Pubski! Been a while. So I was having a conversation with Waterford about my educational history just now, and they(?) managed to coax this out of me. Thought the rest of you may be interested (also I'm really proud of the writing):

3rd grade, I got tired of doing the same shit over and over again. Basically, repetition bores me academically. Always has. So I complained to my parents, and I kept complaining until they complained to the administration, and eventually I got scheduled to take some placement tests. I scored highly on all but social studies, so after being reassured of just how unbearable I was finding school, the Powers That Be ordained that I would become a fourth grader. Fortunately I already knew a guy from cub scouts who was in 4th grade, so I pretty much ended up just integrating with his social group. Not bad.

I continued to get good grades and be generally pretty bored by my schoolwork until just after 6th grade, when I discovered a (kind of) local school that catered to gifted and talented kids specifically, with small class sizes, and I moved there for 7th grade. Classes were better, but obviously every school has its problems, so it wasn't perfect. About a quarter through 8th grade, I got bored again with English and History, so I moved to the next available level of those classes. Thing is, since the school is so small (my graduating class is 2), that level was 10th grade. So I did World Lit and History! That went (mostly) fine, although I got the first B-for-a-semester I've ever received in History. I blame that on the teacher--we took a practice AP test, and the highest grade in the class (of 4) was a 2. Yeah.

But then post-middle school, my family ran into some financial problems and we could no longer afford to pay basically the cost of a reasonably priced state university, so back to public school it was. We ran into some problems credit-wise with my classes from the other school, but after working those out it was determined that I would take 9th grade classes for a year, then move up to junior year. So I was a freshman for a year, and honestly it wasn't so bad. There was much more freedom in terms of class level what with AP etc., and elective choice was awesome (especially compared to TinySchool). I integrated socially through theatre class, and got to the point where everything was going well. I still missed TinySchool, but I'm pretty sure I just idealized my memories of it.

And then once I'd become a full-fledged junior, our family's financial situation changed again. I went back to TinySchool within two days. (Hasty much?) In fact, I totally abandoned the main-stage theatre production I was in because I thought TinySchool was so great. They ended up reshuffling last-minute and another guy learned all my lines in like 3 weeks. I still feel like a dick for that (even though I brought the class cupcakes later that year to apologize). So I did fine in my classes that year, although I was disappointed by the quality of the school. My teachers were kind of 'meh' and the administration was making what I viewed as some bullshit decisions. Incidentally, at the end of that year the first graduating class TinySchool had ever had (also with 2 people) graduated. I spearheaded elections, and I and the other soon-to-be senior were elected to design and preside over a new High School government.

Fast forward a crazy, wonderful summer.

Here I am: senior year. I continue to do all of my activities, including basically running the entire government (no one else cares, so I basically wrote the Constitution and have literally written every Senate Resolution we have and got it passed). I noted the same on my Colgate application, as well as including my information and an essay about a summer camp I went to that taught me the value of work (through putting on a full-length Shakespeare play in two weeks of living together with 13 other pre-teens and teenagers, 4 counselors and a director who is scarier than the Grand Canyon but whose approval I probably desire more than my father's). I got admitted. And that's my educational history, beginning at age 8.

Oh, and I guess this counts as part of the long version, since I mentioned it in the short version: my two regrets.

1. Going back to TinySchool. I still miss public school theatre. Had a dream about those crazy motherfuckers last night.

2. I was together (rather ambiguously so) with a girl, and we ended up sitting alone together, conspicuously close, on some steps out behind TinySchool. I said, "So." She responded in kind. I looked down, up at her, back down. I glanced at her lips. She asked, "You're not very good at this, are you?" The moment was crushed. It turns out she was talking about the "So" game, in which one is apparently supposed to continue repeating "So" until someone fails to do so, but that didn't matter. Anyway, my regret is that I hesitated. I should've kissed her.

FWIW, that's the same girl I was on and off with for most of last year. And I plan on asking her out sometime in the next week or two (ASAP, considering that she's out with the flu-- which I fucking gave to her. Jesus.)