She was everything I wasn't. She was blonde, cute, she had a little button nose. Athletic, the fastest at running when we played British Bulldog. (Once when round her house she jumped off their garage roof into the garden. 'Who taught you that?' I said, lost in admiration. 'Gym' she said. 'Who's Jim?' I asked stupidly. She laughed.) She wore cool clothes. All the boys fancied her like mad. Whereas I was fancied only by the class nerd Jeremy, and he only fancied me because I was the only other Jewish kid in the class (apart from Laura, who was odd) and I'm sure he entertained fantasies that we were betrothed.
And she was called Tammy, which every little girl wanted to be called back then. Most of all she was Pretty, cast-iron no-messing indestructibly pretty, better even than being beautiful. Tammy would look pretty reflected upsidedown and distorted in a soup spoon, I thought gloomily, she would look pretty if you shaved her hair all off and glued a moustache on her. I hero-worshipped her. And of course, she bullied me mercilessly, some days I was cool enough to hang around with her and other days I was a social pariah, until I got into the juniors and wondered why I was doing this to myself and walked away and found nice friends. Strangely, after that we got on much better.
(The harshest thing you learn in school is that the grownups can't always help you and you have to sort it out yourself. Of course we come down hard on bullying, but I see it in the classroom - sometimes I want to tell them that a bully can only have as much power as you give to them, but it's something kids have to work out for themselves. If they say 'he hit me' I want to say 'Well then hit him back', but I'm not allowed. The little boys are easier to deal with - they just tend to wallop each other then it's all over with, whilst the little girls deal in extended psychological torture...)
It's all her fault that I entered secondary school as a geek. Anyway, in the John Hughes movie that was school, which clique did you fall into?
About horses
1 day ago
30 comments:
I joked my way out of trouble. I still do it today and occasionally it works.
Anybody who was in a clique was lucky! Hmm, I think I prefer the term outsider. I was too stupid to be a geek.
Primary School: I changed my accent so no one would beat or bully me again. Sometimes I went to school seriously terrified.
Middle School: I invented a twin brother to fit in as everyone else seemed to have siblings and I didn't - only halves - but because that was all fraught with difficulty at the time I never mentioned them
Secondary School: became a rebel to beat the system as everyone kept telling me I was stupid
Sixth Form College: was truly myself as all my teachers treated me properly and with understanding and not like a stupid failure
University: ditto although had a touch of rebellion there too as was forced to direct as opposed to produce which was what I really went there to do.
Life since: still a rebel but with terrible pangs of deep inadequacy now and again - consequently I tend to push myself very hard!
Primary School - was given a Chinese burn by a girl. My mum gave her a slap. Didn't really fit in at all.
Secondary School - Was made to walk on the bank outside the railings on the way to the motorway flyover by Millwall supporting Status Quo fans. Was made to kiss the photograph of a classmate's girlfriend. Tended to hang around with the prog rockers.
Was never one of the kids who shouted "Bundle!" I abhored violence then as I do now.
High School - too small to have cliques big enough to fit in to - I fell somewhere between the smart group, the sporty group and the cool group - never quite finding where i wanted to be.
6th Form - enjoyed being in the smart group but then even the cool people were.
Uni - in the cliquey house full of people group which i never really escaped - nice people but I missed out.
School - sixth form:- Nerd, Nerd, Nerd. It took me until i was 25 to discover that i wasn't a nerd, that i'd accidentally become more interesting than "all that lot" and that i'd undersold myself all those years. University:- i was so self-conscious I developed a limp when i had to walk in front of a group of people. My entire teenage years were hell. Fortunately now i don't care. Unfortunately now I've become a secondary school teacher and i see it played out in front of me, day after day. And unfortunately (because you have to let teenagers get on with it) i can't even intervene in the things i see. I feel so sorry for such a lot of the kids i teach. It's horrifying - but in such a low level way that you see it happen and just agree:- well, it's part of growing up. Which it shouldn't be. But it is. School = torture.
Basket Case.
Incredibly popular and well-adjusted. No, only joking. I was a bit fat, which ruined everything. I was in with the popular kids though, because the prettiest girls in my year were all weirdos too.
Definitely a geek. But to add to the misfortune, I wasn't much interested in science, computers, Tolkien and all the normal geek pastimes: I preferred art and poetry, which was tantamount to standing up in assembly and shouting "I like bumsex with boys!"
I went to a school reunion a few years back. Everyone was entirely civil, but the two groups formed with no prompting, and there was very little contact between them for the whole day.
(PS: The Whales: I did the limp as well. And the stammer. Still not sure why.)
A clique of two. We both thought we were horses. This was great till I ballsed it up by admitting two absolute bitches who didn't really understand the horse thing, and it was all downhill from there.
I had to start using humour instead of just galloping away/kicking people.
I was that girl who Winona Ryder plays croquet with at the end of Heathers.
Out of curiosity, Ms Slaminsky (and for work reasons) do any of your little girls play ponies?
In elementary school (which is kindergarden to grade 7) I was fat, freckled, had Barry Manilow hair, 80's glasses, braces. Teased and teased. Had a couple other geeky friends. Went to high school. Grade 8&9 worst years of my teenage life. Loser, always trying to fit in. Found drama - braces came off. All the sudden I grew into myself and had more friends than I knew what to do with. Magically popular with boys all the sudden. I was a party girl. I have to say though - I always have a thing for geeky men to this day.
When I started secondary school I was a complete nerd, roundly jeered and bullied. Then I started smoking and suddenly I was cool, because the cool kids could bum smokes off me. Then I started smoking weed and suddenly I was the coolest kid in school.
I fucking hate teenagers.
A sissy in primary school who only played with girls (though Natasha P. used to pretend I was her husband). A truanting no-one in secondary school. Polo-necks and blazers in sixth form where I became so hard I was encouraged to leave.
Istvanski, ah, the class clown. A cheeky grin gets the naughty ones out of all sorts of trouble, it still works.
Betty, outsiders are windswept and interesting. Today you'd be called EMO and everyone'd be trying to get into your clique.
RoMo - aw. School is a nightmare sometimes.
Geoff - whatever happened to 'Bundles'? Health and safety, probably.
Tim - I picture your school like the History Boys.
Bowleserised - ah, the horsey girls. I remember them. Our girls do not play ponies, most of them live in inner city tower blocks and have never seen a real live pony (though I did my best by taking them to the city farm, they only have donkeys.) I'm sure they would if they had any contact with them.
US, so you were adaptable, that's not a bad thing.
The Whales, the best of us are nerds. I have a theory that most bloggers were nerds at school. I take my hat off to you as a secondary school teacher, add hormones to the mix and it's a much tougher environment. School is torture. But I don't think it's because kids are bad, more that HUMAN BEINGS ARE BAD.
Bedshaped - tee hee! Did you have a big bag that you used to carry all your stolen booty around in?
Miss Schlegel - 'the prettiest girls in my year were all weirdos too' your school sounds fantastic. Like the Virgin Suicides or something.
Patroclus - tee hee! I believe her name was Martha Dunstock, and we can all relate to her...
Bad Sarah - I wish I could see you with your Barry Manilow hair and 80s glasses - people I've only ever known Bad Sarah as a total head-turning FOX.
Matt, this is where it all goes wrong for so many... did we learn nothing from Zammo Maguire?
A hard BiB? Never! Did you torment the new bugs?
i was just the crap kid in primary school - not really nerdy, not really pretty, just quietly clever and well-behaved (my nickname was the Walking Talking Statue).
secondary school #1 i was pretty much the same, secondary school #2 i was marginally cooler because i hung around with the boys and took up drinking (a lifelong love affair) but still nobody fancied me because i had no boobs (still waiting on those). secondary school #3 i was a novelty because i wasn't aligned to any of their evil girly cliques (convent school - i didn't last long there) and secondary school #4 was actually secondary school #1 again but my 4 year absence had earned me plenty of cool.
a chequered career, then.
Ooh, me too - I went to 3 different schools. I actually liked the girls' schools better though (though they weren't convent schools. Camden Girls rocked.)
hell no. i'm still terrified of women in swarms.
Sarky kid using humour as a defence mechanism, as if you hadn't already guessed...
I just got a copy of a book called Tower Block Pony, but suspect it's only going to appeal to those who know what a pony is already. By Alison Prince. Will read and tell yo if it's any good.
I just think the idea of ponies is good for girls in these days of Bratz and child-size thongs.
LC - Sarcastic? You?
B - 'Tower Block Pony: the plucky little horse who didn't let the stairs defeat him'. That sounds great. I totally agree with you - the kids need more animals and open air. Bratz are the devil's work.
On the cover, he's coming out of a lift...
Annie: Nooo - Martha Dunstock was blown up, as far as I recall. This one was the geeky one with the glasses who survived the carnage, but I don't know what her name was.
Bowleserised: Is it like that episode of 15 Storeys High where one of the neighbours has a horse in his flat?
Further research reveals that it was Betty Finn, as played by Renée 'sister of Emilio' Estevez.
I'll stop now. I've thought about this too much.
Nooooo. Martha Dunstock (the Dumptruck) tried to kill herself by walking into traffic (after suicide became hip) and ended up in a wheelchair.
was she the one they made the shower nozzle masturbation quip about? i remember little else of that film - just the utter mortification when that line struck a chord with the teenage me.
I haven't seen that, but probably. My vet uncle had a colleague who was called out to see a horse that was kept in a first-floor council house bathroom. So maybe it's possible after all. The lifts would smell a lot nicer, at least.
Quiet kid with the weird name. Then I discovered Sex and drugs and became a smoker and a joker.
Hated school. Hated most of the kids there too. I'm not in touch with a single person I went to school with.
Bowleserised - hahaha! Splendid.
Sorry, Patroclus. Of course, Betty Finn. How come Emilio, Renée and Charlie Sheen all look nothing alike?
Tim, right, nobody blew up in Heathers except JD. Though that was the original ending, and they changed it after the preview audience expressed disapproval. Cowards...
Rosie - yes. You cheeky minx.
B - good lord, that was enterprising off them.
Rad - weird name, hey? Um - Radcliffe? Raddleton? Radstock? I never thought about it before...
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