Guest Post: Ah, High School

Today the lovely Naomi at Under the Yardarm joins me here to talk about her school days - because, if you'll remember, mine were utterly non-eventful and boring. Get ready for a laugh at the lessons Naomi learnt during her days as a student...

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Ah, high school. I’m not sure just how much of my time there is fond memories… but some of that depends on which high school I think about. I went to two high schools and a college for years eleven and twelve.

In Tasmania unless you attend private school, high school goes to year ten. After that it is on to college for years eleven and twelve, with the giddiness of no uniform and more freedom.

Freedom to smoke in between classes… ‘study’ in the library by watching Monty Python movies and wag by catching a bus to the Mall or K Mart with my Walkman playing my cassette of Bon Jovi. Yes I was a little bogan. It also came with a range of social gatherings at nightclubs with alcohol… ah yes those were the days… just never say the words Bacardi, Southern Comfort or Bundaberg to me. Ever. Hey, at least I can say I never drank Passion Pop. Yes, I’m sure my parents would be proud.

One thing I know is that my big mouth got me into a bit of grief… and that I could run fast, faster than anyone at school, so that was a winning combination!

High school was a time of learning. Some of it even educational. I learnt how to draw the smoke back into my lungs and then blow it out in a steady stream and how to chain smoke. Classy. And oh so healthy in a set of young lungs. At least I was training hard for athletics and cross country, so hopefully that levelled out some of the damage I did. Fingers crossed.

I learnt that a plastic coke bottle can be filled with the spirit of choice, and that as long as you leave some coke in there no one will ever know…. Yeah, because not being able to stand up and walk in a straight line is not a give away at all. I also learnt drinking games. From a teacher. Off duty. No joke.

I learnt that there are good teachers, bad teachers, and teachers that should never have been in a classroom. My grade seven maths teacher had a former life as a Commander in the British Army. It’s where he should have stayed. Because all he did was put the fear of maths and god into a bunch of twelve year olds. On the plus side I can tell if each individual desk is exactly 30cm apart from the next one. Just a pity that never came up on a maths exam.

I learnt the meaning of the words incorrigible and incompetent. As that’s what my sewing teacher called me for a year. I also learnt that wood work was not my thing.

My German language teacher, although not very good at teaching us German, was great at séances. From three years of German classes I leant that some dogs in Germany are called Lumpi, how to ask for a hotel, a bakery, and (of course) say, excuse me, can I have a cigarette? I also learnt how to lift a person on a chair with only one finger and how to scare the crap out of ourselves and others by evoking Bloody Mary in a mirror. Not that any Mary, bloody or otherwise appeared in any mirror, but that may have been because she was hard to see through the smoke form us chain smoking German language students.

There are some things though, that have stayed with me from high school. While at the end of high school and college I was ready to cut the ties to a whole range of places and people, some stuck. Some are still with me. The knowledge that some people are there for you no matter how much you stuff up, through high school, university, starting a career, motherhood and beyond. That is what I have carried with me from those years. So, at the end of the day, this incorrigible, incompetent, reformed (thank goodness) smoker can say that perhaps high school wasn’t so bad after all.

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Thanks Naomi! Don't forget to head to Naomi's blog, Under the Yardarm, for more fun and beautiful words, and chat to her on Twitter.