<p>I was an academically capable athlete. Or an athletic very good student. </p>
<p>Never was a bully, but I disposed of one (concussion) late in senior year and served a suspension for fighting. </p>
<p>It was a long time ago.</p>
<p>Bulllies have arisen more frequently these days because you get into such trouble for having anyone punch them in the nose. Having enforcers in the old days worked a lot better than the current system, I think.</p>
<p>Odd combination of vocational (secretarial–hey, i know shorthand. . .) student and NMF–only one in history? Didn’t make NHS. (let in, with apologies, after graduation). Overlooked. Did a little track, a little theater (if you count props, makeup, and ushering), yearbook staff. Decorated for dances but never went to them. Babysat every weekend. Faculty assistant. Wore braces. Spent lunch with other nerdy girls–playing “hangman” on the blackboard in a vacant classroom. Worked at a car dealer. Spent 4 years pushing through packed halls and stairways, watching drug deals, seeing people making out by the lockers, thinking the teachers were idiots and wondering what I was doing there. (Sounds like a movie, huh?)</p>
<p>Citygirlsmom, you are much younger than I am, because we didn’t have “computer geeks” in my high school! (I graduated in 1973, and don’t remember anything like that then…)</p>
<p>Rather nerdy with a small group of girlfriends to hang out with at lunch (basically spent lunchtime laughing at one cafeteria lady who always bent over to pick up trash, thus completely exposing her “Granny Panties!”)</p>
<p>Went to prom with boy down street whose mom and my mom probably pre-arranged the date (his mom could not stand his girlfriend!) Saturday nights were spent watching Mary Tyler Moore Show, Carol Burnett, and Bob Newhart on TV. </p>
<p>Worked after school and on Sat. mornings as a bank teller.</p>
<p>Only “real dates” were with a guy a year younger than I who must have seen something in me that those my own age didn’t notice!</p>
<p>Calculus teacher’s assistant senior year. Band (clarinet) nerd! Some small non-speaking parts in school plays. Valedictorian of class. Not chosen for many awards or scholarships possibly due to shyness and teachers not knowing me well.</p>
<p>College life was what I needed!!!</p>
<p>Band AND choir geek - big surprise there - Miss Everything That Didn’t Require a Vote of the Student Body - at my small high school. Of my graduating class of about 85, I think 5 of us went straight to college (a few more attended and/or graduated from college after making a later start), more telling is the statistic that all but 2 of the girls in my senior class (Moi and one more) were married by age 20 (all but a couple by the end of the first year post graduation)!!! I married a few days short of my 23rd birthday, I was an old maid.
I’ve avoided high school reunions, partly because most of my classmates are grandparents.</p>
<p>I am making mental notes of my Ds and how they are in HS, see how it plays out in a decade or two</p>
<p>I actually played Ultimate Frisbee in highschool, two girls played with about 40 guys ;)</p>
<p>THey made rules that the girls had to touch the frisbee before any points could be scored…after a while, the guys actually threw it to us females seeing that we could PLAY…I was part of the Ulitmate Frisbee birth…woohoo to me…its just kills my Ds thinking about that</p>
<p>Just have to add that I’m no longer the cheerleader type, whatever the heck that is. I certainly wasn’t a rich girl as the cheerleaders and jocks were at Dr.Drewsmom. </p>
<p>I haven’t outgrown my reserved and shy personality traits but I’m less of a conformist - look like one on the outside but on the inside I’m a little rebellious - took me 40 years to go through what some of you went through in high school. The first sign of my rebellion was switching from being a Republican to a moderate Democrat.</p>
<p>
I was pretty close to this. I was in the toughest classes but didn’t fit in with the intellectuals … basically I liked being challenged and the classes but wouldn’t want someone who just met me to guess I was (as my son says) a nerd. I was a very good athlete (in minor sports … cross country and track) but didn’t fit in with the jocks … again, I liked being a jock but wouldn’t want someone who just met me to guess I was one. </p>
<p>In HS I had a very small set of similar friends. This is actually one reason I think “fit” is a huge element of finding a great college for an individual. For me, it was finding a place where kids where very smart and motivated about school and ECs but pretty laid back and inclusive socially … and this was real easy to spot on visits.</p>
<p>I was a school newspaper geek, as were all of my closest friends. Cheerleaders and football players were our enemies, mainly because we feared them. </p>
<p>From 9th grade on, I had a particularly hard time with one football player, named George M., who delighted in torturing me in painful and sexually-suggestive ways. For example, he and his cronies would arrive early to a class we had together and draw very obsence pictures labeled with my name on the desktop. A different one each day. It was assigned seating and the teacher never seemed to notice my red face or the guffawing as George and his friends watched my reaction. This was just the tip of the iceburg - couldn’t tell you many of the other things he and his cronies did to humiliate me because they are still painful to talk about. At the time, it never occurred to me to complain to anyone, even my parents, because I somehow thought it was my fault for not standing up to George and his bunch when it first started. Looking back now, this was obviously sexual harrassment, not just bullying. Took me years to get over the feeling of shame. </p>
<p>Fast forward 30 years. Friends go to our 30th high school reunion and George is there handing out cigars to celebrate the birth of his first child. A daughter. </p>
<p>He named her Carolyn.</p>
<p>Carolyn,</p>
<p>What a story…feels like providence</p>
<p>Thanks for posting it.</p>
<p>I would have smacked him upside the head…</p>
<p>I feel sorry for poor little baby Carolyn…hope Dad has matured…</p>
<p>Oh yeah, almost forgot. I was pretty much like I am now - not in anyone’s clique,friends with a variety of people, active in things involving art and writing/reading, youth group at church, just a regular person. Not any of the h.s. stereotypes fit me.</p>
<p>Carolyn – I feel your pain. Nothing so consistent happened to me, but I, too, somehow felt I deserved it. That feeling got reinforced at home when I was told that a. I was too sensitive, b. The kid (or kids - I was a bully magnet) probably “liked” me and was trying to get my attention, c. “ignore him and he’ll leave you alone”, d. “boys will be boys”, e. any number of other comments that made me feel like the inadequacy was all mine. </p>
<p>Not only would I never have “smaked him upside the head,” I feel certain that I would have gotten no support at home or at school had I done so.</p>
<p>No little “binxes” though. What an interesting end to your story.</p>
<p>Desperate wannabe would be the term that covers it.</p>
<p>I went to a high school that valued football players and their crowd to excess so I attempted time and time again to be part of their circle - with no success. In spite of having the makings of a pretty good student I had parents that assumed all of their children were smart but did not care about the educational process one bit. I was immature enough to need validation from them if I was going to buck the trend at this school and become an academically oriented person. Being a member of every vocal performance group that would have me was one of the two redeeming parts of my high school experience. The other was meeting up with this very cool, geeky guy who was head of the All School Council and so comfortable in his own skin (without being a jerk) that he was a pleasure to be around. Fast forward seven years…I married him. :-)</p>
<p>Elleneast,
Your description of your parents resonates with me. My high school experience had a profound effect on how I raised my kids - my goal has been to encourage my kids to make the most of the intelligence they were given along with being comfortable in their own skin whether they fit into the most valued group at school or not.</p>
<p>We don’t really have cliques at my highschool…I’d probably fit into the very intelligent, outgoing, cool type…like most everyone else at my school.</p>
<p>Carolyn, 30 years to find a woman who wouldn’t hurl at the mere mention of procreating with this guy…you can derive some satistfaction from that! :D</p>
<p>In high school, I was a 30-y/o in a 17-y/o body. I was unusually stable, compared to my wild, younger sister, who achieved rock star status her freshman year and stayed that way for four years. What I heard most often was, “You are nothing like your sister!” which I always took as a compliment because it implied that I wasn’t an airhead. 
</p>
<p>My parents had it pretty easy with me. If they wanted to know where my sister was or what she was up to, they’d come to me first. I was the worst liar in the house, and all my mom had to do was look at me a certain way, and I’d spill my guts. </p>
<p>“Do you know where your sister is?”<br>
“YES! She climbed out the window and told me not to tell you that she was going to a kegger in the desert.” </p>
<p>Mystery solved. Mom shifts into top-of-the-food-chain, carnivorous mode…</p>
<p>I was involved in a lot of activities in high school, but it was mainly to fight off boredom. Cheerleader, student council rep, Girls’ State, yearbook, newspaper, FTA, Honor Society, French Club, gymnastics, softball, and an ERA feminist. I was UNpopular with the cool girls who traveled around in a pack, and for the purpose of maintaining their cool status, wore men’s boxer shorts for underpants. </p>
<p>On occasion, I was willing to face off with idiotic administrators who were trying to stick it to some poor student who was being singled out as an example to the rest of us. Every now and then, I was willing to stand up for someone who deserved more than what they were getting. I, sometimes…well, always challenged rules that punished the whole class and not just the ones who deserved it.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, I probably didn’t make it easy for my parents! ;)</p>
<p>
Always one level down in the pecking order of popularity. Flag girl for the band instead of cheerleader, etc. Sought the approval of those in the cool group. I was the only one of my grad class to go straight to a UC, and I don’t think anyone envied me. The minute I stepped on the college campus, I realized how STUPID I had been.
Was prez of Future Teachers of American and CA Scholarship Federation (volunteer positions for two very nerdy groups at my small cowtown HS). My most memorable academic story is as the only girl in the 4th year math class with 7 guys. I was beating their bu**s off academically, so in retribution they made me a laminated card proclaiming me an “Honorary Guy”. At the time, I was so flattered to be accepted, particularly since I had a crush on one of them. Reflecting some years later, I realized that really I had damaged their fragile male egos. My first experience with male chauvinists that continued to a degree with my fellow male engineering majors in college.</p>
<p>I went to three high schools because my father was in the military. In the first, we were all dweebs as it was a magnet school for that purpose. The second was a base school where I had most of my classes with seniors (the DOD school was somewhat lacking) and I dallied ever so briefly with band-wally-dom. The last school was terrible–I transferred in February and everyone thought I had been kicked out of somewhere. Most of the kids had gone to kinder together. I did mostly service clubs, literary magazine, and worked a job. My parents put my in a church youth group where we did not-so-Christian-like things, I was on the fringe of the freaks.</p>