> Hm. I wish I'd learned better to negotiate with adults.
> Still can't do it comfortably. I'm good at retreat, though.
I think my school experience helped with this. I learned to negotiate for
all the wrong reasons. Getting out of trouble was an art form and comes in
useful in everyday life. When I was at school me and some friends were
planning for a life of crime, social engineering of teachers was perfect
practise and we became so good at it we could get away with anything.
> I feel left out. (I usually feel left out, dammit.)
Me too.
> I never got beat up, scrawny though I was.
I was only ever on the other end of the stick - the end with the comfy grip -
which will win me no friends on this list.
> In third or fourth grade I once fought Peter Benesch one-on-one.
> (Gave him a black eye, or so he claimed; I never saw the shiner.)
In my early school years I got to do all the beating, after which I was
nuetral. There's something to be said for kicking the shit out of people
*before* they get to an age when they can do serious damage. By the time I
got high school all those kids I use to beat up where much bigger than me,
but they left me alone.
> Fifth/sixth grade (different town) was marginally worse.
> On one occasion during recess my peers pushed me into a "fight" with
> a classmate's kid sister.
Who won?
> On my way home a neighborhood bully tried on two occasions to pick
> a fight, but I baffled him by not knowing the conventions. I suppose
> he decided I was a sissy not worth scuffing his shoes.
Every fight I've been in has ended with the other kid coming up with an
excuse to leave, or my friend switching in to 'psycho' mode and deciding to
bring bricks into the equation (A psychotic friend is a must for anyone
entering public school).
I did once get attacked by a man weilding a bag full of shopping. After
which we waited around for two weeks to see where he lived so we could
firebomb his house, but he never came back :-(
> And - I almost forgot - while waiting for the school bus in the morning,
> I once stood by impotent while bullies made my sister lick spit off the
> pavement.
Nice!
For me school was 5% fun (joking, burning, breaking, stealing, hurting and
blowing things up), 70% boredom, and 25% that I didn't attend (I missed about
3 years because I couldn't cope with the 70% boredom). But I never had as
bad a time as many of the people on this list. This is no reason to say it's
a good thing, even if we had all had a great experience at public school
there would still be room for improvement.
--Wax