Be True To Your School

Fill this out about your high school experience! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be!! (This is true; I've found that my high school experience becomes more fun the longer I'm away from it). At the end, choose 10 people (or more) to be tagged (etc; it's a meme, you know the drill).

IN HIGH SCHOOL:

1.When did you graduate?
I am vintage 1990.

2. Did you date someone from your school?
Not while I was attending school there.

3. Did you drive to school? If so, what kind of car did you have?
I drove an International Harvester Scout.

4. Where did you sit during lunch?
Right beneath the image of the Giant Wooden Suffering Jesus, which helped to put my own lunchtime experience in perspective.

5. Were you considered a party animal, jock, nerd, art/ theater geek, …fill in the blank?
I was considered an urban legend.

6. Did you ever have detention or get suspended?
I was given kitchen duty by Sister Ella Jane in the eighth grade, which left me with several free sodas and a lifelong appreciation for cafeteria workers.

7. Did you skip any classes and if so, which ones and how often.
I often "forgot" my gym clothes to catch up on my writing... though never when we were doing archery, softball or floor hockey.

8. How did you spend your time in study hall?
I spent junior year writing a novel-in-notes about what would happen if nickels became the most important thing in the world. It didn't make a whole lot of sense then, either.

9. It is Saturday night...where were you then?
Either attending a party at Jon's, playing Risk and listening to Pink Floyd with Bill or shooting pool and watching James Bond movies with Hans.

10. What kind of job did you have in high school?
During my junior year, I worked at the movie theater, providing alibis for all of my friends. At the end of my senior year, I had the greatest job of all time — working at a video store, getting paid to watch movies and make recommendations about them on the rare occasion that a customer walked through our doors.

11. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)
Mr Golden was (and is) a mentor, Mr. DiNardo was an inspiration and Mr. Slavin let Jon and I write our snarky column for the newspaper. He also pushed me to try harder and to step outside my comfort zone at a time when I was inclined to slack off... I'd never have looked twice at a movie like Driving Miss Daisy if he hadn't asked me to review it.

However, my favorite teacher would have to be Sister Dolores, who was warm, brilliant, thoughtful, endlessly curious and open-minded. I wouldn't have thought that the person who would first prompt me to evaluate all of the issues on both sides of the abortion debate — and make up my own mind about how I felt — would be a Catholic nun.

12. Did you have fun at Prom? Who did you go with?
I am not proud of the way I behaved at prom, but I had a lot of fun.

13. What is your favorite high school memory?
Either the time Josh and I spent New Year's Eve in the Soviet Union going sledding with a group of drunken Alaskans... or the time our friends threw a surprise birthday party for Jon and me, getting us both there by telling each of us that it was a party for the other.

14. Who did you have a secret crush on? Is there anyone you wished you had dated?
I don't think any of my crushes were secret. I'm glad I asked out most of the people I wanted to — even though very few of those attempts worked out the way I'd hoped (there's a reason they call them crushes), I learned some valuable lessons.

For example: flowers and poetry are not always the way to a girl's heart, and neither is showing up at her place of work to rent a porn video... on a dare... giving her the opportunity to yell at you in front of the whole store...

15. Is there anyone you wished you had gotten to know better?
I wish I could have gotten to know everyone better. That said, the people I did spend time with in high school were some of the best I've ever known.

16. If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself?
Remember in Say Anything, when John Cusack grabs the drunken partygoer, shakes him and says "Dude! You must chill"?

Yeah. That scene was written for me.

17. What do you regret?
There was a time... I think it was sophomore year... when someone approached me to say they were starting a band, and that they were interested in having me help with lyrics. I wish I had pursued that.

18. What are you most proud of?
I had terrible, terrible stage fright — I'm really shy, and I hate being in the spotlight for any reason. But I tried out for the school play as a senior, because I felt like it was my last chance to do something like that, and because I thought it was the sort of thing Josh would have done, had he still been around. But mostly because it struck me as a good way to meet girls.

19. Did you do or ever see anyone doing anything illegal?
Scott and I flung a microwave oven halfway across the parking lot on his last night of work, although I consider that to be more artistic than illegal.

18. Who, from your graduating class, would you most like to see now and why?
Ted Dingley. I can't say I knew him well, but I always had a lot of respect for him.

21. What is one thing NO ONE knew about you in high school?
I donated $1 to some organization Sister John Francis was collecting for called the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which issued me a membership card. I later found out that the Society was previously as known as the Inquisition. So I am a member of the Inquisition. Apparently, our chief weapon really is surprise...

23. What was your most embarrassing moment(s)?
Rob Slavin talked me into dressing up as Batman (it was not a flattering costume, by any means) to deliver a bicycle to a group of kindergartners as part of a raffle. By some strange quirk of fate, some of those kindergartners would become my students when they reached high school.

24. Are you planning on going to your next reunion?
Not after finishing this list.

25. Do you still talk to your friends from high school?
I still see Jon at least once a year, as well as Demetrius (I can't return home without a visit to the KHOP). I don't see Josh as much as I used to (although he's probably grateful that I'm no longer dropping by his apartment at 1 a.m.) Bill and I have been talking lately, and I always look forward to my Christmas card from Marie.

26. What did you want to be /do after you graduated? Did you do it?
I really wanted to get home and take off that itchy tuxedo. I am proud to say that after many years and a lot of hard work, I have finally succeeded.