I am absolutely and unequivocally with dethpixie ... though if there was the option to do it at a different school (ie a non-elitist, mixed sex one...) i'd give it a trial go.
Screw high school. Or at least, screw restricted-entry single-sex schools.
OK, it made me what I am today ... no, not quite ... it made me what I was entering the 6th form at the same school, and even then largely made me what I was entering university. A cowering, emotionally and sexually repressed, technology/internet obsessed mental wreck with a rapidly disintegrating academic aptitude, partly because that kind of work and achievement was subconciously associated with general torment - and it seemed it was the only part of my personality that anyone ever paid any attention to, so the only way to get the human part of me any attention was to destroy the whizkid.
Most people and teachers were actually alright, but in a kettle such as that, the small bad element will always find you if they want to, and if you're part of the designated group of targets they've decided on, heaven help you. This includes the staff, btw. Not to mention at the horniest and decidedly most formative time of your life, no access to the opposite sex (and of course, you wouldn't dare even try the waters of gaytown-on-sea, because the ultimate result would probably be suicide). I had very little idea what to make of this new addition to the population, first in small numbers in 6th form and then suddenly being Half Of All People at uni. Treating them as one of your own ... doesn't quite work. But they're not complete alien zoobeasts from the planet zog either. ARGH NO DATA TO CORRELATE TO WHY ARE THEY LOOKING AT ME ALL WIERD WHEN I APPARENTLY DO THE WRONG THING?
Yes I am bitter as well. Even though I wager it's been a whole lot longer than it has for DP (WoW? at school? madness i say), and the scars are nowhere near as fresh, they're still a bit tender.
