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"School days, best days of your life not..........."

Unless you've been kidnapped by aliens for perverse sexual experiments and lets face it this hideous fate only ever befalls snaglle tootehed beauties from Alabama you can't have failed to notice the swathes of nostalgia TV that is dominating TV at the moment. I've taken to consulting TV guides at all times to avoid inadvertently flicking onto the Best of 1987 or any of those shows that inadvertently transfer me straight back to being fat, fourteen and getting my head kicked in by the schools pond life.
I keeping wandering if its just me that has this aversion to relieving hideous bits of my teenage years. Maybe because some of them were blighted by being bullied. Bullied for the usual reasons, overweight, clever and posh. Weird how being half bright automatically makes you posh, but pubescent bullies are unlikely to make fine social distinctions like that.
Anyway I don't want to be reminded of that. There are entire chunks of my school life I would rather put in the vault never to be disturbed again. But this seems out of keeping with the rest of the universe.
There is now a club called "School Disco". School uniform is obligatory and everyone dances to crap 80's and 90's music whilst desperately trying to cop off.God I'd rather beat myself to death with the bloodied stump of my own arm then go through that again.
I like clubbing. I don't want it to be confused with the social and sexual hell that a school disco was. This is clearly a place for people who don't like music and are probably trying to relive their glory years as the most popular person on the planet. The planet at that time being some non-descript school in non- descript town. Big fishes and small ponds and all that. The best thing about leaving school is realising there is a whole big world out there. Maybe I've just had an irony by pass and humour failure in one horrible blow leaving me immune to school days retro chic, but no thanks.
Which then brings me onto the whole subject of websites devoted to reuniting you with your long lost chums from your school days. I've always thought that I'd rather take a casual stroll through hell on a hot day then attend a school reunion. I have friends from schooldays and I've managed to maintain the friendships without the aid of a website or falsely constructed reunions.
These websites are inevitably filled with postings relating to amusing incidents with Mr Collins the science teacher dissected frog and nubile supply teacher locked in the science cupboard during double physics. Has nothing more significant happened to them since then?
Maybe there is a place for nostalgia. Had I been the most popular girl in the school I might yearn to reminisce endlessly about those halcyon days but I doubt it. Life is about ideas, change, growth, movement. Being hung up on one particular era or time no matter how marvellous it was is regressive.

Unless you've been kidnapped by aliens for perverse sexual experiments and lets face it this hideous fate only ever befalls snaglle tootehed beauties from Alabama you can't have failed to notice the swathes of nostalgia TV that is dominating TV at the moment. I've taken to consulting TV guides at all times to avoid inadvertently flicking onto the Best of 1987 or any of those shows that inadvertently transfer me straight back to being fat, fourteen and getting my head kicked in by the schools pond life.
I keeping wandering if its just me that has this aversion to relieving hideous bits of my teenage years. Maybe because some of them were blighted by being bullied. Bullied for the usual reasons, overweight, clever and posh. Weird how being half bright automatically makes you posh, but pubescent bullies are unlikely to make fine social distinctions like that.
Anyway I don't want to be reminded of that. There are entire chunks of my school life I would rather put in the vault never to be disturbed again. But this seems out of keeping with the rest of the universe.
There is now a club called "School Disco". School uniform is obligatory and everyone dances to crap 80's and 90's music whilst desperately trying to cop off.God I'd rather beat myself to death with the bloodied stump of my own arm then go through that again.
I like clubbing. I don't want it to be confused with the social and sexual hell that a school disco was. This is clearly a place for people who don't like music and are probably trying to relive their glory years as the most popular person on the planet. The planet at that time being some non-descript school in non- descript town. Big fishes and small ponds and all that. The best thing about leaving school is realising there is a whole big world out there. Maybe I've just had an irony by pass and humour failure in one horrible blow leaving me immune to school days retro chic, but no thanks.
Which then brings me onto the whole subject of websites devoted to reuniting you with your long lost chums from your school days. I've always thought that I'd rather take a casual stroll through hell on a hot day then attend a school reunion. I have friends from schooldays and I've managed to maintain the friendships without the aid of a website or falsely constructed reunions.
These websites are inevitably filled with postings relating to amusing incidents with Mr Collins the science teacher dissected frog and nubile supply teacher locked in the science cupboard during double physics. Has nothing more significant happened to them since then?
Maybe there is a place for nostalgia. Had I been the most popular girl in the school I might yearn to reminisce endlessly about those halcyon days but I doubt it. Life is about ideas, change, growth, movement. Being hung up on one particular era or time no matter how marvellous it was is regressive.

When I was at primary school (age 5 to 11) I was the most popular person around but was in with the in-crowd and most of my mates seemed pretty decent people - there was no bullying, just the odd fight during football matches.

And then I went to secondary school and everything changed. There were older boys who picked on me, prefects who had the authority to give you lines and lunchtime detentions and teachers who didn't seem to care. Three other people from my primary school came to the same secondary as me and within 6 months or so had seemed to disown me because I had no mates - the only person who stopped me getting my head seriously kicked on several occasions was my cousin who was in the year above. I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy 1 month before my 12th birthday but didn't tell anyone at school so most people saw the fact that I walked a bit funny, tripped over a lot and was generally "a bit of a spaz" and took the p*ss out of me for it. When I see the people now in the pub or wherever and they see me in a wheelchair they're all "Hiya mate! How's it going?" like we used to be best mates and I want to say "Why don't you just f off! You used to pick on me and beat me up at school you b!" but instead I just say "Alright, how are you?"

I've changed a lot since those nightmare years (I'm 28 now) and sometimes have dreams that I'm back at that secondary school but I'm the person that I am now - laid back, happy and no chip on my shoulder about my disability - and the people who picked on me react differently to me and leave me alone. I know it's only a dream but it makes me at peace with what happened back then.

As you said in your original post - I've got some friends from those school years who I've kept in touch with and have little or no desire to meet up with any of the other people I went to school with who I haven't seen since I left 12 years ago.

I get annoyed when people say school days are the best of your life, because they're not!!

Okay, holidays are good, but during about 10 months of a year, we're stuck inside a hot classroom-most of the time getting bored.

If we're not then we're doing homework.

When you're older you can try and do something you ENJOY-you can't really get that in school.

I was just thinking about your choice of title, "School days the best time of your life or not..."

Well if My school days are the best time of my life, then I must be in heaven, or at least I must be dead. I hated school sooo much, it was absolutely horrible. Now I've left, my life is really good, I wish that my life could stay like it is now, it's great!

Before, I couldnt be happy doing anything, because I would always have to go back to school, I would have nightmares about it ever night. Now I have lovely sleeps, and I find everything that I do reallly fun!

School is definately not the best time of your life!

I hated school.
In fact, I wanted to burn my school to the ground.
Wait a minute, I did burn my school to the ground!
I got away with it. Ssshhh, please don't tell anyone....

i found School a good laugh personally - it got better as years went on as the thick and irritating people left due to failing GCSEs. 6th form was hilarious: free periods + pub drinking = a more enjoyable, if slightly blurred, school day.

However, best years of your life? Not a chance.

Now as for University, that's something completely different. I can honestly say i've thoroughly enjoyed 99% of my days being a Uni student: 12 hours lectures a week, of which i go to about 1 a month; away from your parents with total freedom do do what you want; meeting new friends from different walks of life; trying new things etc. etc.

Now these i am sure are the best days i will ever have. I know i will be having to work for a living soon (9-5: scary!) and i will be working for 30+ years of my life. I am determined to make the most of being young and doing what young people have the freedom to do - if i didn't i'd only regret it when i'm older.

Yes i know i've been fortunate - i've got many good friends and a long-time girlfriend i'm madly in love with, but i really tried for these things. I seized the day and tried to be my own person, and didn't give about all those who may have tried to put me down or stand in my way.

Thanks for listening. (If you managed to!)
Dan.

I hated school, couldn't stand it. I was straight A's all through my school life, and hated being called a swot because of it.

Even worse, I was stuck in boarding school, so couldn't get away from it. My school life was just one incessant tirade of boredom, annoying kids, itchy school uniform and strict teachers, very few of whom I liked.

In the end, I snapped. At 14 I ran away from boarding school twice, at 15 I ran away from home to drive the point home that I would not be going back to boarding school next term, and in the end had to be tutored at home, which was fine with me but kinda hard on my parents' bank balance, looking back I'll always regret putting them through that just because I hated school. Maybe if they'd have listened more to my moaning since the age of 7 when I was sent to my first boarding school then it wouldn't have come to that, but who's to know?

Strangely enough, bullying was a rarity, I was never personally physically bullied, being called a swot doesn't really hurt that much, and kids will be kids. But since leaving school I haven't kept one school friend as a contact, and don't particularly want to meet any of them again, it's hard enough writing this post and thinking about those times.

Now that I'm adult, I've learned my lessons from back then and would never willingly put my kids through the same torment that I went through. If they said they were unhappy at school, I'd do something about it straight away.

I can't say I'm not wholly unaffected though. In social circles I keep myself to myself, I don't actively go out to meet people if I can help it, and that's probably why I have such a penchant for staying at home and gaming rather than pop down to my local for a pint of an evening.

Whoever says that schooldays were the best of their lives I suspect has a very short term memory.

I hated school, I was exluded 6 times before I got expelled and the weied thing was I was never put on report.

Having just read your post, in fact all of the replies on here it really does make me wander. When you wrote about people coming up to you and pretending like you were big chums at school do they really not remember being --- or is it all so far in the past the rose tinted glasses have got glued to their noses.
Like you I don't really think about it anymore-unless my memory is prompted by those horrible nostalgia programmes which prompted the posting. But I do wander if it was just as hideous for everyone or rather anyone that wasn't part of the herd for whatever reason - fat/disability/clever etc.I've got friends from school who remember it entirely differently to me. They thought it was alright and they were there when the random and brutal verbal and physical violence took place. Maybe its like child birth or any other significant pain, your mind and body forgets it. It represses it to allow you to move on. Which I'm pleased to say seems to be the case with most people here. A collective cyber pat on the back and a pint I say.

Are you Thom Yorke... Kitty that is?

Just wondering.