Sunday Stealing: Going Back to School

Welcome to another week of Sunday Stealing, one of the oldest and most fun memes you can find in the blogosphere!

This from our current hostess, Bev:

This month, kids from all over will be going back to school (if they haven't already gone back).  I thought it might be fun to look back at our own school days, some of them more recent than others.  I couldn't find a meme to steal, so this was cobbled together from a bunch of "questions to ask students" sites, and a couple of my own ideas.  Have fun!

1.  What kind of school did you attend (Big? Small? Public? Private? Specialty? One-room schoolhouse?)  I attended several schools because we did a fair amount of moving.  Most were public and in small towns or rural settings. I did attend an exclusive private school for the last three years of elementary school that left me a good two years ahead of my peers in most classes when I returned to public school.  For jr. high and high school I went to a rural, but surprisingly large, school district.

2. What did you wear to school (uniform? dress code? Whatever you wanted?) I remember that little girls wore nothing but dresses to school up until third grade. After that I wore uniforms at the private school...green plaid skirt, white or pale yellow shirt, green or white sweater, green knee socks. Then back in the public schools again for jr. high and high school I wore the same things everyone wore with one major exception.  My dad was another generation older than my mom and he didn't think jeans were fit to wear for anything but working dirty kinds of jobs or hanging out at home after school. I had to sneak to wear them so I didn't wear them to school very often.

3.  How did you get to school?  Mostly on a bus, but sometimes my mom took me...like when she enrolled me in the school district she was the librarian in.

4.  Who was your favorite teacher?  Why?  I liked one of my English teachers, Mrs. Werner, very much.  She always encouraged my love of reading and writing and was just a very nice person.  I run into her now and then and she always remembers me.  I also liked my homeroom teacher, Mr. G.  He was a young Italian guy so part of it was a crush, but he was also a genuinely nice man who cared about all of us kids in his homeroom.  He took the time to talk to us and find out what was going on in our lives and really tried to help steer us in making good decisions.

5.  What was your favorite subject?  Why?  English. I've always loved to read and write and it came easily to me.

6.  What was your least favorite subject?  Why? Math. I've never enjoyed it and anything involving the alphabet and numbers was a real struggle.

7.  Did you belong to any clubs?  I was on the yearbook committee, the staff of the school paper, a library assistant, and involved in art club, ushers club, and monogram club. 

8.  Were you a picky reader? Not when I was younger. I would read anything and everything I could get my hands on.

9.  What did you do in your free time?  Hung out with friends when we lived somewhere with other people around, but whether there were friends around or not I was usually outside.  I loved to ride my bike, take walks, and explore.  If there were others around I loved playing games and sports.

10.  Did you get good grades?  I did and was in advanced or gifted classes all the way through school.  I graduated with honors.

11.  Did you like/participate in sports?  Not so much when I was in elementary school, though I was a cheerleader for midget football in second and third grade and during my years at the private school I had no choice...all girls had to participate in soccer, field hockey, gymnastics, and softball. My competitive nature developed in high school and I was on the softball and basketball teams.

12.  Did you have a boyfriend/girlfriend in high school?  There were a few boys I liked and who liked me, but I never really had a boyfriend because my dad wouldn't allow me to date.

13.  When did you get your driver’s license?  Not until I was 23 and I had my infant son in the car with me when I took the test.  My dad wouldn't teach me. He said I had to take driver's education if I wanted to learn. For some reason, they didn't have it my senior year so I didn't get my license and then I was off to college and didn't really need it. I went straight from college to marriage and it was two years into that before I finally got a license.

14.  What kind of kid were you?  (Popular? Class clown? Shy?  A nerd?  Teacher’s pet?)  I would say I started out as a popular girl in the early years of elementary school, but the years at the private school were rough and I got bullied a good bit.  That turned me into a more shy person.  As a teen I was maybe a bit of a nerd, a pet to some teachers, and still pretty shy in most situations.

15.  Who were your heroes?  Sports figures and all the old-time reporters, whose tales of adventure while covering stories all over the world fueled my dreams.

16.  Were you ever bullied?  Oops, already touched on this one.  Yes, I was, at the private school.  Most of the kids had known each other since they had started school and each grade had less than 20 students so they were tight, closed little groups that didn't really welcome new students...especially one who didn't come from the same privileged background they did. I was there due to the generosity of my dad's employer.

17.  Did you learn how to touch type?  Yes. It was required for all students, male and female, at my high school.

18.  Who was your best friend?  (Are you still friends today?) The friends I had in elementary school are long gone since I was never in any one school more than a couple of years. My best friend through high school was a girl from my neighborhood. We both still live in the neighborhood (just a couple of houses apart on the same street), though I left for several years before finding my way back.  We are friendly when we see each other, we don't go out of our way to see each other.  We both just kind of went our own ways when I moved away.

19.  What is one thing you regret about high school?  I don't really have regrets, but in hindsight it would have been more beneficial to have taken the business courses than the college prep courses.

20.  What were you most proud about?  My academic achievements and the activities I was involved in.