Sunday Stealing

(Link in meme-roll)
Back to School

1. What kind of school did you attend (Big? Small? Public? Private? Specialty? One-room schoolhouse?)

I went to public school K-12 in the same school district as everyone except my mom went to school in suburban Denver. I went to a private college because they gave me a shit-ton of money so it worked out cheaper than a public university.

2. What did you wear to school (uniform? dress code? Whatever you wanted?)

We didn't have a uniform--this WAS, after all the 70s! In fact, I don't really remember much of a dress code beyond "no swear words on clothes" and "no thongs [flip-flops]." My mom never let me wear jeans to school, though. So uncool!

3. How did you get to school?

I walked: 7 blocks to K-6, 6 blocks to junior high, 8 blocks to high school. Three different directions. My junior high was my dad's high school, and has been torn down in the last 5 years and replaced by hideously ugly condo units.

4. Who was your favorite teacher? Why?

Nearly 19 years of education (counting grad school) and I'm supposed to pick ONE favorite teacher?!?! In more or less chronological order: Miss Morton, Mrs. Potter, Mr. Carlson, Ms. Groff (who got married and became Mrs. "Beast's Middle Name"), Mrs. Stobaugh, Ms. W (I seriously have lost her name--there were a lot of W-people), Mrs. Eaton (who got married and I don't remember her other name), Mr. Cady, Mrs. Goldstein, Mrs. Schellnut, Mr. Shupe, Mr. Gilchrist, Miss Bills, Miss Arraj, Mr Renaldo, Mr. Huff, Mr. Graebner, Miss Fitz, Ms. Philippe, "Grubie" (that's a long U), Dr. G, Dr. Hemmer, Doc Pete, "Yaack Duukkes!", Dr. Sherrick, Bud H., Dr. Sweetland, Dr. Samore. Then we have all the people who weren't being paid to teach, from whom I learned the most: the other students and staff and parents...

5. What was your favorite subject? Why?

I was good at, and enjoyed, most classes. Wasn't overly excited by hard sciences (physics, meteorology, astronomy), but I loved English and History. I ended up majoring in one and minoring in the other (with a second major and minor "to pay the bills."

6. What was your least favorite subject? Why?

Oops. Hard sciences. I gave up on math just before we started on "imaginary numbers" because having to prove obvious shit pissed me off. I would have murdered anyone trying to teach me Calculus... I never had to take math or science in college. [insert long story]

7. Did you belong to any clubs?

I was in foreign language clubs, band (not a club, but a GIANT time-suck), and did some background work for the high school wrestling team at meets and tourneys. In college I was on the campus radio station which ate a LOT of my time up, more and more as the years passed.

8. Were you a picky reader?

Hell no! I mean, I read everything, and even enjoyed most of the assigned stuff in English, with some notable exceptions: Cry, the Beloved Country, Madame Bovary, The Grapes of Wrath...I simply refused to finish those. Yuck. And of course, there were weekly trips to the library until I was old enough to work there (when there was even MORE reading!). When I was in college, I finally discovered--in my junior year--that most people don't actually read all the books that were assigned in class. What?!

9. What did you do in your free time?

Read. Watched TV. Listened to music. Practiced my flute. Thought about boys. Wished I were older.

10. Did you get good grades?

I was co-valedictorian of my high school class. I graduated magna cum laude in college. Yeah, my grades were required to be good.

11. Did you like/participate in sports?

I was on the basketball and volleyball teams one year each (not the same year) in junior high. I hated it. I should have done tennis; I'm much more a single-person-sport player than a team. I love watching sports, mostly.

12. Did you have a boyfriend/girlfriend in high school?

I dated one guy off and on my soph-sr years. He was FAR more serious about long-term stuff than I was. I would have preferred to date his brother. It always felt weird knowing that.

13. When did you get your driver’s license?

I was well past 16 before I felt like I could pass the street test.

14. What kind of kid were you? (Popular? Class clown? Shy? A nerd? Teacher’s pet?)

I was some horrible combination of Teacher's Pet, Nerd, Crybaby, and Dork.

15. Who were your heroes?

I don't remember ever thinking in these terms as a kid. I mean, I looked up to my parents and socio-cultural hotshots (MLK, Jr. and JFK and so forth) but my parents were staunch Republicans so there was some disconnect between learning how great FDR was at school and coming home and hearing how badly he ruined the country. Probably really good for me to have that discussion at that age, though.

16. Were you ever bullied?

Welcome to elementary and junior high school!! It did get better as I got older. Grade school was awful, probably because I was a scaredy-cat about almost everything.

17. Did you learn how to touch type?

Yup. Got an A in Typing I, even.

18. Who was your best friend? (Are you still friends today?)

In grade school, I honestly just remember hanging out with the non-popular girls. Not the kids with no friends, but the middle tier. In junior high and high school, it was all about Laura and Teri. I am Facebook friends with one of them; the other unfriended me earlier this year. [Weirdly, however, I'm Facebook friends with both her brother AND her mom...so strange...I have no actual idea WTF I said to piss her off so bad.] They didn't overlap at all, which is super-weird, because they also didn't get along great in school. In college, I shared a dorm room with my best college friend, and I'm still friends with her and several other very very close college friends--including my husband. ;-)

19. What is one thing you regret about high school?

I wasn't very nice to one of the girls in my English classes. She was The Weird Kid (think Ally Sheedy in Breakfast Club and obviously (now, but even then) had a totally fucked-up home life and was super intense. I don't think I actively SAID mean things to her, but I didn't by any means befriend her. And she absolutely could have used a friend. Still feel terrible about that.

20. What were you most proud about?

Marching band in high school was the center of my universe. My grades, in general, made me proud. Doing crazy things as I got older became a point of pride, fortunately "crazy" in a relatively safe way.