I was a smart kid, back in high school. I took hard classes, especially in subjects that weren't math and science. I think it's because I wasn't very cool or fun or fashionable or really very pretty either, at least not in an attractive-to-high-schoolers kind of way, and I had really crappy self-esteem.
So I thought, hell. I'm smart. I'll be the smart kid. Maybe someone will like me cuz I help them with their homework or something.
Needless to say, this didn't work out too well. People still didn't like me.
I was a huge nerd, especially with English and literature classes, so of course my junior and senior years I took Advanced Placement English. Junior year it was awesome. I had the most amazing teacher--to this day one of the best I've ever had--and I learned a TON.
He taught me about LIFE, man, and how to write in a way that pierces the reader. It was amazing.
Senior year...not so much.
I had this wonderfully sweet lady for a teacher, and don't take this the wrong way, because she was sooooo nice and I think at one point in her career she was a really good teacher.
But by the time she got to my year she was starting to get quite old, and had a tendency to repeat herself. A lot.
For example, I distinctly remember hearing her describe the way someone was talking, I think it was Hamlet, and this is LITERALLY what she said.
"And he went on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on...."
It was at least that many "and on's."
I got a 5 on that AP test at the end of the year*, and it had more or less nothing to do with what I learned from her. It was a combination of my own personal strength with literature and the knowledge I carried over from junior year AP English.
You know how I know it wasn't because of what she taught me?
Because I--the most attentive student of all time, who would have a horrible guilt complex for missing a question on homework or not studying quite as long as the teacher told me to--yes, even I could not pay attention in class.
I wrote in my notebook as if I was taking notes on her lecture, but really it was my diary and I was writing about my first husband and how cute he was and how I wished he'd go out with me. Or I'd get started on my homework for other classes. Or I'd doodle in the margins.
Or, if I got really bored, I'd teach myself some literature skills and write poetry.
Like this:
Yeah.
The senioritis didn't help either.
That was definitely the class I skipped the most that year. And what's hilarious is that the whole thing was such a joke, none of this even hurt my grade. I got a high A. For scribbling in my diary, inwardly mocking the teacher, going home "sick" to skip the class all the time, and pretty much doing nothing but the papers.
Which I BS'ed, of course.
Just one more example of why I'm SO GLAD I'm done with high school.
*For those unfamiliar with the AP test system and how the grading works, 5 is good. It's graded on a scale of 1-5.