better to have one great friend than to have hundreds of mere acquaintances.
 

plnelson

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 28, 2007
Messages
233
Reaction score
44
Location
Chelmsford, MA, USA
Website
www.pnart.com
Hmmm . . .

What were/are you . . . ?

The ontological implications of this are stunning! And "in school", no less! This implies that we are are/were different things in different places. Do other things have this property? Does my Apple 80G iPod suddenly become, oh, say, an invitation to a Rosh Hashanah dinner, as soon as I arrive at work? (conceivably an iPhone could do this...). If I tell someone at their Rosh Hashanah dinner that I am a software engineer, is this different from saying I do software engineering (or at least I appear to when my boss is looking)? What are we, moment-to-moment, anyway? If you go to school and eat lunch in the school cafeteria and take a dump in the school lavatory, you are now different than when you got on the bus that morning. And over a lifetime so many cells in your body have died and new ones made that scarcely any of you is the same. It's "grandfather's axe", applied to grandfather himself - we hope not literally - that would be gross. "This is Grandfather's axe, the one he used to clear the land to build this house. Of course, since that time, we've replaced the head and the handle, but it still occupies the same space . . . "

Does this answer your question?
 

NeuroFizz

The grad students did it
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
9,493
Reaction score
4,283
Location
Coastal North Carolina
jock/nerd turned nerd/jock

I was a basketball junkie, starting forward on our conference co-championship team. My girlfriend was a cheerleader. But, I did really well in the classroom, so I was never more than on the fringe of the "popular group." Fortunately, it didn't steer me away from the studies (dumb down to be more popular). I was a sort-of class clown, but in the nerd classes, I'm not sure my humor would have been universal enough to escape down the hall.

Jock/nerdism continued throught Community College--starting 2-guard, and good in the classroom. I joined a "service organization" which was just a glorified term for an unofficial fraternity, and I went heavy into partying. Schoolwork held up through it, and I discovered my vocational love--Biology. I wasn't good enough of a basketball player to go to the major college level, so the nerd took over, and took me through grad school.

The jock resurfaced on my first job (but still was dwarfed by the nerd)--helped form a faculty-staff basketball group (made it a formal organization so we could reserve university facilities), and for twenty years, played 1 1/2 hours of hard full-court basketball three days a week (12 months a year). Had to quit ultimately because my knees told me it was time.

Now, I'm comfortable in my nerdism, and I stay in shape with low-impact aerobic exercise and moderate weight work. I also shoot hoops in the driveway with Little Fizzy (2nd grade). Fizzette (Kindergarten) hasn't shown an interest in b-ball yet--she's into performance arts. It'll be interesting to see where they fit in school society when their time comes.
 
Last edited:

Namatu

Lost in mental space.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
4,489
Reaction score
967
Location
Someplace else.
I'm not sure what I was in school, but it wasn't popular. I was somehow on the periphery of a lot of groups, quiet, shy, and (I realized later) bored. I prefer small groups to big ones and I tend to not want to do what everyone else wants to do (contrary, yes). I was always interested in "weird" things in high school, like archaeology. :rolleyes: Being contrary, I embraced the weird label until I got out of school, when I cast it aside and decided I would no longer accept for myself the judgments of narrowminded others.
 
Last edited:

Namatu

Lost in mental space.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
4,489
Reaction score
967
Location
Someplace else.
Oh yeah, where am I? I am who I was then, only without the strictures of a claustrophobic high school social structure, more self-confidence, and a well-developed "bitch face." (Scarlet and I should compare one day. I've seen myself in the mirror when wearing bitch face and it scares even me.) I have been called a superior, condescending bitch by friends so I suspect I may come off as a bit intimidating until you get to know me or, uh, even after you get to know me? But I'm nice! Really! I just don't tolerate crap well.
 

CaroGirl

Living the dream
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 27, 2006
Messages
8,368
Reaction score
2,327
Location
Bookstores
I was the awkward, shy, wall-flower girl. What was her name again? Too skinny, too tall, and too clever. I went to classes, did my work, and sat home watching tv every Friday and Saturday night (and every other night, too).
 

ajkjd01

I just have to be faster.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 15, 2007
Messages
549
Reaction score
94
Location
in my dreams...
Website
www.addiejking.wordpress.com
We hear all the stereotypes of high school all the time, and I've been sitting here trying to decide which one I fit into...

I went to a small midwestern high school, where I was a major band geek (played two different instruments and spent my senior year as the field commander for the marching band. I also play piano.) and three sport athlete at the same time.

I must also admit to being the editor of the school newspaper and in national honor society, as well as being on several quiz/academic decathlon type teams, spanish club, and other nerdy pursuits.

I wasn't the queen bee of popularity, but I knew everyone and got along with most of them. I wasn't the homecoming queen, or the class president, but never really got picked on past the beginning of freshman year (and don't we all get picked on then?). I had boyfriends, but wasn't the serial dater that some girls were.

If nothing else, I was TIRED in high school, because I was the obsessive overacheiver.
 

sunna

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 14, 2007
Messages
2,436
Reaction score
4,114
elementary school - tomboy and class poet, which in that crowd definitely made me a nerd. I hated brushing my hair and got into fights probably once a month; I had a mean right. :)
middle school - nerdy but not shy; I just didn't care much about my appearance, and I got good grades, which wasn't cool back then. also, if I recall correctly, got into fights. they just usually ended up being boyfriends (and one girlfriend) before or after the fact.
high school - theatre geek, track & field jock, AP/honors nerd, general thorn in the side of the administration.

So, basically, weird. That hasn't changed much.
 

cray

Superior Life form
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 8, 2006
Messages
41,200
Reaction score
17,716
Location
Post #37264
*cartwheels nekkid through the thread*










i was the streaker :D
 

Roger J Carlson

Moderator In Name Only
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 19, 2005
Messages
12,799
Reaction score
2,499
Location
West Michigan
I was in school for 12 years. I've been out of school for 3 times that long. I don't think it matters anymore.