What were you like as a teenager (in high school)?-- a survey

xp dan you have gone back in time?!?!

2. Location/whereabouts?
Family home in a village in Wiltshire (England), school in small town, from 14 switched to a posh fee-paying boarding school in Bristol.

3. What did you listen to?
Early teens, all glam - T. Rex, Slade, Bowie, Mott the Hoople; then classic rock bands like the Stones, Who, Kinks. By the end of school, I was a punk, largely thanks to John Peel I suppose.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Jeans. Can't really remember much about shirts - certainly black t-shirts were in there. I have always been a boring dresser.

5. What were your friends like?
14-18 a wide variety, within the posh school - I was very clever, in the school football team, into punk so in with the strange kids, went out with the tough guys at weekends, was the class clown, so got on with everyone. I have retained one of those friends - punk/clever intersection (we were the two to make it to Cambridge).

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Not mine. My mother behaved as if she hated me, and still does. Didn't have much to do with those of my friends.

7. Did you have a job?
Occasionally, in the holidays - postman, plus helping out in my dad's butcher's shop, making sausages and the like.

8. Did you date?
Not much - occasionally, but well under the average (not the average here, in the wider world). I was small and weedy and unhealthy and fatally lacking in confidence.

9. Did you go to prom?
I am English, we knew not of this thing you call 'prom'. I did go to the final school dance, and I think I actually had a very cute blonde date that night too.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I played chess. bridge, football, table tennis, tennis, darts, billiards, squash, badminton, fives and whatever else came my way, when healthy enough. No other clubs, I don't think.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
I don't think I much liked any of them. English? Maths, for being so easy?

12. What were your non-academic interests?
I found a diary from when I was 15 a while ago. Lots of little reviews of books, records and football matches. Proto-Freaky Trigger, basically. I played a lot of sports, when in good health.

13. What were your favorite movies?
I can't recall any I particularly loved then.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Not much, no, but I don't think I had much to moan about.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I was threatened with expulsion many times - for taking the piss out of teachers, especially the head, and being disruptive. I knew that my serious Oxbridge prospects gave me a lot of leeway. I was nonetheless the first Oxbridge candidate in the 300 years of the school (estimated to be 2000 such pupils) to whom they did not offer a prefectship. I was proud of that, but made a badge protesting it, to cause more fuss.

16. Favorite books.
SF - that blue Corgi series was a big favourite: City & The Stars, More Than Human. Fell totally for Philip K. Dick somewhere around the age of 16.

Some questions:

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
2. Location/whereabouts?
3. What did you listen to?
4. What were your favorite things to wear?
5. What were your friends like?
6. Did you get along with the parents?
7. Did you have a job?
8. Did you date?
9. Did you go to prom?
10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
11. What were your favorite school subjects?
12. What were your non-academic interests?
13. What were your favorite movies?
14. Did you enjoy high school??
15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

16. Favorite books.

1990s

2. Location/whereabouts?

London

3. What did you listen to?

Radio 4
John Peel
Indie
Drum and Bass
Jazz

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

LOUD Colours

5. What were your friends like?

nerdy, studious

6. Did you get along with the parents?

yes

7. Did you have a job?

no

8. Did you date?

heavens, no

9. Did you go to prom?

say what now?

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

yes, compulsory for first couple of years, some continued (bookbinding)

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Sciences, Design

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Climbing/Mountaineering
Cycling
Bookbinding
Camping (same educational charity I still volunteer for)
Record shops
Theatre
Theatre Tech

13. What were your favorite movies?

Embarrassingly, probably the blues brothers.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

mixed experiences, but in general yes

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

16. Favorite books.

Plays, particularly 50s and 60s US and British (Pinter, Miller, Albee, etc.)

2. Location/whereabouts? Skowhegan, Maine

3. What did you listen to? The Who, the Pet Shop Boys, the Doors, the Beatles, Cindy Lauper, Prince, Wham, Duran Duran, Guns & Roses, Motley Crue, Poison, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Charlie Sexton, the Cure, the Cult

4. What were your favorite things to wear? Acid wash jeans, my jersey girl mall hair, blue eyeliner, two pairs of socks at the same time, keds, denim jacket with band pins, my brother's army camoflage jacket

5. What were your friends like? Older than most teenagers, not gothy but dark, sarcastic, silly, already having sex

6. Did you get along with the parents? Yeah, more often than not. I clashed with my stepmom, though.

7. Did you have a job? Nope, wasn;t allowed to

8. Did you date? Yeah, here and there. Usually sensitive boys who appealed to my sense of humor.

9. Did you go to prom? Junior and Senior

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that? I was a cheerleader, on the yearbook and newspaper staffs

11. What were your favorite school subjects? German, English and World History

12. What were your non-academic interests? I played field hockey, rode horses with my best friend, read a LOT

13. What were your favorite movies? Ferris Bueller, Sixteen Candles, A Guy Named Joe, the Maltease Falcon, Good Morning Vietnam, 2001

14. Did you enjoy high school?? Yeah, I really did

15. Additional comments/ points of interest-- None that immediately spring to mind

16. Favorite books - A Rumor of War, Virgins, Tom Sawyer, Erica Jong's 'Fanny', VC Andrews, Stephen King

2. Location/whereabouts?

Southern California

3. What did you listen to?

Devo, X, Dead Kennedys, B-52s, Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Damned, The Jam, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, other stuff

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

jeans and a shirt, buttons on a blazer

5. What were your friends like?

Theatre geeks and musicians who smoked pot and wanted to be in bands

6. Did you get along with the parents?
No

7. Did you have a job?
Yes

8. Did you date?
Yes, steadily

9. Did you go to prom?

No but I went to all the other dances. I didn't like the guy who asked me to prom and the guy I liked (my future husband) had already graduated and hated the idea of prom so I stayed home.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Concert Choir, Drama

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Drama

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Music, political theory

13. What were your favorite movies?
Clockwork Orange, Harold and Maude, Apocolypse Now, The Kids Are All Right, Rocky Horror, Star Wars

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Yes
15. Additional comments/ points of interest-

I went to see the Clash at the Hollywood Palladium instead of going to my high school graduation. I spent every weekend since 1980 going to punki shows in Hollywood. By the time I left high school, I was in a post-punk band.

Books: Fahrenheit 451; Brave New World; Lord of the Rings trilogy; 1984; Dune; Foundation Trilogy; Songmaster; Astronomy books, physics books, religion books, mysticism books.

1983-87

2. Location/whereabouts?

Suburban upstate New York

3. What did you listen to?

Ramones/Replacements/JAMC/Prince/Pogues/Husker Du/R.E.M./Heaven 17/Cure/etc. I was a total mid-'80s college-radio kid.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

I don't remember having "favorite" things. Any combination of jeans and T-shirts that would make me not in any way stand out. Not standing out was important.

5. What were your friends like?

Well-adjusted brainy kids, mostly. National Honor Society soccer-team types, with a couple of freaky outliers. I was a geek with mostly unrealized aspirations to freakdom. My idea of subversiveness was smoking pot on a band trip.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Sure, I guess. I remember fights, but nothing earth-shattering. We fought most of the way through middle school, by high school things had kind of calmed down.

7. Did you have a job?

In the summers, at a restaurant and then at a country club. Washing dishes, busing tables. I liked being around adults who said "Fuck" so much.

8. Did you date?

Not until senior year. Even that was pretty tame and friendly. I didn't have a serious girlfriend until college.

9. Did you go to prom?

Yeah, but only because a female friend insisted that she was going to go the prom and I was going to take her. It was wack.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

A little. I liked Model U.N., because you got to take days off from school and go hang out on college campuses and argue with people. I've always liked arguing. And I was in the band percussion section in 9th-11th grade. Played in the pit orchestra for one school musical; then worked stage crew the next year, after figuring out that all the fun was backstage.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

English, History...the humanities in general. Past a point math and science bored me. I declined to take calculus my senior year, which infuriated my math teacher. He told me I'd regret it. I never have.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Played drums in the school's only functioning rock band, but we weren't good enough for it to score me many cool points. (We had a Spinal Tap-esque procession of lead singers.) Started an underground newspaper with some friends junior year, published it throughout senior year. It got me hauled down to the principal's office a few times, and thrown against a locker once, so that was exciting. Played baseball in the summers until I hit the Little League age limit at 16, took up tennis after that.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Blue Velvet. Sid and Nancy. Diner. Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Yeah. It started out kinda so-so, but got better as it went. Junior and senior years were a lot of fun.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest

There's one girl in particular who I really should have kissed. I didn't figure out until years later that she wanted me to, by which point it was too late. That's OK, I guess. Gives a romantic cast in retrospect to the experience that it was lacking at the time.

2. Location/whereabouts?

My hometown. it was a 15 minute walk to school.

3. What did you listen to?

I didn't listen to much music. I did freak out over Ice T, Neneh Cherry, George Michael and Madonna. I also listened to lots of Northern Soul because my dad played that.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

During high school? We had a uniform.

5. What were your friends like?

Some were total geeks, some very cool,...

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Yes, very much so.

7. Did you have a job?

During high school? haha No. I was lazy.

8. Did you date?

Nope.

9. Did you go to prom?

When I was 17 yr - the yr before I graduated - I did but the very last year I didn't. Didn't feel like it. I did attend the spring party ("last 100 days of high school").

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

No, we didn't have that. If there were clubs, I probably wouldn't have been in any of'em. I repeat, I was lazy. :-)

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Religion (if you can believe that), History, English (duh!) and all other languages we had. Uh, French, Dutch and German.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Tennis (last three yrs of HS), reading, movies, television...

13. What were your favorite movies?

Fuck if I remember any of'em. I do remember watching lots of porn around the age of 15. I would stay up until it was 12 and watch the movie channel.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

First year of HS was pure hell: snobby school full of over-achievers. Changed school after first year. It was okay. I had fun, but it's not like I get all teary eyed and miss it.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

No. Oh yeah, I impersonated my Religion teacher - a bitchy nun - for a play. I pretended to be her and strip. She wasn't in the audience thank *god*.

2. Location/whereabouts?
south london, UK

3. What did you listen to?
only prince, then only hendrix/zeppelin/wonder, then GRUNGE then a bit of metal then LOTS of hip-hop, and then EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
jeans, converse, band tee, checked shirt. same as now, really.

5. What were your friends like?
close friends=great. larger circle of not so great friends too. we all thought we were outcasts and outlaws, but we weren't really.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
yes. some friction with dad, but i was his carer, so it was to be expected.

7. Did you have a job?
yes. at a film supplies shop, then a shoe shop, then WH Smith's.

8. Did you date?
yes! but did not get 'any' in my teens. (damn catholics)

9. Did you go to prom?
prom-esque leaver's ball was the first social occasion this Terribly Shy Boy attended. i felt like dianne court in Say Anything.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
no, but i help organise gigs in the Crypt of our school, and designed posters for events etc etc

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
english, art, art history

12. What were your non-academic interests?
music, movies, books, gurls.

13. What were your favorite movies?
woody allen movies, scorcese movies. foreign things.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
hmmm. the work, yes. the social environment, mostly no.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
i got suspended! for totally unjust reasons! which made me see that the world sucks and the rules don't really matter and they *will fuck you up, if you let 'em. so don't.

2. Location/whereabouts?
3. What did you listen to?
4. What were your favorite things to wear?
5. What were your friends like?
6. Did you get along with the parents?
7. Did you have a job?
8. Did you date?
9. Did you go to prom?
10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
11. What were your favorite school subjects?
12. What were your non-academic interests?
13. What were your favorite movies?
14. Did you enjoy high school??
15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

2. Location/whereabouts?
Uddingston Grammar School, near Glasgow.

3. What did you listen to?
Music class: "Marcello, every week you bring in something that is the strangest and most bizarre piece of music I've ever heard." "Miss, can you tell him to bring in some normal music one week?"

4. What were your favourite things to wear?
N/A - you wore school uniform and that was it.

5. What were your friends like?
Friendly. I'm still in touch with quite a lot of them.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Hardly ever saw them.

7. Did you have a job?
Saturday/holiday job behind the counter at the now defunct Grant's Educational bookshop, next to Glasgow Central station in Union Street.

8. Did you date?
Nope. Had a stupid and unrequited crush throughout entirety of school career, and in any case tended to fancy teachers rather than fellow pupils.

9. Did you go to prom?
No such thing in Scotland. We did have periodic school discos though. DJ to me while playing "Jilted John": "Are you Elvis Costello?" I was dancing with two girls at the time! Never had a last-dance smooch, though.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like
that?
Drama Society and Debating Society but no sports. We had annual end-of-term House Shows (mine was Calder House; surname initials A-C) but I always got out of them by doing a play instead.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English, French, Latin, History, Music.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
More or less the same as they are now - music, art, literature. I was big on sci-fi and Marvel Comics, and that has changed since.

13. What were your favourite movies?
At the time - Citizen Kane, Psycho, The Trial, Blazing Saddles. I didn't get to see any of the '70s new wave classics (Godfather, Taxi Driver, Chinatown etc.) until the '80s 'cos they were all X certificate.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Yes - as a release from unhappy home life.

2. Location/whereabouts? - Grafton, Massachusetts

3. What did you listen to? - Lemonheads, Janes Addiction, Spin Doctors, Soul Asylum, Smiths, Kitchens Of Distinction, Smashing Pumpkins, Neds, Ride, MBV, Cure, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Helmet, Violent Femmes, Ministry, Big Daddy Kane, NWA, PE, Three Times Dope...

4. What were your favorite things to wear? - Jeans, Chuck T's, Sweaters

5. What were your friends like? - Smart, Stoners

6. Did you get along with the parents? - In the early years of high school, but then they got divorced and no.

7. Did you have a job? - Multiple, I kept quitting.

8. Did you date? - Not until I was a junior

9. Did you go to prom? - 4 of them

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that? - I played Ice Hockey and Baseball

11. What were your favorite school subjects? - study hall and cooking

12. What were your non-academic interests? - pot, beer, girls

13. What were your favorite movies? - hell if i remember

14. Did you enjoy high school?? - at times

15. Additional comments/ points of interest-- n/a

16. books - ha...right.

16. Favourite books
Asimov's Nightfall And Other Stories, Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, Ballard's Crash, The Goon Show Scripts Vols 1-3, Livy's Early History Of Rome, The Citizen Kane Book (Kael's Raising Kane essay + full screenplay), Beckett's Malone trilogy.

2. Middlesex suburbs

3. Pop rave, ardkore-jungle-thereafter, house, techno, acid jazz, hip-hop, US heavy rock/metal and grunge, British indie and pop rock

4. Terrible, badly co-ordinated clothes, apparently (jeans, sports brand tops, whatever was in but in a very casual way)

5. Immature, funny, annoying, unweird, unconfident, hygienic, lewd, gregarious, dim, sheep-like, unambitious,

6. Yes, tho Dad was v difficult to communicate with (as was I at that point tho)

7. Paperboy then supermarket shelf-stacker

8. No

9. No

10. No

11. Art, English, CDT

12. Music, video games, music, TV, music, comics, music

13. stupid Hollywood action movies like Die Hard, Predator and Terminator 2

14. Hardly ever

Stevie, should have opted for just playing some Merzbow instead of all your records at once. How many stereos did you have?!? ;-)

NOT ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!

90s

2. Location/whereabouts?

Cambridge (England)

3. What did you listen to?

in chronological order: indie/britpop, 'techno', trip hop/ big beat, 80s hip-hop, 60s psychedelia.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

*favourite* things skate-derived, but didn't all the time.

5. What were your friends like?

'slackers', up to a point.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

yeah.

7. Did you have a job?

sometimes; i had two paper rounds throughout.

8. Did you date?

nope.

9. Did you go to prom?

(this is england, so it wasn't high school, and we didn't exactly have proms, but) yes.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

not really.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

history, philosophy (er the latter at sixth form only (16-18yrs old, does this count?)

12. What were your non-academic interests?

music

13. What were your favorite movies?

goodfellas, apocalypse now

14. Did you enjoy high school??

the later parts, yeah

15. Additional comments/ points of interest

no.

16. Favorite books.

'catch 22'. 'revolution in the head'.

1st half of the 90s

2. Location/whereabouts?

Los Angeles

3. What did you listen to?

The Cure, Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, Dead Can dance and a lot of goth-industrial stuff

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

School uniform by day, black gothy things on evenings and week-ends

5. What were your friends like?

Pretty eclectic when I think back, although all had some affinity to gothy stuff - I liked being group leader so I guess I tended to surround myself with slightly impressionable people.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

More or less

7. Did you have a job?

Nope

8. Did you date?

Nope

9. Did you go to prom?

Nope, but I did go to after-proms

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Nope

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

French Lit., History

12. What were your non-academic interests?

MUSIC! a lot of other things usually as an easily bored dilettante, learning exotic languages, geeky computer stuff, tennis

13. What were your favorite movies?

Wings of Desire, Strangers in Paradise, The Tenant, Diabolo Menthe, Le Souffle au Coeur

13bis. Fave books

Milan Kundera, Peter Handke, Kafka and most 19th century French classics (which I usually had to read for school)

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Not at the time, but looking back I'd say that I had a good time and was surrounded by great people. The fact that I am still very close friends nearly all of my teenage friends is proof of that.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

Like most people I guess, I always feel that I really didn't make the most of it. A lot of my time was spent bitching about where I was (the US, L.A), longing instead for a romanticized Europe, and struggling to combine my competing aspirations, of being a scenester and of being different. I miss that time of my life.

2. Location/whereabouts?
North of England

3. What did you listen to?
Iron Maiden, Metallica, gradually moving to dance music

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Had absolutely no desire for fashion, just jeans I spose.

5. What were your friends like?
one was computer geek, the other an artist

6. Did you get along with the parents?
mine or my friends? yes to both really

7. Did you have a job?
No way

8. Did you date?
Nope

9. Did you go to prom?
No

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
No

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Art, design, computer studies, typing. anything i was good at.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
computer games, comics, graffiti.

13. What were your favorite movies?
horror ones i think, i remember liking Alien a lot and Jaws

14. Did you enjoy high school??
No hated it, teachers were all horrible and wrong.

15. Comments - i went through rapid phases as a teenager, i could be into skateboarding intensly for one month and then just forget about it the next. i developed late as well, my teenage tantrums didn't start until i was about 18. I'm still doing a lot of what i did back then, although with a better frame of mind (maybe)

16. Favourite books - lord of the rings and graphic novels like arkham asylum, stuff a bit wierd and dark.

2. Location/whereabouts? Edinburgh

3. What did you listen to? stuff like u2 and echo and the bunnymen. laterly tfc, ride & my bloody valentine

4. What were your favorite things to wear? Big boots, short skirts, thick wooly tights and badly hennaed hair

5. What were your friends like? much more varied than now

6. Did you get along with the parents? pretty well
7. Did you have a job? various saturday jobs in hairdressers

8. Did you date? not at school, i was only interested in older boys at that time

9. Did you go to prom? nah, i left after taking my highers in 5th year

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that? i was in the music and fencing clubs.

11. What were your favorite school subjects? chemistry, german, music

12. What were your non-academic interests? fencing, music and shopping

13. What were your favorite movies? i distinctly remember a big
crowd of us watching blue velvet when i was about 14 or 15.

14. Did you enjoy high school?? It was ok

2. Location/whereabouts?
Albany, NY

3. What did you listen to?
Early - synthpop, Duran Duran
Later - 80s hardcore and college radio "alternative" as we called it then

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Jeans, oxford cloth shirts and my brother's flannel shirts. Anything tartan.

5. What were your friends like?
Weird, geeky Dr. Who nerds

6. Did you get along with the parents?
No.

7. Did you have a job?
No.

8. Did you date?
God no.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yes, in drag, in a tuxedo, with the stubble of my shaved head dyed fuschia. I got onstage with the band and jammed with them to Ramones covers. No, I'm not making this up. My mum has photos.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Philosophy club. School newspaper.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Mathematics, Latin and art.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
I didn't really have many. Imaginary anguages and fantasy/sci fi

13. What were your favorite movies?
Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Mad Max (the original)

14. Did you enjoy high school??
God, no.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I went through high school a year younger than my class. I was suspended half a dozen times, until finally I got mono, and having spent several months in hospital and missed most of my senior year, I was allowed to take the GED and get the f*ck out of there.

16. Favorite books.
Suetonius - the 12 Caesars. LOTR. Brideshead Revisted. Anything by John Irving.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Northern England

3. What did you listen to?
Nothing, until I was about 14 or so. After that, indie-ish pop.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Fairly preppy stuff, but usually with jeans. I still have the ragged and very stained pair of jeans that I wore for photography class.

5. What were your friends like?
Geeky

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Not particularly

7. Did you have a job?
No

8. Did you date?
Ahahaha. No.

9. Did you go to prom?
Prom? What's a prom?

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I played in a couple of school orchestras. Apart from that, I don't think we *had* any clubs.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Maths, Chemistry, Photography

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Playing clarinet and piano (mostly classical stuff)

13. What were your favorite movies?
I really have no idea.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
No.

16. Favourite books?
One I remember because it's still a favourite today: Zeno Was Here by Jan Mark.

xpost:

No, I'm not making this up. My mum has photos.

Go on Kate, you *have* to post them!

x-post - no, I can't post them as I don't have them. My mum was not at the prom, my classmates took the photos and gave them to me. I was disgusted with them, but my mum thought they were sweet and kept them.

oh yes, i forgot - i was in the school orchestra. clarinet.

Yeah, lots of people at my high school dated. And made out behind the playing fields and got shouted at by nuns for being shameless hussies.

Never happened to me, tho. :-(

I had sort of strange, unrequited but rather vocal crushes on various boys involved with things like the school newspaper. Of course they found me completely icky and were horrified by the whole thing. Sigh.

(depending on what school you went to, obv)

2. Location/whereabouts?
home: brooklyn. school: manhattan.

3. What did you listen to?
a balanced mix of obscuro punk/indie and crap on the radio.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
same stuff i wear now. but more baggy and boyish, because i didn't expect anyone to ever notice that i was a girl. i used to wear my dad's air force jacket (with his/my last name on it). and i had a prized pair of dark green suede doc martens.

5. What were your friends like?
mostly nerdy art weirdos. one of them was in my dream the night before this one.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
sometimes. we fought but it could have been much worse.

7. Did you have a job?
i babysat.

8. Did you date?
i didn't "date," no.

9. Did you go to prom?
nah.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
yearbook, literary magazine, square shit like that.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
music. i went to a performing arts school and that's what i studied.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
cutting class.

13. What were your favorite movies?
the faces of death series, the paul morrissey warhol movies, and over the edge. plus whatever outre cult flicks we could find at the kim's video near my friend's place. we were able to rent porn there at age 15, without any of the staff batting an eyelash!

14. Did you enjoy high school??
i fucking hated it, but aside from the "having to go to classes and follow stupid rules" part, i had a lot of friends and there wasn't really a social hierarchy (no jocks or cheerleaders, just freaks of different kinds), so it wasn't as nightmarish as some people's high school experience. junior high was way worse for me.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Heywood, nr Rochdale nr Manchester

3. What did you listen to?
The radio. If there were any bands I really liked then, it was James and INXS

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Doc Martens and All-Stars. Jeans and t-shirts. Au naturellment.

5. What were your friends like?
Swots and other awkward boys who liked computers ands felt no shame in doing extra work in lunchtime.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Yes. Always have.

7. Did you have a job?
Packing toilet rolls for Marks and Spencers. Swiftly followed by car-wash attendant and ice-cream man.

8. Did you date?
Nope. Turned someone down in 1988 out of fear, which was a mistake. Didn't get a look-in until 1990, where there were three instances in a space of 4 months, before returning to the usual absence for the next two years.

9. Did you go to prom?
We had a school-leaving dinner, which I saw from the local paper has now been rebranded a prom. It had non-alcoholic wine. The leaving ball for 6th Form had booze, and so did I. My abiding memory is being told to 'watch it' by a policeman when walking down the main drag whistling 'The Red Flag'.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
My comprehensive didn't have clubs. I played football in breaktime and when it rained, did extra technical drawing whilst listening to tapes of the Mary Whitehouse Experience. I used to work in the school break sweet shop, which shows what a swot I was to be trusted with the huge amount of coppers I cam into contact with.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
History. Then Politics at A-level.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Football. Trying to carefully balance getting drunk without my parents noticing. Ringing in Piccadilly Radio to try and convince James Stannage to let you tell two jokes on the run (he cut you off if your first attempt was rubbish). Later on, it was trying to win prizes on the Spence McDonald show.

13. What were your favorite movies?
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
A Very British Coup

14. Did you enjoy high school??
On balance, yeah. I wasn't always happy, but it'd be myth-making to say I didn't enjoy my school days.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
You've had quite enough from em already.

2. northern 'burbs of melbourne, victoria, australia

3. rough trajectory: chart pop > grunge > britpop once I turned into a tryhard anglophile > started to dabble in dance music and hip-hop a bit by the end of year 12.

4. strictly school uniform up to year 12. (i got away with various twists such as long floppy business shirts.) then we could wear what we liked, as long as it was black, white, grey or red (school colours, donchaknow). outside of school, jeans & t-shirt as a matter of course.

5. had a clique of sorta nerdish friends who I was close to. ended up getting along with most social groups, which was the polar opposite of my year 7 loner tendencies.

6. sorta kinda. my sister fought much more with my parents.

7. for a short time, as a video store clerk.

8. no. a few huuuuuge crushes that I was too shy to act on, alas.

9. yes, twice.

10. did a few things - got voted onto school council once (but they never sat), got roped into a debating team, was in a philosophy class for "gifted" students.

11. english, literature, media studies.

12. videogames and music, pretty much.

13. goodfellas, trainspotting, aliens.

14. yes, best time of my life. only recently could I say that I've lived up to any of the potential that I showed back then.

15. started out a dilligent student and went backwards from there. never seemed to harm my grades though, I got awards for four of five subjects at VCE level. my lax study habits probably stuffed me at uni though (I dropped out in first year).

16. hitchhiker's guide, trainspotting, anarchist's cookbook (never made anything from it though of course).

13-14: Robert Westall - he revolutionised teenage literature in the UK by adding swearing and sex. Great stuff. He'd do horror and fantasy but his best stuff was the war time stories like The Machine Gunners.
For a while I was really into the Sharpe novels. All that derring do and sex.
Hitchhikers Guide.
Then by standard grade I started to grow up a bit, although I was mostly reading Select and NME.
15-17: Trainspotting, On The Road, Great Gatsby, 100 Years Of Solitude, Love In The Time Of Cholera (I did my CSYS dissertation on Marquez, show off that I was), THomas Hardy.

Also the school magazine, for which I wrote reviews of Pearl Jam's Vitalogy and Nirvana Unplugged where I'm sure the phrase "roller coaster ride" was deployed (oh dear). I also wrote parody of Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet starring the characters from My So Called Life which I thought terribly clever at the time.

Joined Youth Theatre when I was 16, which was where all the freaks hung out, some self-consciously so. Had some great parties through that and it helped us get rid of this homophobic asshole who had been our "friend" (read: guy who was tall enough to get served in the off license).

2. Location/whereabouts?
MANCHESTER

3. What did you listen to?
FUCKIN' BOLT THROWER AND ULTRAVIOLENCE

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
STEEL TOE CAP DOC MARTENS

5. What were your friends like?
A LOAD OF NINNIES

6. Did you get along with the parents?
AS LONG AS THEY DIDNT TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

7. Did you have a job?
YEP. PULLING NAILS OUT OF BITS OF WOOD WITH A CLAWHAMMER

8. Did you date?
ONCE.

9. Did you go to prom?
I NEVER WENT TO SCHOOL IN AMERICA YOU SILLY SAUSAGE

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
BOXING.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
FRENCH.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
WRESTLING. BOLT THROWER. SEGA. FRY UP.

13. What were your favorite movies?
SUBURBAN COMMANDO. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. THAT ONE WHERE THE KIDS STEAL A PIRATE SHIP

14. Did you enjoy high school??
YEH IM BEING SARCASTIC!

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
HI EVERYONE I'M SYE AND I'M NEW ON THIS BOARD. HELLO YA MELONS!!!!

Forest - I went to Gosford Hill, in Kidlington. I have very little memory of my classmates.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Somerset, middle of bloody nowhere. 40 miles from nearest club. My school was fairly insular (esp as half the pupils were boarders)

3. What did you listen to?
Trip-hop and angsty female singer songwriters. Portishead, Tricky, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Björk, Moloko, Massive Attack etc.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Jeans, t-shirt, not very interesting. Doing anything interesting with fashion in Somerset was pretty much a non-starter.

5. What were your friends like?
I was on the periphery of several school cliques - the arty theatrical people, the nerds, and the musicians.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
No.

7. Did you have a job?
No.

8. Did you date?
No.

9. Did you go to prom?
We had a sixth form ball, I went to that and took one of my best friends as my date.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
School magazine...that's pretty much it though. I was the drama editor!

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English, History, Latin

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Music, tennis, reading.

13. What were your favorite movies?
As now, I was never very into films as a teenager - I enjoyed the ones which came my way but rarely actively sought them out. Romeo + Juliet, anyway, that was quite formative.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
It wasn't so bad once sixth form started. Not great, but no worse than it was for anyone else. School > home, anyway.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
When I was 13, my then best friend and myself nearly got suspended, though our punishment was eventually decreased to detentions all over the place. We had a replacement maths teacher who was pretty fucking useless at a) keeping order and b) teaching maths, and, er, er, we rewrote the entire lyrics of Madonna's 'Secret' to express our displeasure. We changed the main chorus line to "mmm-mmm, we hate Mrs Buckna11". And not only that, we recorded it and brought the tape and typed-out new lyrics into school. Her son, who was in our year, found all of this at lunchtime and promptly blabbed :( Apparently she had to have counselling :(

16. Favorite books.
Isabel Allende, The House Of The Spirits; Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights; Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale.

2. Location/whereabouts?

Hastings, MN

3. What did you listen to?

Prince, The Cure, New Order, The Smiths, Severed Heads, Skinny Puppy Depeche Mode, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Ministry, Pet Shop Boys, INXS, En Vogue, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Queen Latifah, Eazy-E

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

Combat boots and tuxedo jackets.

5. What were your friends like?

Very smart, very music/arts-oriented, very opinionated and sarcastic.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Yes.

7. Did you have a job?

I worked at THE PIZZA RANCH.

8. Did you date?

Yes, I had several serious long term (ie, 1 year+) relationships in high school.

9. Did you go to prom?

I went to prom three out of four years. I didn't go freshman year because the girl who asked me had a bigot for a father.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Of the eleven plays/musicals that were performed during my high school career, I appeared in seven of them. I played soccer and ran track, was vice-president of National Honor Society and the Drama Club, was president of the Concert Choir, sang in the show choir, played in freshman band, did solo-ensemble competitions, was on the mock trial team, the math team, the knowledge bowl team, the chess team and the German club, and wrote some articles and poetry for the school newpaper.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Computer science and calculus.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Music.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Heathers, Glory, Chariots of Fire.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Yes and no. On the whole it was a lot of fun but the entire experience was overshadowed by a family tragedy at the beginning of my freshman year that left me depressed and borderline-suicidal for most of it.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

I went to German camp for two summers and was on the local news trashing it for being boring the second time around. Oops.

16. Favorite books.

The Stranger, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Johnny Got His Gun, Going After Cacciato, Catch-22, Stranger In A Strange Land, IT

2. Location/whereabouts?
Southfields/Wimbledon, SW London

3. What did you listen to?
The John Peel show, religiously for about three years, which turned me on to indie music (and left me with a liking for African guitar music). Favourite bands at 16: Senseless Things, Silverfish, The Sundays, JAMC, Ride, Mega City Four, Wonder Stuff, Spacemen 3, Violent Femmes, Velvet Underground. Favourite bands at 18: most of the above, Throwing Muses, Huggy Bear, My Bloody Valentine, Th' Faith Healers, Tsunami, Dinosaur Jr.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
16: 10 hole DMs, biker jacket, band t-shirts, black jeans
18: 10 hole DMs, chucks, levi 501s, band t-shirts, greatcoats, grandad shirts, hairbands for my occasional ponytail (!)

5. What were your friends like?
16: local kids I was in a band with; several different groups of girls from local schools; the "bohemian" section of my year at school

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Yes, pretty well. By 18 I'd say I was over the surly teenager phase.

7. Did you have a job?
Only in the summer holidays. I was a trainee hairdresser in 1990, worked as a scriptreader and did some holiday cover as a film PA in 1991, and worked in my cousin's bookshop in Rome in 1992.

8. Did you date?
Yup - see girls from local schools in question 6. Unusually for my posh school, I had a couple of gfs from the local girls state school. For some reason I was quite popular with the ladies, which contributed in no small part to the arrogant fucker you see today.

9. Did you go to prom?
I'm British, so no.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I acted (I had a very small part, hoho) and did the occasional music thing. I played badminton for the school, too.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Italian, biology, and theoretical economics (applied economics made my eyes bleed)

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Music - went to a couple of gigs a week, played in two bands, listened to records and the radio constantly. Badminton - I played ever saturday. Compiling lists about anything and everything.

13. What were your favorite movies?
I honestly can't remember.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
I suppose I did. Socially it was a lot of fun, and I managed to remain on decent terms with everyone from the jocks to the wasters. The work didn't excite me much, and I sort of scraped through without really taxing myself.

16. John Irving; Joesph Heller; Armistead Maupin

sounds like my kinda guy (for better or worse).

German camp

oh dan, i know it's early, but at least TRY to joke-proof this.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Dorset

3. What did you listen to?
Stones, Dylan, Doors, Cream/Clapton, Melanie, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple, Caravan, King Crimson, Groundhogs

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
School Uniform to school, then loon pants and cheesecloth shirts

5. What were your friends like?
Not the cool guys nor the stupid ones, but usually okay

6. Did you get along with the parents?
At the time it seemed pretty awful, but probably no worse than anyone else. However, we hardly ever see each other now, so you work it out.

7. Did you have a job?
Only in the summer holiday between lower and upper sixth (at the Max Faxtor warehouse in Bournemeouth)

8. Did you date?
No, but I did sometimes get off with girls at parties.

9. Did you go to prom?
No such thing existed in my day.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
No, not if I could help it, but I had to join the science club 'cos I did science for a levels (big mistake)

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Maths and History

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Music, books, getting pissed and trying to pretend I wasn't (to my parents, who were of course horrified)

13. What were your favorite movies?
MASH, O Lucky Man

14. Did you enjoy high school?
Not really, but I guess you have to put up with it, so you make the best of it

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
None

16. Favorite books
I remember reading John Updike, because it was rude but counted as literature. I also like Hemmingway and Scott Fitzgerald.

Extra for 15: I was made a prefect but then got sacked after a week because I refused to enforce all those rules which I had always thought were really stupid.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Chicago errea

3. What did you listen to?
Jazz, almost exclusively.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
I don't remember really. Nothing special. Jeans. Khakis. t-shirts.

5. What were your friends like?
Until the end of h.s., I tended to make friends with invdividualistic people and not groups/cliques - my friends included a guy who was mexican-american, a guy who was kenyan, a guy who started balding junior year, etc. None of them were friends, but i was friends with all of them.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
My mom and I got along pretty well.

7. Did you have a job?
Summertime I worked in a grocery store.

8. Did you date?
Not really.

9. Did you go to prom?
No

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Jazz band, band, played trmpet, swim team.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
history, english

12. What were your non-academic interests?
trumpet, music

13. What were your favorite movies?
mission impossible

14. Did you enjoy high school??
eh.

mid-late 90s

2. Location/whereabouts?

Washington, DC (public magnet school for Arts)

3. What did you listen to?

A lot of jazz and classical, but also Zeppelin, Floyd, a fair amount of hip-hop.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

I can't even really remember.

5. What were your friends like?

Partly because it was a magnet school, a lot of my friends lived in neighborhoods pretty far from mine, so most of my friendships revolved more around meeting up in the city or in/after school stuff. I had a few musician friends that I played in a jazz group with, all of whom were black, and my two best friends were a hispanic theater student who was into graf and hip-hop and a white jewish theater student who I'd known most of my life.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

I was annoyed and angry with them a lot, but more in a quiet way than an openly rebelious way.

7. Did you have a job?

No, except in the summer.

8. Did you date?

No. Unfortunately I think racial issues made this more difficult for me in my school (I was one of a handful of white kids) though there was certainly some interracial dating, and I also blame my own shyness.

9. Did you go to prom?

Yes, with a very pretty girl who I liked and who liked me, but it didn't work out because of circumstances.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Jazz band and other music groups, but this was part of the curriculum. I was also on the quiz bowl team one year.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

English and music.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Aside from music, I guess I liked film and art and just general "artsiness." I also liked just taking long walks, whether in the city or in the woods.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Dead Man, maybe some blaxploitation movies.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

I didn't hate it, although I was unhappy a lot of the time. I slept very little and drank tons of coffee, and I was probably very sexually frustrated. I felt a bit of an outsider, especially because of the race issue, but much less so than I had when I was younger and openly picked on by other kids (regardless of race)

2. Location/whereabouts?
Claremont, California

3. What did you listen to?
Whatever obscure shit was on college radio. KPCC at the Claremont Colleges was a godsend. I also had a shortwave receiver so I could pick up the Peel show.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Jeans. Button down shirts. Essentially exactly the same things I wear now.

5. What were your friends like?
None. I couldn't be bothered to make the effort to have any.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Very well actually. It was a boarding school, so I only had to interact with them every couple of months.

7. Did you have a job?
Occasionaly

8. Did you date?
No

9. Did you go to prom?
Surprisingly yes, but I ended up ditching it early and going to the Kinks/Joan Jett show instead.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
No

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Physics, History

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Driving around the desert and looking for old ghost town sites. Waiting for World War III to start. Perfecting the bass solo in "My Generation"

13. What were your favorite movies?
Whatever was on KTLA's "Movies 'Till Dawn"

14. Did you enjoy high school??
For the most part. It could have been worse.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
Nothing more I could add that hasn't already been said by Daria Morgendorfer.

16. Favorite books.
Philip K. Dick and William Faulkner

2. Location/whereabouts?
north Texas

3. What did you listen to?
rap

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
anything black. it was cheap and easy.

5. What were your friends like?
dorks like me.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
by high school my parents were either gone or so busy not being parents that this is a moot question.

7. Did you have a job?
had no choice. Was a grocery check from 14 until I left for college.

8. Did you date?
Yes.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yes, mine and my boyfriend's.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I was drum major (played clarinet), president of the Honor Society and Latin clubs, captain of the Whiz Quiz team, Academic Decathalon. We didn't have any kind of publications at school or I would've been involved with that.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English, Latin, Chemistry

12. What were your non-academic interests?
philosphy, racial politics, writing

13. What were your favorite movies?
hmm, maybe Sid & Nancy, The Fabulous Stains

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Yes. The school part, not the home part.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
My school was a WPA building and both of my parents went there. By the time I was attending it was in the middle of two gang territories. There was lots of violence--a murder--and evacuations during school. That would be echoed years later when I became a teacher.

16. Books. .
Salinger (esp. Franny & Zooey and his New Yorker stories), Stephen King, MLK writings

i was only in it for the free fruit juice.

(what high school did you go to?)

I am suddenly imagining my father discovering ILX now that he's retired. Eek.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Cincinnati Ohio USA

3. What did you listen to?
Allman Brothers, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Mott the Hoople, Rolling Stones, David Bowie, The Who. Always loved soul hits on car radio.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
blue jeans, sneakers, flannel shirts, t-shirts, bathing suit, sweats.

5. What were your friends like?
smart, funny, skeptical about adult authority, sometimes eccentric

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Not at all. I was a jerk, rebelling against everything just for the sake of rebellion. In my defense, I recieved mixed messages from my parents: they were free-thinking liberals on an intellectual level who taught me to question conventional thinking while on the what-time-are-you-coming-home level they were strict and conservative.

7. Did you have a job?
one summer lifeguard. previous summers spent training in competitive swimming, banking on a college scholarship that I didn't get.

8. Did you date?
not much. one long term platonic "girlfriend" senior year and at the same time one consistent girl friend who I'd secretly fool around. thankfully this sort of neurotic behavior didn't become a pattern.

9. Did you go to the prom?
In the most bodaciously ugly powder-blue tuxedo you can imagine, totally inna 70s stylee w/wide lapels & bells n whistles.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
All spare time spent w/my head underwater, i.e. swimming team practice, but other than that, no.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Believe it or not, religion and english. Religion because the Jesuits made it like philosophy class, teaching us logic and encouraging debate. Where and when I decided to be agnostic.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
listening to rock & roll, smoking pot, driving around, thinking about sex: in various combinations. reading and writing, privately.

13. What were your favorite movies?
horror and sci-fi on TV. I remember catching Hitchcock's The Birds one night at 18 and thinking "I've gotta see more movies."

14. Did you enjoy high school?
no. but being a teenager had definite highpoints, I wasn't miserable. but it's an uncomfortable, awkward time for everybody to some extent -- everybody who becomes an interesting adult anyway.

15.
16. Favorite books
Kerouac's On The Road, Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and earlier collections, everything by Kurt Vonnegut.

2. Location/whereabouts?
East coast USA beach town, population ~1500 in the winter and triple that in the summer.

3. What did you listen to?
REM REM REM REM (total fangirl),The Cure, The Smiths, The Violent Femmes, The Surgarcubes, The Dead Milkmen, B-52s, Butthole Surfers, INXS, and a lots and lots and lots of classic rock, mostly Led Zeppelin and Yes. Some heavy metal like Metallica and Iron Maiden because that's what my friends were into.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
A lot of band t-shirts. Things just weird enough to set me apart from trends but not so weird that I got picked on.

5. What were your friends like?
Smart kids, band geeks.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Yes

7. Did you have a job?
Lifeguard during the summer, assorted retail and waitress jobs through the school year.

8. Did you date?
Yes but only older boys, boys from other schools, or recent transfers.

9. Did you go to prom?
Senior prom with a recent transfer student. It was pretty dumb and I wish I had spent the money on something else.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Band was my big thing (first chair sax, county band, was going to major in music), also chorus, drama club, secretary of honor society, and maybe a couple others but those are the only ones I remember.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Band, chorus, and english-related subjects.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Music, pot.

13. What were your favorite movies?
I don't remember what were my favorite movies then and what movies from that era I came to like later. Genre-wise I have always been a huge fan of horror movies, since I was too young to watch them. Music movies. Whatever movies had hottie of the day stars in them - Young Guns, Lost Boys.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
It wasn't the worst thing but I'd rather not do it again ever.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I went through a lot of phases in high school (and beyond, actually) of trying to fully immerse myself in different subcultures. Sometimes I wish I had been more true to myself, but mostly I like that I've had such complete experiences hanging out with different groups because I can pick and choose the things I like from each and really be true to myself for real. If I could have gone back in time and given myself one gift, it would be more self confidence.

16. Books
I mostly read cheesy horror paperbacks until I worked at a book store the summer before I went to college.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Toronto - in the shitty suburb of Scarborough

3. What did you listen to?
Early - Duran Duran, Def Leppard, new wave, shit hair-metal, and also random electro stuff (my school had an odd concentration of DJs who played this at dances and on community radio, and I loved it - the hipster club kids today would probably go crazy for it).
Later - Cure, Smiths, New Order, Echo, OMD, Cult, and above all else, DEPECHE MODE, who I was obsessed with. And towards the end some house (Jack Your Body!), and an awkward mix of industrial and early techno. I pretty much lived by the sound of CFNY, a 'major' station in Toronto which was also independent and played amazing "alternative" music all the time. Hardly a weekend passed when I didn't listen to certain shows - Club 102, Warming up the House, etc...

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Nothing that interesting. Psuedo-preppie clothes - polo shirts, jeans, 'rugger pants' tapered to the point of absurdity, etc.

5. What were your friends like?
My circle of friends were kinda the outcasts that didn't really fit into the various tightly and mosly culturally segregated cliques that existed in my school ("Ginos" - a catch-all term for the Greeks, Italians, etc that were the biggest group - in the front, Chinese and Indian kids in the east hall and library, rockers & stoners in the back smoking area, preppies in the athletic & music wing). We weren't the coolest kids in the school, but not geeks either. We mostly went un-noticed, which was fine by us. Some friends were destructive and dodgy, others smart and shy. We were a strange bunch. Some are now successful, some are skids, some are dead.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Yeah - occasionally token rebellion on my part, but overall OK.

7. Did you have a job?
86 - local grass cutting
87 - audi-VW car dealership doing odd jobs
88 - student painter

8. Did you date?
Not really. Didn't start seeing anyone until the dying days of high school. I was a pretty shy with the ladies.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yup. I took a girl from another far-away school who nobody knew, which was OK, although she was kinda nuts and wound up flirting with a friend of mine.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Nothing apart from BAND. I played oboe. Yes, the oboe.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English, Math (only because I found it easy), Economics, History

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Music was pretty much it. A bit of Drama, but that faded quickly when I realised I didn't like anyone in our drama program.

13. What were your favorite movies?
Mostly John Hughes stuff, some Kubrick, whatever big action movies were out at the time that appealed to teenage boys I suppose.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Not really, and my gut is always to say that it sucked and I hated it, but I did have some good times. Mind you, those good times were mainly doing stupid things to break up the suburban boredom, which probably isn't that positive a thing to remember...

16. Favourite books
I really didn't pursue much reading outside of the stuff we did for school (Catcher in the Rye, Shakespeare, etc) which I liked. Although I did read the occasional Stephen King or Arthur C. Clarke book...

Egads!

1980z (84-89)

2. Location/whereabouts?

Sydney, Australia

3. What did you listen to?

Well now high school goes for 6 years (year 7-12) here so that spanned the ages of 11-17 for me. musical taste went a little something like: ac/dc, angels, radiator, sex pistols THEN duran duran THEN australian crawl THEN the cure THEN david bowie, the jam, nick cave + bad seeds THEN the birthday party

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

Well, we had a uniform up to year 11. from year 11 on the uniform rules for seniors loosened to anything blue on the bottom and a white top. my favorite outfit was white sleeveless top, blue cardigan, blue miniskirt, black opaque tights (ripped) and black boots (doc martens) because im a ho that way.

5. What were your friends like?

I was in that outsider group that mastered sarcasm too early an age. I havent had any contact with them since the last day of school.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Sure. Whats not to get along with?

7. Did you have a job?

For 1 month at MacDonalds. I missed about 75% of my shifts and still had to quit in the end.

8. Did you date?

No one from my high school and no one that didnt already have a girlfriend.

9. Did you go to prom?

Yeah. Its fun to watch the miss perfects puking in potplants at 7 pm and messing up the dresses theyd been yakking about for the past 6 months.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

I tried to start a newspaper but they werent having it.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Ancient History, Art, English lit.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

music, guys, tv

13. What were your favorite movies?

lost boys, breakfast club, pretty in pink, killing of america

14. Did you enjoy high school??

if you discount everyone else that was there then yeah, sure

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

nah

16. Favorite books.

bell jar, junkie and queer(wsb)

2. Location/whereabouts?
chicago

3. What did you listen to?
"alternative" bands, dylan, old soul music, the fall (no i don't understand that last one either)

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
i dunno, cords? and ugly t-shirts

5. What were your friends like?
nerds and goody twoshoes

6. Did you get along with the parents?
yeah

7. Did you have a job?
not really, i had some part-time summer jobs

8. Did you date?
not until summer before jr year

9. Did you go to prom?
yes

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
many. i got to school at 7 am and stayed until 6 pm

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
history, english

12. What were your non-academic interests?
my interests have always been kind of academic. i wrote plays and did stage crew

13. What were your favorite movies?
2001, blue velvet, gremlins, a world apart, until the end of the world

14. Did you enjoy high school??
yes

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
n/a

2. Location/whereabouts? One yeah in Victoria, Australia. The rest in Queensland, Australia

3. What did you listen to? Traditional Irish Music...not a lot else. I was a dork.

4. What were your favorite things to wear? Kilts and patterned opaque stockings with Doc Martens.

5. What were your friends like? Boring, but safety in numbers y'know?

6. Did you get along with the parents? No, they kicked me out of home twice.

7. Did you have a job? For a while, but I hated it.

8. Did you date? Just the one gal.

9. Did you go to prom? Nope, it was full of wankers.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that? Choir, Editor of school magazine three years running.

11. What were your favorite school subjects? Art, Ancient History.

12. What were your non-academic interests? Rooting in the photography darkroom

13. What were your favorite movies? Didn't and don't like movies that much. Probably in the name of the father.

14. Did you enjoy high school?? Not really.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest-- Nothing further to add.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Hueneme High, Oxnard, Ca.

3. What did you listen to?
Yes, Genesis, Bowie, Zappa, Alice Cooper, Amon Duul II, Mott, Blue Oyster Cult, Steely Dan, Velvets.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Levi's, T-shirts.

5. What were your friends like?
Some were math/science geeks, but I hung around with some stoners for a while.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Yeah.

7. Did you have a job?
Dish washer at a Japanese restaurant for almost the full 4 years. They sometimes called me Niku-chan.

8. Did you date?
No.

9. Did you go to prom?
No.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
No.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Math, science, wood and plastics shop.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Music, bicycling. Tried to learn guitar at age 15, but didn't push myself hard enough. Tried again about 10 years later, ditto.

13. What were your favorite movies?
Woody Allen (he was still doing his "earlier, funny" ones then), 2001, Omega Man, Vanishing Point, Woodstock.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
I should have worked at getting a lot more from it, but it wasn't an unpleasant experience. And by "it" I mean life in general, I have a tendency to just slack and wait for good things to happen to me. I wish I could send my high school self a "cheat sheet" from now.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
Can't think of any.

2. Location/whereabouts?
suburban Chicago

3. What did you listen to?
pharcyde, smashing pumpkins, NIN, nirvana, dj mixtapes (mostly acid house: terry mullan, mike dearborn, dj hyperactive, etc), led zeppelin, bjork, beck, pegboy, st etienne, cypress hill

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
baggy skater jeans and "edible" striped tshirts (friend dubbed them edible cause of the bright colors. or something)

5. What were your friends like?
ne'er do wells, wannabe rebels

6. Did you get along with the parents?
sorta kinda pretty much

7. Did you have a job?
yeah. at an auto parts store

8. Did you date?
a little

9. Did you go to prom?
yes

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
no

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
history, psychology, phys ed! (well at least during the 3days/week when we would play basketball all period)

12. What were your non-academic interests?
basketball, girls, music, skateboarding, maxin and relaxin

13. What were your favorite movies?
Dazed and Confused, Kids, Pulp Fiction, Airplane!.
watched more skate videos than movies though.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
very much

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL ROCKS!!!!!!!!

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
1990s

2. Location/whereabouts?
Louisville, Kentucky

3. What did you listen to?
lots of hardcore and indie rock

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
unwashed clothes

5. What were your friends like?
pretty great! still friends with some of 'em, even

6. Did you get along with the parents?
for the most part, yeah

7. Did you have a job?
i had a couple: camp counselor, assistant in iron forge making decorative furniture, ice cream man

8. Did you date?
a little bit

9. Did you go to prom?
fuck no!

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
quiz bowl team, soccer team

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
american history, english lit, studio art

12. What were your non-academic interests?
ROCK

13. What were your favorite movies?
"blue velvet," "apocalypse now!," "romper stomper," "taxi driver" (uh i wasn't as fucked up as that sounds tho)

14. Did you enjoy high school??
yep, for the most part

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
nah

faulkner "light in august," pkd "the man in the high castle" and "a scanner darkly," joyce "a portrait of the artist as a young man," greil marcus "lipstick traces"

1994 - 1998.

2. Location/whereabouts?

South TX

3. What did you listen to?

Much of what I consider my favorites today -- Duran Duran, Japan, Spandau Ballet, Human League, Howard Jones, Ultravox, Visage, Kajagoogoo, Tears For Fears, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Talk Talk, Eurythmics, that sort of thing. I also really liked INXS and, um, really liked Wham!. I listened to more modern stuff too -- Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Elastica, Green Day, Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins, Urge Overkill, The Posies. But I think my heart was in the '80s.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

Anything that WASN'T a school uniform! Really, though, I was a very basic jeans & shirt kind of person, though my shirts were casual blouses instead of t-shirts.

5. What were your friends like?

It's odd; I had friends from a weird variety of places. I was friends with some of my fellow National Honor Society members, I was friends with more "average" people, I was friends with student athletes and cheerleaders, etc. The only group of people I wasn't friends with were the rowdy crowd, who perversely were among the most popular kids at school.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

90% of the time, yes. The rest of the time I think I was just an average adolescent.

7. Did you have a job?

Yes. Both volunteer and paying.

8. Did you date?

Ha ha ha ha ha. I don't even date now.... Besides, I went to an all-girls' school.

9. Did you go to prom?

That's really funny. (i.e. NONONONONO)

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Uh, yeah. From Poetry Club to the Spanish Club, I was pretty organization-happy. At my peak, I was a member of eight clubs & organizations, but on average I was a member of six or seven. My senior year, I was a member of seven clubs & organizations and was the vice-president of one while being the treasurer of another.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

All the math & science subjects except for geometry, which I had a crap teacher for. I really enjoyed algebra I & II, biology, chemistry I & II, pre-cal, etc. I also liked Spanish class a lot and really enjoyed American history. I did well in my English classes but I didn't particularly enjoy my time in them.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

I played violin in the school's mariachi group, for one. I was also involved in taking art classes outside the school walls, which really relaxed me and I suspect contributed heavily to my being able to handle the pressures from school. I also liked sleeping in the middle of a weekend afternoon and timer recorded "The Big '80s" on VH1 so I could watch it when I got home from school.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Some Kind Of Wonderful, Pump Up The Volume, Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Real Genius, Say Anything, Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, Serial Mom, and Hairspray.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

You know, I did. It was strenuous and vigorous and stressed me out, but I had fun.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest

My high school was over ten miles away from home, which is unlike what most people's high school arrangements are, at least in the U.S. That combined with the fact that I was extremely fearful of driving at the time meant my father, who worked in the same part of town (downtown) my school was in, drove me to and from school. I remember having to leave the house by 6:50 in the morning in order for Dad to make it to work early; during the commute over, I would listen to cassettes on my Walkman. Dad would pick me up promptly at 5 p.m. -- we wouldn't get home until 6, though, because of rush-hour traffic on I-35 and Loop 410. I would use that time to take a nap. It all worked out perfectly/conveniently for me.

16. Favourite books

Ugh. I had to read so much for school that I tended to shun books altogether for non-academic purposes. I got so burnt out on books, in fact, that it wasn't until this year that I was able to start picking up books and reading them for leisure again. It would have been a paradise to some of you -- on average, we would cover 18 books a semester in English class, and this would be on top of whatever else we had to read for every other class we had. But that was just way too much for me (a book a week!) and I graduated HS with a deep dislike of books that was only further cemented by my first two years of uni (when I was earning my first degree).

1992-1996

2. Location/whereabouts?

downingtown, pa

3. What did you listen to?

rap, "alternative", hardcore

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

chuck taylors, jeans, t-shirts. i didn't own any other clothes. in the winter i wore a green army jacket.

5. What were your friends like?

feebs and weirdos.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

45% of the time.

7. Did you have a job?

my senior year. (unless working for my parents business counts.)

8. Did you date?

i had one very intense romance with my best friend (female)

9. Did you go to prom?

no, we drove around drinking fruit wine and playing bad brains. i puked in a roy rogers parking lot at 1am.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

hell no.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

english, history, art

12. What were your non-academic interests?

coffee, cigarettes, music

13. What were your favorite movies?

anything "indie" or from a foreign land or made before 1980 (also ghostbusters)

14. Did you enjoy high school??

fuck no.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

i survived, didn't i?

2. Location/whereabouts?
Willowdale, North York, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

3. What did you listen to?
Depeche Mode, The Orb, NIN, The Stone Roses, New Order

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Jeans, t-shirts. This hasn't changed (the jeans are baggier now, however)

5. What were your friends like?
It was a school of nerds, but how can you be nerdy if everyone around you is nerdy too?

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Sometimes

7. Did you have a job?
I was a swimming instructor. I loved it, and continued doing it throughout university.

8. Did you date?
No. Fortunately, I had girls who were interested in me anyway.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yes. Highlight: learning about an upcoming Suede gig.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Played in the school band and orchestra throughout high school. This was essentially my only extracurricular school interest. I liked sports but wasn't confident enough to try out for sports teams.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Physics, calculus, civilizations in history, music

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Music, swimming, outwitting my parents in an attempt to gain more freedom

13. What were your favorite movies?
I was never a movie person.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
I wish I'd taken up more interests, joined more clubs and stuff. But generally, yeah, it was fun.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
booyah

16. Books
A g/f remarked that the only reading I did was the liner notes inside music cassettes. She was right.

What did you listen to?
early years: Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel.
later years: Stones, Airplane, Dylan.

What were your favorite things to wear?
None. I was traumatized by fashion.

What were your friends like?
Brilliant, anguished. Most tended to be "liberals" and "intellectuals," except I'd have some friends among the younger freaks, who'd deride my other friends. I played them off against each other. The social map tended to change every six seconds anyway, so all categories were elusive.

Did you get along with the parents?
Avoided fights; avoided fights too well, in fact, so I was hidden, unknown to them. So the answer leans towards "No."

Did you have a job?
No.

Did you date?
Not as such, but nonetheless I managed to go through a couple of breakups.

Did you go to prom?
Our class was too cool to have a prom.

Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Does organizing civil disobedience count as a school activity? Leafletting for political events?
Early: drama club, track team, debate (lousy at all of 'em).
Mid: student action (antiwar, basically); student newspapers (we had several, all trying to be more underground than the next).
Late: agitating for a free school (didn't work, though we got to writing a formal proposal, then let it fizzle); student newspapers.

What were your favorite school subjects?
Anthropology, English.

What were your non-academic interests?
Rock, politics, then sitting in my room writing about how alienated I was from politics.

What were your favorite movies?
Early: The Graduate
Mid: If....
Late: Letter from an Unknown Woman

Did you enjoy high school??
This is like asking if I enjoyed the "Explosion at Liverpool Street" and "Liz D RIP" threads last week. "Enjoy" isn't the right word, but the time mattered, was richly rewarding (trite as that sounds).

Additional comments/ points of interest
Don't know if the subsequent questions altogether address the main question: What was I like as a teenager? Gutsy, cowardly, emotional, self-involved, terrified, self-critical, challenging.

Favorite books
Mid: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Late: The Sound and the Fury. (Age 18 I decided I could write letters in Benjy 'n' Quentin style, sentences didn't have to start didn't have to end could break off could switch to new like fast mashup like fast emotion idea splice idea splice idea splice; I wrote letters like that, lots of 'em, until age twenty when I decided I'd worn it out and I should return to intelligibility.)

2. Location/whereabouts?
Burnaby (North), BC, Canada

3. What did you listen to?
First two years of highschool, I listened to the radio and watched way too much MuchMusic, plus The Beatles, Stones, old soul. Then 15/16 hit and I got into gahrunge - Soundgarden, Nirvana, PearlJam, yes, of course, plus I'd go see crappy "punk/grunge" bands at crappy all-ages holes-in-the-wall. But I also loved Sonic Youth, REM, Matthew Sweet, U2, Liz Phair, Dee-Lite, Wonderstuff, Billy Bragg. Hey.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
I wore a lot of skirts. And clunky DocMarten shoes w/o laces, later boots. Also tight jeans and big t-shirts. But also loose pants and tight tops. I had this awesome/terrible top made out of a sort of "tastefully" tye-died scarf, with tassles. I loved that with ripped-up jeans. And I had this 70s suede shirt/jacket that I also loved.

5. What were your friends like?
Some nerdy, most smart, some theatre types, some AV types, some stoners with big cars, some regular types who went through highschool obliging their parents desires for them to be doctors/lawyers/engineers.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Yeah, sure, there was love.

7. Did you have a job?
Part time in the summer, nannying, working at a park, some receptionist work.

8. Did you date?
Not until halfway through grade 10 - but I had about a gazillion crushes that I had no idea how to act on, and nor did the crushees for that matter, so... Then I had a couple long-term boyfriends, plus a few make-out sessions here and there.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yes. It was decent. My date (a friend) and I wore French Court dress, which was ultimate cheese and we knew it but totally fun. Later we all put on skankyish clothes, drank wine coolers in the hotel room and went to an afterparty. And then drank more wine coolers and smoked pot. Whoo!

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I was all university bound and totally poor, so I was all about the scholarship whoring. Basketball, volleyball, track & field, theatre/plays, multicultural club, grad committee.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English, Writing, Theatre, Biology.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Reading and the library, sex, movies, tv, music, jewelery/bead making, certain drugs, walking around downtown Vancouver, going to the beach, etc.

13. What were your favorite movies?
Difficult. Annie Hall, Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Big, Lethal Weapon, Aliens, anything Monty Python (of course, I was in *theatre*... ooh, eesh.), The Princess Bride, Lost Boys, American Werewolf in London, The Year Punk Broke, Young Guns, Ferris Bueller, Bill and Ted, Strange Brew! I'm sure I'm forgetting other favourites. I watched a lot of movies, and a lot of terrible, forgettable movies at that. The shame.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Yeah, it wasn't bad, wasn't great, couldn't wait to get out though.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
It has been very strange writing all this down. I'm now going to resume my very non-highschool life, phew, Live in the Now! haha.

16. Books
I read a lot too, but this is hard to remember. Earlier on, a lot of Stephen King and the like, then Margaret Atwood, Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, Microbe Hunters, Raymond Carver, Alice Monro, Timothy Findley, some big L Literature, poetry, etc.

2. Location/whereabouts?
North Texas

3. What did you listen to?
Punk (mostly the Clash, Descendents and Buzzcocks)

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
jeans, gas-station attendant shirts, black Docs

5. What were your friends like?
all over the place but kind of like me I guess

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Not so much, no.

7. Did you have a job?
Yes.

8. Did you date?
Some, but no one dated in the rom-com sense.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yes, and got kicked out for taking a cigarette break halfway through.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Literary magazine and newspaper, quiz league and Academic Decathlon. Also president of the school political group (AHSPAC haha) for one misguided semester before the advisor removed me.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English, history, government

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Politics, alcohol

13. What were your favorite movies?
Office Space, Dazed & Confused, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange

14. Did you enjoy high school??
At the time, I didn't think so. Looking back, yeah.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I never got beat up, never was hassled for being smart/nerdy/whatever, hung out with jocks and cheerleaders and punks all the different tribles, generally got along with everyone but administration and the teachers who didn't like a smart-ass who put in minimal effort (and loved the teachers who were content to leave well enough alone), wish I had put in more effort at school and at enjoying what I had rather than raging against the machine and causing myself problems.

16. Favorite books:
Camus, The Stranger
Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls
Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, Animal Farm, Down and Out In Paris and London

I was one big ball of Clash-loving teen-lefty angst

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
Fall '77-Spring '81

2. Location/whereabouts?
Right where I live now: Amory, MS

3. What did you listen to?
Zeppelin/Beatles/Who/Fleetwood Mac to start; Frank Zappa and Miles Davis by the end of high school. Punk came later, in college.

4. What were your favorite things to wear? Jeans, t-shirts. I had a yellow cotton Ocean Pacific shirt I remember fondly, and the best sneakers I ever owned. They didn't wear out at all, the uppers just separated from the soles when I was a sophomore in college.

5. What were your friends like?
I was one of a gang of four smart nerds. One of them was well-off and had a regulation snooker table, so we played snooker and went bowling most weekends.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Mother yes, father no.

7. Did you have a job? Summer '79, groundskeeper for the Aberdeen Little League, $35/week to keep the fields mowed and chalk the baselines, batters boxes, etc. before games. First mowing of the season, I ran over an area where a family of rabbits nested in the infield where the 13-14's played. Unpleasant.

8. Did you date?
No, very shy.

9. Did you go to prom?
No, very shy.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
School "newspaper" and French Club.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Reading, snooker and bowling, following baseball as best I could in MS. (One game a week, NBC on Saturdays, back then.)

13. What were your favorite movies?
Honest to god, I don't remember any movies from my high school years. Star Wars came out the summer before I started HS.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Fuck no. I wouldn't mind having it to do over, either to try to have a better experience, or to go Columbine on my abusers.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I moved back here for my wife's health, and for no other reason.

16. Favorite books:
A lot of SF (Delany, Niven, P.J. Farmer), the Travis McGee books, the 87th Precinct series, some Agatha Christie (though that had played itself out in 6th & 7th grade mostly), the Burroughses (E.R. and W.S.)

mid to late 90s

2. Location/whereabouts?

Oakville (just outside Toronto), Canada

3. What did you listen to?

Not embarassed: Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Jon Spencer, Goldie, Sex Pistols, Blur, Nirvana, Supergrass, B.I.G. (Life After Death was the first rap album I bought since MC Hammer)
Mildly embarassed: Oasis, Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Roni Size
Fuck: Our Lady Peace, The Tea Party, Primus

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

Baggy and luridly coloured rock t-shirts; baseball hats; baggy pants

5. What were your friends like?

Hung out with nearly all musicians, some more dedicated than others. Mostly a studious bunch. I never touched alcohol and barely went to any parties until the last year.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Not in the slightest

7. Did you have a job?

In the summer - internet geek at Mailboxes Etc type retail joint, produce boy at Loblaws, jazz musician in a big band for young people (we actually got paid)

8. Did you date?

One long term g/f, broke up days before I got my university acceptance letter. We're still friends.

9. Did you go to prom?

Me and three friends (one guy, two girls) went as a foursome, but they weren't our dates. My dad insisted on buying me a tux thinking I would need one later as a musician (I did), only he bought a cheap one made entirely of polyester. I slow danced with a girl I had a crush on and was covered in sweat. She never said a word, bless her.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

To an absurd extent, though it was an arts school and I was a music major. Played sax in various jazz bands, had my own combo, sang in the jazz choir, the works. Seven or eight rehearsals a week, before and after school.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Music, English

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Music, movies, books by trendy authors like Douglas Coupland and Irvine Welsh - i was heavily influenced by what I thought was cool in the UK

13. What were your favorite movies?

Reservoir Dogs, Life Of Brian, Clerks, Trainspotting

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Not at first, but I switched schools half way through and fell in with music obsessives like me, which helped. By the end I was sad to go.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

2. Location/whereabouts?
St. Bernard's High School, Uncasville, Connecticut (in the Southeastern part of the state)

3. What did you listen to?
Glam rock, punk rock, bubblegum, Philly soul, some country, the Kinks, the Troggs, the Stooges, the Velvets, Motown, Aerosmith, Kiss, Cher.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Old man clothes from thrift shops. Suede shoes my mother picked up for me at a chuch bazaar. Black jeans from Trash and Vaudeville. A striped sailor t-shirt.

5. What were your friends like?
Fag hags. A couple of friendly, artsy jocks. The Honors English crowd. For the most part, I felt closer to my punk rock pen pals in New York, LA, and Cleveland.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
No. I didn't feel very close to them and I thought they were cramping my style. I ran away a couple of times. I just wanted to live in New York and go out every night. But I lived too far away. Anyway, I love them now.

7. Did you have a job?
Several. I had a paper route, I was a stockboy at Woolworths, I worked the counter at an Ice cream shop, and I was an assistant at my local library in Groton. I lost that job when I ran away. I really wanted to be a lifeguard but I didn't pass the test.

8. Did you date?
No, I would just meet up with older men from time to time. So no dates, really.

9. Did you go to prom?
No. I went to a couple of dances my freshmen year mainly to get stoned in the parking lot, but I got sick of the stoner crowd real fast. I wish I'd had someone more fun to take drugs with.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I wrote record reviews for the school newspaper. I was terrible. I gave Queen's Jazz a bad review! I was really pretty snotty at the time.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English, Psychology, History

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Aside from music and reading and writing to my pen pals, not much really. I liked swimming, but I hated being on the swim team. I liked to ride my bike all over town in the middle of the night. I loved hanging out at the library. I really liked being alone. I guess I liked drugs the first couple of years of high school, the idea of them at least.

13. What were your favorite movies?
The Exorcist, Manhattan, the Man Who Fell to Earth, Deliverance, the Birds, Psycho, Jason and the Argonauts, Rocky Horror, A Taste of Honey, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Blow Up, Jaws. An Unmarried Woman (I wanted to be a middle-class divorcee living in a loft in Manhattan). I think I read about movies more than I actually went to see them. I had to wait till I moved to New York to see most of the movies I was interested in. I remember going to see a Warhol movie at Connecticut College in New London, that was a big thrill.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
No. I hated being stuck in a small town when everything was happening just 2 1/2 hours away in New York. It was torture. Also, being gay didn't help much.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest-
I wish I'd joined the Drama Club. I think I'd have had a much better time in high school. But I was an uptight punk rocker at the time. Still, I wish I was as brave as I was back then.

16. Books-
Oh, I just read anything Bowie and Patti Smith recommended and kind of took it from there. Oscar Wilde, Burroughs, Sci-Fi, Rimbaud, de Sade, anything titillating that I could get away with. And the Illuminatus books, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote.

outer indianapolis

bob dylan and aqua

flower or iu shorts and one versace tie from bahamas

football players

dad ws preoccupied, really i didnt know a person cld not get along w their folks

door to door

some long distance summer camp bullshit

w gwen she wasnt my choice, who took a cpl more years

class president, basketball, french honor type of shit

physics

malls? and molly

the rock, like rope

yes!

portrait of an artist xp, and pale fire and esp some library book abt pale fire

late 80s, early 90s.

2. Location/whereabouts?

north east florida

3. What did you listen to?

hip-hop, r&b, classic rock, dave kendall era 120 minutes (industrial, grunge, brit feyness, punk, indie, etc), death metal, popular techno from the time.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

shorts, brandless tees, and vans.

5. What were your friends like?

freaks and geeks.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

yeah. them taking the permissive approach helped. me playing the quiet loner homebody at times helped too.

7. Did you have a job?

k-6 camp counselor. construction work. church handyman grunt.

8. Did you date?

a little, but not really.

9. Did you go to prom?

no. i could've asked somebody but didn't want to lead them on. plus, it would've been too much trouble.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

hehe... drama club. school creative writing zine. math club.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

math, english/creative writing, computers, electronics, drama...

12. What were your non-academic interests?

music. d&d. skateboarding. driving our cars in places they didn't need to be. video and computer games. pining over unattainable girls.

13. What were your favorite movies?

joe vs. the volcano. raising arizona. princess bride. monty python's holy grail. drugstore cowboy. etc. pink floyd's the wall. star wars and all that. blade runner. slaughterhouse five. full metal jacket. ghostbusters. (our party movie.)

14. Did you enjoy high school??

i had some crappy years and some not so crappy years. i think it wasn't until afterwards at a big state college town that i realized just how lame it sorta was.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

?

16. favorite books... lot's of forgotten realms dungeons and dragons pulp... all six dune books... (friends mocked my herbert love and i mocked their ayn rand infatuation).... one flew over the cuckoo's nest. a variety of poetry. edward albee's stuff. mark twain. vonnegutt. watership down OWNED. a prayer for owen meany. (the only book to ever make me cry.)

m.

Mid 90s

2. Location/whereabouts?

Phoenix, AZ

3. What did you listen to?

I don't really remember, same sort of things I listen to now. Probably a lot more Pulp and Manics then. I used to put on a FSOL album, Dead Cities? whatever, to go to bed and would always forget to program out LOUDY MCLOUD SONG. Oh how my dad wanted to kill melaughed.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

Oh I don't remember this either, I always looked pretty stupid though. Military surplus shirts and my dad's shorts were pretty common, and a lot of fishnets + combat boots + oddly colored socks. All together. In AZ. Not so smart.

5. What were your friends like?

What are teenagers like? This is silly. I didn't have a set group though I guess a lot of drama losers. Plus the football team.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Yes. No. Depends.

7. Did you have a job?

Yes, at Best Buy. After I dropped out I started working at Ticketmaster. I also did freelance writing and I did design and editing for a college newspaper (I was not in attendance at this college at the time, don't ask).

8. Did you date?

Yeah. One of 'em ate my fucking lipstick. Gross.

9. Did you go to prom?

Nah I was dropped out before prom season sophmore year, and freshmen didn't go to the high school, so I missed out.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Drama club.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

History and occasionally English except I kind of hated most of my English teachers except one dude the first semester of my sophomore year who was awesome. I think when they suddenly switched me out of his class that cemented my decision to never return, actually. The sad thing though is that I don't remember duder's name at all.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Uh mainly smoking and coffee. Graphic design and music and film also, I guess.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Children of Paradise, Goodfellas, Bill & Ted. These haven't actually changed.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

I dropped out after 1st semester sophomore year; you figure it out.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

I don't have any? I had bright red hair back then, and we referred to my friend's car as "the magic carpet." We also referred to him as Aladdin. It was a racial slur that he started himself for some weird ass reason.

16. Favorite books

I read and reread The Scarlet Letter and Fathers & Sons, and nothing else. Except Select and Might magazines.

Damn, I read Fathers & Sons back then, but I can't remember it for the life of me.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Woking, UK

3. What did you listen to?
LL Cool J, Hi Five, Jodeci, Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown, R Kelly, Salt 'n' Pepa, Mum's record collection (mostly Beatles, Baez, Atlantic and Motown).

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
White t-shirt, blue 501s, chunky black shoes, black silky bomber jacket, gold chain, hair scraped back in a bun with a red and blue bandana wrapped around it.

5. What were your friends like?
The boys thought they were gangstas and wore JPG, Versace and Basi. The girls were fun!

6. Did you get along with the parents?
We fought a lot but I thought that was normal.

7. Did you have a job?
Checkout girl in Sainsbury's at £2.47 per hour.

8. Did you date?
No, I had crushes.

9. Did you go to prom?
We had a sixth form ball. I wore a black dress with a big slit up one thigh and no bra (!) and a wine coloured satin tie-front blouse over the top, which came off after I'd been dancing a while. Some people snuck bottles of Stones Ginger Ale in.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
We had to do a Wednesday Afternoon Activity - mine was going to the gym at the leisure centre/bunking off in the park.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
French and Italian.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Reading, dancing at Harpers or Bojanglez in Guildford, having crushes, watching telly.

13. What were your favorite movies?
Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, Grease, Some Like it Hot.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Sixth Form College. On the whole, no.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
We played blackjack in the canteen an awful lot.

mid 90s to early 00s

2. Location/whereabouts?

Dublin city.

3. What did you listen to?
more indie than I do now, and less dance, but indie and dance, and alot more hiphop than I do now, also country.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

cords, shirts, sometimes t-shirts, my fashion sense was a bit mixed up, like my music taste etc.

5. What were your friends like?

intelligent wasters, in school at least. around where I live less culturally intelligent but still smart and maybe not wasters so much.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

sort of, in early teens there were alot of arguments about what time I could stay out till, and drinking etc, but in late teens it was fine, as promised by my brother "it seems bad now but once you're 16 mum and dad will let you do pretty much whatever you want".

so yeah they were really strict before then which fucked up a few friendships at tricky ages like 13, 14, but these were all mended by the time I was 15 or so, and then things were fine, I used to be bemused in college when friends would have to ring parents to say they would be staying out for the night or something.

7. Did you have a job?

only in the summer, first one when I was 16 I think.

8. Did you date?
no, casual snogging sometimes, I was no big hit with the ladies and probably agonised about it but I wasn't a disaster either, it could have been worse.

9. Did you go to prom?

yeah the equivalent of prom, happens in the winter after graduation here, so I was 18 and brought a girl from my college class, it was good fun.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

yeah alot actually, I did alot of acting in school, which I really liked, and got some good parts and stuff. I also did debating, but found it a bit nerdy sometimes, the participants more than the thing itself, it was a bit humourless and a bit of a clique of friends as regards team selection. I also was involved in the Saint Vincent De Paul society, a charity with a branch in the school, I helped teach kids from the flats in the school area.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English and Irish.
12. What were your non-academic interests?
football at 12/13/14, after that music music music.

13. What were your favorite movies?
trainspotting when I was too young to have seen it, not sure after that.
14. Did you enjoy high school??
I hated being told what to do and having to wear a uniform and get up in the morning, and just authority generally, in short everything to do with the school itself and having to be there was shit and I was delighted to be gone, the good parts were that obviously I met some good people there (not really to do with school!)

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I had indie hair.

2. Location/whereabouts?
The suburbs of Wolverhampton

3. What did you listen to?
West midlands fraggle (Neds etc) grunge, moving into Brit Pop, moving into Trip Hop and jazzy drum n bass. Oh, and for a period I Was A Teenage Manics Fan- with all that entails.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Spot the paralells with the music: Band t-shirts and hippy skirts with bells on moving into floral dresses with big boots moving into Bjork hair, slip dresses and Adidas Gazelles, moving into Vans trainers, combat skirts and retro t-shirts. I've always had a weakness for vintage dresses and still do - they're probably the only constant.

5. What were your friends like?
By sixth form I was pretty much the clever one out of the hipster girls (though I'd never have used that word then.) Some nice girls, felt a bit like being in Heathers at times, going to university did wonders for my confidence.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Pretty much, although my household consisted of just my mum and me, so there were flashpoints. The worst being when I refused to open my curtains for months because my mum had installed double glazing which violaated my delicate aesthetic senses. (I'm ashamed now)

7. Did you have a job?
Waitress, waitress, clothes shop assistant in a concession of Oasis in a big old-fashioned department store.

8. Did you date?
Not until I was about 16/17. Have found out I could have subsequently, that is unless boys who used to go to my school are particularly prone to lying when drunk and nostalgic at Christmas.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yeah, the English thing again. We had a leaving school dance, but it was in no way a prom. I went.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I used to do the occasional school play. I helped set up our sixth form magazine.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English, drama (or expressive arts as we had to call it).

12. What were your non-academic interests?
I used to do loads and loads of drama-based stuff. I was a member of a local youth theatre for nine years inc. all of my teens.

13. What were your favorite movies?
Oh crikey ... I went through a phase of staying up really late to watch US indie films on Chanel Four, so Gas, Food, Lodging; Simple Men and Slacker.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
It feels better being forced to think of the better times writing this, but I've carried around a whole load of resentment for ages, plus I was pretty depressed for long periods (see Manics fandom).

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I got away with blue murder because my marks were good and I never broke the rules in a flamboyant fashion.

oh snap. i hid this from my initial post.

i left school in 1985, aged 17.

2. Location/whereabouts?

edinburgh, scotland.

3. What did you listen to?

blondie, hawkwind, gong, joy division, sisters of mercy, nick cave, foetus, jesus and mary chain, pink floyd....

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

i had to wear school uniform which i managed to abuse as much as was possible until i was told not to come back until i lost the brothel creepers and cut my hair, which i did.

5. What were your friends like?

intelligent wasters who sadly mostly got expelled.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

pretty much. they were incredibly naive so i got away with murder. i convinced them for a couple of yeras to buy me two litres of super strength cider every week which they thought was plain old apple juice. they were pretty great all in all.

7. Did you have a job?

i worked in the ladies underwear dept. of british home stores on thursday evenings and saturday afternoons. the upshot of which is that i can usually still get a woman's bra size right with a very quick glance. a really handy skill to have!

8. Did you date?

fumbled at parties a lot and started seeing girls in my last year.

9. Did you go to prom?

we had a school dance which involved tortuous scottish country dancing. we weren't allowed to bring a date for some unfathomable reason.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

lots and lots of after school detentions. i also (when i wasn't on detention) helped at the school radio station and was a member of the film society.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

english and economics.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

playing the guitar really, really badly, music, trying to get into pubs underage, girls and various fringe leftist organisations.

13. What were your favorite movies?

brazil, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, birdy, kiss of the spiderwoman, i spit on your grave (purely as it was thee shock film of the era - it's awful)

14. Did you enjoy high school??

i loved it because of my friends. my abiding memories are all of great amounts of laughter and much mischief making. academically i was very lazy but i adored english and would love to go back and thank my english teacher for being one of thee most inspiring people in my life. he would no doubt ask if my grammar had improved and i would have to confess that it is worse than ever.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

like anna i got away with blue murder 1) because i always managed to get good marks and 2) because my older sister had been a much loved model pupil. but i was very glad to leave as by that point i had got quite politically active and couldn't really reconcile being at a private school with my belief system. to this day i can't ever imagine sending my kids (if i have them) to a fee paying school. i think i really, really pissed of my dad who had to scrimp and save to send us there by saying when i left 'well that was a big waste of money wasn't it?'

16. books

lots of george orwell, philip k dick, jg ballard and anthony burgess.

class of '95

2. Location/whereabouts?

kalamazoo, michigan (hackett catholic central high school)

3. What did you listen to?

nirvana, NIN, tori amos, REM, plus a mix of what was on 'alternative' and top-40 radio.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

levis 517 jeans in varying degrees of falling apart or mini skirt (when not in school, dress code forbade short skirts or t-shirts 'with writing on'), band t shirts, tank tops, all stars, doc martens. flannel ('lumberjack' in the UK) shirts for a year or two.

5. What were your friends like?

almost all my friends were from my summer camp, luckily a few went to my school as well. they were 'alternative', especially compared to the snotty rich kids that made up a lot of my school. they all drank and did loads of drugs, even though i did neither.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

not really. not for any particular reason, they're ok parents and i was a pretty good kid, all things considered. we just annoyed each other

7. Did you have a job?

several. i worked in my parents bike shop in summers, and was on the 'J Board', which was a group of high school kids that are picked from the big department store to do fashion shows and promotional stuff. i also ended up working in that store for a while.

8. Did you date?

yep, almost exclusively people from camp.

9. Did you go to prom?

yeah, i went to my own junior and senior proms, and went to the public school's senior prom when i was a sophomore. i also went to all the winter formals and homecomings from sophomore year on.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

played alto sax in band-- marching band, concert band, jazz band and solo&ensemble. did some drama stuff. did loads of art classes and taught little kids art at weekends. french club. national honor society for a while.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

english and religion (3 out of 4 teachers were amazing, even though i was the loudmouthed 'i don't think i want to be a catholic anymore' kid)

12. What were your non-academic interests?

overlapped with question 10, but also spent a lot of time at denny's and meijer just hanging out, 'cruising' the strip between meijer and putt putt in my friend's souped up mustang, going to school dances, all that kind of stuff.

13. What were your favorite movies?

heathers, interview with the vampire, pulp fiction, the crow

14. Did you enjoy high school??

not especially. i was relieved to leave and loved college, but i suppose it could have been worse.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

one camp friend joined our school my junior year. we already hung out, and because she had big breasts and was a bit thick, she was taken in by the popular crowd. i was invited to parties and things by association, but i still thought almost all of them were complete dicks, and would take my weird arty drama friends any day.

92-97

2. Location/whereabouts?

suburb of Ottawa

3. What did you listen to?

started out with a (not very well informed) mix of classic FM hard rock/prog, jazz, Chicago blues, REM, and Soundgarden; augmented with college radio, Sex Pistols, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Pumpkins, Fugazi and local post-hc, John Cage, Zappa, Branca, blah blah blah... (see various ILM threads for more details)

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

haha in early days button-down cotton shirts, jeans, running shoes. From 15 or so onwards, long hair, flannel, ripped jeans, lot of black T-shirts. Last year, shaved head and poorly tended beard.

5. What were your friends like?

Dudes from Gifted programme mostly. Almost all of them liked computers and Star Trek more than I did. We played cards at lunch a lot. There was also sort of an indie crowd later on.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Hell no.

7. Did you have a job?

Not till the last year, when I worked at a local library.

8. Did you date?

No

9. Did you go to prom?

No

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Played clarinet in the band for a couple years. Was involved at various points in the environment, anti-racist, and social justice groups. Tae Kwon Do club in last year.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Creative writing, music, sociology, history, world issues. I was really good at math but I didn't really like it.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Playing in bands, learning classical guitar, anarchist theory, activism, Monty Python, anime, reading (way more than now), writing, trying to program in BASIC, old computer games.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Slacker, Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Not really.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

This seems to make my high school years actually look more interesting than they were.

16. Favorite books.

Grapes of Wrath was my #1 I think. Also Manufacturing Consent, Orwell, e.e. cummings, Hamlet, Fahrenheit 451, lots of Ursula le Guin in last year.

i think the kids that enjoyed high school where i come from are now either housewives or insurance salesmen, and don't know about 'the internet'. but that's probably not a universal explanation.

We’re talking mid - late 80s (age 12-17).

2. Location/whereabouts?

High School was a huge, black and grey - with just a tinge of concrete beige to finish it off - monolith in England’s celebrated, fashionable West Midlands.

3. What did you listen to?

For the most part I was more into films, computer (“Speccy”) games, and other stuff, so mostly I listened to whatever was on the (daytime) radio / in the charts / featured on Now! That’s What I Call Music cassettes. Gradually, however, an interest in music slowly developed. Early faves were Madonna and Fleetwood Mac. Queen’s A Kind of Magic was the first album I ever bought (thanks to my elder brothers I grew up with Queen, and, at the time, I liked that daft film Highlander, therefore… ) and my first single was the seven inch single of True Faith which I bought from a Woolworth’s in Wales ‘cos I loved the vid and the single’s cover art-work (the song too, but I wasn’t normally in the habit of buying music - not when you could tape it off the radio for free!). Obviously, owning one single meant that I was now a paid-up fan, so I investigated New Order and this so-called “indie” type music. Then the floodgates opened and in a big rush came The Housemartins, The Smiths, The Wedding Present, J&MC and so on. Later still I caught onto the acid house/dance music thing and went to none indie (goth dominated) nightclubs. Thank fuck.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

Believe it or believe it don’t but I wasn’t always the debonair style icon you see before you. I mean, school meant a uniform of grey v-neck jumper, white shirt, black & red tie and black trousers. Out of school I got it into my head that jeans were just not on. Not on me, anyway. Didn’t like them for some mad, deluded teenage reason. Thought they were a bit, I dunno, “obvious”. No, thanks to the influence of gloomy, rainy-town English indie music, yer Housmartins, yer Smiths and what-not, far better to wear “granddad-chic” flappy, baggy, great browny-grey trousers set off with a voluminous cardigan. What a fucking absurdity for a teenager to swan about in clobber seemingly plucked from a Help-the-Aged second-hand-clothes bag. Oh well.

5. What were your friends like?

Funny. And also a bit ‘funny’. Nascent computer geeks most of ‘em. Not intelligent enough for the brainy swot set, not athletic enough for the sport billies, too smart for the feckless loser gang. Invisible.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Well my dad died when I started High School which put me into a bit of a tail-spin, but fine I suppose.

7. Did you have a job?

Saturday job in a butcher's shop. I swept the bones and bits off the floor and washed the blood off the walls for £1 an hour for five hours each weekend. I would go home and mum would put down a plate of steak and chips down in front of me. When I cut into the steak and when blood rushed out I would feel as if I was about to puke my ribcage up. The job put me off eating red red meant for years, much to the bewilderment of my family as steak was a BIG BIG treat.

8. Did you date?

Now and then though mostly love was of a sweetly painful unrequited nature. I did much better in Middle School actually, I had quite a few girlfriends. I was, perhaps, too too awkward and self-conscious come the late teens of High School. Well, whatever it was I had in Middle School I had increasingly less of afterwards. Now included.

9. Did you go to prom?

They have “prom nights” in British High Schools now! A friend’s younger brother went to his recently. Bloody dressed up in a tux like a ninny - what’s that about? All the girls in ball-gowns, and limos and I don’t know what. We never had anything like it at all. It occurs to me that all the school discos I went to were in Middle School - which might go towards explaining a few things.
The concept of prom night - which I got from American movies - seemed deeply weird to me; all that dressing up posh, the rigmarole, the expense and the need to have a “date” to go with. If you already have a date, why would you want to go? It negates the whole reason for school discos, which is to addle your mind with Top Deck shandy before braving the dance-floor in the hope that you would end up groping and snogging that girl you were eyeing up on the netball court while you were gazing out the window during double geography. It’s about GETTING OFF with someone, not turning up arm in arm dressed like a pair of wedding cake decorations, Jesus Christ.
Still, wish we’d had prom night or similar, kids are so bloody spoiled these days. (Argh! “These days”!)

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Our introductory assembly at High School the Deputy Head or whoever said we all had to join at least one of the school’s clubs. Naturally my blood ran quite cold upon hearing that. Luckily though she was lying and I got by without any of that awful “joining in” nonsense.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Art & Design by far. So, so much fun, so much laughter. Last thing on Thursdays, “teacher” either absent for 89% of the “lesson” and actually asleep for another 10%. What a doss! Otherwise, English, History and Classical Studies. I secretly enjoyed Games if it was 5-aside footy or cross-country, and I was strangely adept at the high jump and javelin, but that’s about it.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Uh, not much. Watching telly. Going to the cinema. Riding my bike as fast as humanly possible around the streets, nicking film posters from the bins round the back of the video shop (I remember once cycling home carrying an unwieldy four-foot “standee” of Indiana Jones. Quite some booty that). Playing Speccy games, going round my mates (to play Speccy games), reading magazines (mostly Speccy games related). (HAHAHA! Oh, lost youth!).

13. What were your favorite movies?

I had mild obsessions with Blade Runner, Brazil and Alien. Clearly gloomy, grimy, (overly) stylised SF represented the peak of cinematic artistry. (What am I saying? It still does!). I think it may have been a reaction to the glossy, simple-minded enjoyment that Star Wars represented and the vice-like grip it had on me - and everyone else - as a youngster (“youngling”, arf). Later I loved Blue Velvet and Robocop (which - hey! - wasn’t just a shoot-em-up action film you know!) which was the first “18” certificate I saw at the cinema (before I was actually 18, of course).

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Distance has put a rosy glow on it - I remember having fun with my friends at dinner break and some good lessons but, really, I was quite bored for a lot of the time. I didn’t hate it though.

15. What were your favourite books?

I liked those stupid Fighting Fantasy books when I was young, I may have outgrown them by High School though. Same goes for trashy, gory horror books by Shaun Hutson, Guy N.Smith and the like, full of painstakingly detailed descriptions of eviscerations, skull explosions, dismemberings etc with added tawdry, brutal sex scenes. What 11 year old could ask for more? My friends handed round the usual Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and were also keen on the Sherlock Holmes stories. Gradually I became a fan of Orwell, Phillip K. Dick, John Irving and, for some reason, Henry Miller. Mostly Speccy games mags though, yay.

we just sat around and had the time of our lives. i think about that now and then, when i cant enjoy a party unless im wasted, or when i cant imagine just calling someone up to go sit at their house and watch tv with them, and it makes me really, really sad. the way so little brought so much joy. is it even possible to find that today?

I did. And am now a web/computer programmer (to be devil's advocate to Colette.)

In retrospect (and really at the time), absolutely. The spectre of recent tragedy did hang over my head for most of it but probably not quite in the way that I remember it (and anyway it was mostly at Big Events, like when I graduated, that I got really maudlin).

Tom, my co-workers and I are starting a band! You should come up and do some trombone solos for us.

1985-1990

2. Location/whereabouts?
Pueblo Colorado / SF Bay Area (after 1987)

3. What did you listen to?

joy division and the cure

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

black t-shirt and jeans and a TRENCHCOAT

5. What were your friends like?

Dorks

6. Did you get along with the parents?

I didn't fight with them but I didn't talk to them very much after 1987

7. Did you have a job?

No, I couldn't get one every time I applied. But I also refused to go work in fast food.

8. Did you date?

No, I spent all the time pining for girls I couldn't have and used that as an excuse.

9. Did you go to prom?

I went to the winter formal twice because girls asked me to go. But not the proper prom. I got drunk on wine coolers and played scrabble with dorks instead.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

God no

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

English and that was all.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Books and porn.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Brazil, Clockwork Orange, Heathers

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Not a bit

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

I read a lot and also wrote a 500 page science fiction parody which I recently tried to re-read and discovered it was NOT FUNNY AT ALL. I think there were a fair number of girls who liked me but they freaked me out or didn't meet my insane lofty standards of beauty so I passed up a lot of sexing opportunities like an idiot. I had a bleeding ulcer for most of my teen years which resulted in me being so weak and sick my final year of high school I barely attended and spent most of my time wretching and doubled over in pain. I went into surgery the day after graduation. My personality shifted radically after that.

90's and early 00's 1996-2001 (i failed my first year of HS due to severe emotional stress/depression problems)

2. Location/whereabouts?

Greenville, SC

3. What did you listen to?

Mostly angsty "alternative"/hard rock/industrial rock, old school punk, and metal:

Nirvana, NIN, Tool, Pumpkins, Metallica, Ministry, KMFDM, Atari Teenage Riot, Minor Threat, Misfits, Black Flag, Rage Against the Machine, Deftones, Ramones, Pistols, Clash, Dead Kennedys, Pantera, Slayer, stuff like that.

i had a few other token non "rawk" things like Radiohead and Beck that in listened to. i gradually (due to my love for industrial stuff) started getting into electronic music: Aphex Twin, Orbital, Underworld, Prodigy for a little while, Kid 606, Autechre, Plaid, etc.

then in addition to all this, in my last two years of HS i started devouring typical indie canon stuff: my bloody valentine, pixies, sonic youth, pavement,etc.

also, i at that time i started listening to death/black metal and grindcore.

Emperor, Mayhem, Deicide, Nile, Morbid Angel, Meshuggah, Napalm Death.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

my first year i wore an ancient adidas jacket, jeans, skate shoes,
and wore lots of shirts with aliens on them. i was too afraid to wear band t-shirts for fear of my taste being mocked, (i was incredibly insecure and paranoid). later, after i had dropped out to be homeschooled (my decision, mainly for emotional problems that were interfering with my life), i came back for my last two years of high school. i wore all my band shirts, a misfits shoelace necklace holding my ID tag, big skechers boots, kakhi pants.

5. What were your friends like?

i dint have many friends. i hung out with my brother and his best friend, and my best friend sean. we argued a lot, joked around (i was usually the butt of the jokes), and made movies.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

what teenager does?

7. Did you have a job?

yes, several.

8. Did you date?

no, sadly. i had too many emotional problems for me to have the confidence to date or try to.

9. Did you go to prom?

fuck no

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

nope

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

film/video production. during my home scooling period i started taking a film class for three years at the fine arts center, a school students could go to take arts classes for part of the day as an elective. they had classes for music, painting, photography, sculpture, dance, writing, etc. it was/is a great place, and it helped introduce me to a lot of people and things that were supportive to me creatively and emotionally. i had a cool teacher, eric rogers, who knew his film stuff well (he does a lot of local film/production stuff and recently made a feature). it was a supportive environment for a rock/film geek like me. i made some cool video projects and got to play with editing software, too.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

movies, reading, music, video-games, masturbating, eating, sleeping, being a dumbass.

13. What were your favorite movies?

alien/aliens, this is spinal tap, blade runner, videodrome, a lot of the same movies i adore now.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

not at all. i enjoyed my film-class. when i was homeschooled, i didnt enjoy it, but for a while it was slightly better than regular HS.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

after my first year of HS my emotional problems (looooooong story, suffice it to say those days are thankfully over) basically required that i had to drop out and become homeschooled for the next year and a half. during which i gained a lot of weight. it didnt work out very well, but it helped emotionally to take a break from what was happening to me.

i started taking film class during that time, and then the next year started going back to HS, and graduated the year after that. i think taking the film class for the last three years of HS helped me a lot.

I'll start it off with these four.

3. What did mark listen to?

Like most wee'uns, mark listened to Gong, Genesis, and Slapp Happy, but then, inspired by alumnus John Peel, he became a doctrinaire punk, into Patti Smith, Siouxsie Sioux, Johnny Pistol, and the like; this lasted until his first girlfriend told him that he looked like Bob Dylan, at which point he realized he'd rather look like Scarlet Rivera, the gypsy chick who played violin solos on Desire. Since then, he has been afraid of nothing.

5. What were mark's friends like?

Nimble-footed, all terrain bipeds. This adaptibility was necessary among mark's friends, since he never observed (in either senses of the term) the niceties of the school's social geography, so as he sashayed through each day, inadvertently transforming plains into mountain ranges, peaks into rivers, horizons into jungle jims, not just for himself but for anyone within range, only those with a sure and flexible gait could keep up.

8. Did mark date?

See answer to question 3; mark was absent on the day they explained the difference between the sexes; this turned out to be an advantage more than a drawback, enabling him unwittingly to collapse the distinction between dating and nondating.

12. What were mark's non-academic interests?

At age 14 he began drafting Meditations upon Music and Its Interplay with Technology, on which he continued to work throughout his teen years.

Class of 98

2. Location/whereabouts?

Maryville High School in Maryville (close to Knoxville) Tennessee

3. What did you listen to?

age 14-15: Christian rock and rap (...) Beatles
15: discover punk and listen to it (older stuff like Gang of four, Damned, Wire, newer pop punk like Lookout! and Mint Records exclusively until...
16: Trainspotting comes out and discover Underworld
17: discover indie and listen to Sebadoh and Pavement at all times

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

I dressed like a complete mid-90s loser. Combat boots, band shirts (I had an Oasis shirt. Ok, I HAVE an Oasis shirt. Perhaps more embarassingly a Weezer shirt?), falling-apart jeans, crap sweateshop-made clothes. Around age 16, wife-beaters and black jeans. Toboggans. Other kids called me Billy Corgan (round head, apparently bald, weird nose), so I put my hair into tiny braids. Then they called me "Offspring." I somehow found this more appealing (?!)

5. What were your friends like?

Just kind of the catch-all between popular, achiever and stoner, i.e. the kids that weren't any of those. Some punk kids, lots of band nerds, semi-intellectual beatnik types, regular nerds.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

It was just my Mom, and sadly, during these years we didn't get along well (my fault).

7. Did you have a job?

Why, yes I did. My first job was opening mail at (no joke) the Impotence World Headquarters. There was a big confidentiality code enforced, but OMG, did we get some hilarious mail that I stole (some of which I still have and robble at). Then I worked at a friend's mom's printing shop with another friend, which was unbelievably fun. We would just blast music, eat taco bell, make giant copies of our entire bodies and GET PAID FOR IT. My senior year I started working at McKay's in Knox which was this used book/cd store. That was pretty formative.

8. Did you date?

Not per se. My sophomore year I dated this guy briefly that I wasn't that into. Embarassingly, he was the singer of Christian rap-metal band. He eventually married my 1st best friend! We are still in touch (the BFF and I). My senior year I dated a guy that I would date for 2 years, move in with, and eventually break up with. Horrible relationship. I nursed an immense crush from about 7th-12th grade -- this guy is eventually what broke up the above 2-yr relationship :x

9. Did you go to prom?

Yes, Junior year with a friend, wore a silver dress and waited to dance with crush. Senior year with gay BFF from another school who pwn3d the prom. People were literally in a circle around him, clapping while he danced.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

I did lots of singing. I was in the Maryville Singers -- it was a class, for credit, audition-only choir thing. We travelled to competitions and went on lots of fun trips and things. some of my best high school experiences have to do with Singers. Also Art Club, briefly, and I think I was in French Club for a while, and the Outdoor Activity Club, which was largely a farce. Dance Team! I enarly forgot it, basically like a pom-pom squad, we we like thinking cheerleaders. Essentially we wore next to nothing and danced to hip hop at basketball games.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

Singers, French and English.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Music. Later high school: playing bass guitar, going to see punk shows, writing a couple of (horrible) fanzines.

13. What were your favorite movies?

I adored Trainspotting and it changed everything, A Hard Day's Night, The Rutles. I liked Kevin Smith (this has DEFINITELY CHANGED.)

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Um? Parts. I liked friends, I liked goofing around. I went to a very cliquey school, and the social hierarchy thing was daunting to say the least, but it seemed like around the end of Sophomore year there was a collective shrug and everyone stopped caring completely. It was ok after that.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

none

16. Favorite books.

Henry David Thoreau, Robert Heinlein, the Bible (Old Testament), anything about the Beatles (hasn't changed), sadly didn't do a ton of reading in High School apart from music magazines. :(

OMG. I played tenor sax, I quit after freshaman year and I'm pretty!

2. Location/whereabouts?
Houston, TX

3. What did you listen to?
The Cure. The Smiths. The Pixies. Sonic Youth. Tribe Called Quest. Guns and Roses. Elton John. Herb Alpert.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
I never quite mastered dressing myself while I was in high school. I was a tad too experimental, IIRC. But jeans and t-shirts were the staple -- especially jeans and t-shirts that I would get sent home for wearing.

5. What were your friends like?
Band dorks and art fags.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Oh no. Not my mother, anyway.

7. Did you have a job?
I worked at a supermarket for one week. And worked as an intern at a newspaper for a month.

8. Did you date?
Yes.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yes.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I guess. I was high school newspaper boy. That was my favorite thing. I was going to be a famous reporter.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Hm. I always say that I hated math, but that's not really true. I was great at it. My favorite class was English, though, all four years.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
There was a video store across the street from my house, and I'd rent a movie every afternoon that I had the money to. Lots of old stuff. I got an early education in Hitchcock.

13. What were your favorite movies?
Rear Window comes to mind, and His Girl Friday. And Pulp Fiction -- that one was huge for me.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Gah. Not really. Not the worst times I've had, though. I wasn't particularly well-liked, and was a bit of a geeky loner, but I had friends.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I'd never do it again.

So, were you and your friend deliberately copying the most popular episode of "My So-Called Life"?

2. masonickate plz post prom pics thx!

A savory mid-teens martini of punk rock and atheism.

(I was kind of hoping the answer was "Stryper".)

I'm convinced that this is a volume thing. Smug, arrogance among orchestra members is proportional to how loud they can play their instrument. It probably goes back to the times when they were goofing around in the music room in 7th Grade. The trumpet players could walk around deafening people, and because of this power, they turned into shmucks. The shy flute players couldn't fight back musically, they had to sit around and take the abuse.

(I played bassoon)

Ally is right, you know.

In what, Madchen?

Wait, do white people's parents want them to play music?

-- Allyzay knows a little German (allyza...), July 19th, 2005.

SHOCKAH!

1980s, pretty much. Don't know exactly what period 'high school' covers, but from 1984-1991 I was at the same school.

2. Location/whereabouts?

South-east London

3. What did you listen to?

Madness/chart pop/old records of my mum's, then Peter Gabriel and 80s AOR for a short period when I was 13/14, then the Smiths mainly, plus the more NMEish, less gothy/4ADish end of indie, with some hip-hop and bleep/techno by the time I was heading into 6th form.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

I dunno. Nothing too outlandish. Didn't like logos on my clothes. Fairly safe and tasteful I guess, not v.80s.

5. What were your friends like?

Early on, kids who shared my interest in the ZX Spectrum and weren't too laddy. Later on, a mix. I was sort of an awkward aloof figure on the fringes of the arty, bookish but not nerdy crowd, the OK cool people I guess. I never felt I had close enough friends.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

Yeah, pretty much. I never really rebelled, though I screamed and screamed about not being allowed to stay up to watch Psycho when I was about 13.

7. Did you have a job?

In my lower sixth I had a Saturday job working in the local library.

8. Did you date?

No.

9. Did you go to prom?

We didn't have those.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Only drama. I was in most of the school plays.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

English, though always leaving the essays to the last minute made me quite unhappy. I was interested in my A-level Religious Studies too, though it wasn't taught well and I hated my classmates. Other subjects I liked when I liked the teacher.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Well acting, yes. And pop music. And fixations on girls. Oh, for a good few years I was really struggling with my belief in God, I tend to forget that, if that counts as an intrest.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Billy Liar was my favourite, I think. We'd read the book with my favourite English teacher when I was about 13 or 14 and then I saw the film and it all chimed in with the outlook that a Smiths obsession engendered/accompanied. Did I see The Hairdresser's Husband when I was at school or a bit later? I liked that a lot anyway. I don't remember what I liked really early on - I suppose I still liked Star Wars and James Bond films, which had been my favourites at primary school. Oh, I liked Heathers a lot when it came out (I was 17, I think).

14. Did you enjoy high school??

I enjoyed actually being at school quite a lot, but I didn't enjoy the evenings, weekends and holidays because I was awfully lonely.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

I know it makes no sense as a wish, but I wish I could go back and do it again with more self-confidence. I'd do it all so much better.

2. Location/whereabouts?: A small town in rural Ontario. We had many orchards.

3. What did you listen to? At the beginning of high school: Whatever was on the radio. By the end of high school: The Clash, The Cure, PWEI, The Ramones, Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Public Enemy, Talking Heads and a bunch of other stuff.

4. What were your favorite things to wear? Ralph Lauren rugby shirts, Izod golf shirts, Chip & Pepper long-sleeves, pegged jeans and Chuck Taylors.

5. What were your friends like? Mostly self-absorbed rich kids and jocks who delighted in tormenting the less forunate in our high school. I secretly wanted to hang out with the punk rock and goth kids but never had the guts to defect.

6. Did you get along with the parents? After they accepted the fact that I was going to drink almost every single weekend, yes.

7. Did you have a job? I managed a concession stand on a beach during the summer months. During the rest of the year, I fenced stolen goods from my locker.

8. Did you date? Yes. Two long-term girlfriends.
9. Did you go to prom? I went to both our junior and senior proms, though I was eventually dumped by my girlfriend at the latter.
10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that? I played on the soccer and volleyball teams. I was a member of student government. I edited the school newspaper for my final two years of high school. I chaired the school's Winter Carnival (and embezzled some of the budget through some creative accounting practices).

11. What were your favorite school subjects? English. Music.

12. What were your non-academic interests? Golf. Skiing. Karate. Music. Books. Girls. Ventriloquism. Coin tricks. Bar-tending.

13. What were your favorite movies? Old kung fu movies. Most of the John Hughes oeuvre. Monty Python.

14. Did you enjoy high school?? Yep.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest-- When I arrived at university, I lost touch with most of my high school friends and immersed myself in the local music scene.

16. Books? Pretty typical stuff for 16- and 17-year-old. Salinger. The Beats. Burgess.

2. Location/whereabouts?
cranford, nj

3. What did you listen to?
oh god...freshman year i was very indie-schmindie, GBV/sebadoh/pavement/belle and sebastian/yo la tengo/most any other canonical indie band you can think of...started to get more "punk" in sophomore year, explored some jazz in junior year, started enjoying noise bands beginning of senior year, and ended high school loving top 40 pop again.

4. What were your favorite things to wear? uh..freshman year i kinda dressed in whatever, usually really unbecoming plaid shirts and khakis, and then i'd evolved into thrift-store chic/ironic tees sometime around junior year, and then bought a lot of H&M clothing and crazy art-deco disco shirts off ebay senior year

5. What were your friends like?
i kind of belonged to a few different social circles and when i tried to corral all of them together to hang out it usually was disastrous for one reason or another. i'm still more or less in contact with most of them and

6. Did you get along with the parents?
pretty much, we've never had any sort of fallout over anything and when i was asked to do something it was usually fairly reasonable

7. Did you have a job?
i worked at a pizzeria for almost two years

8. Did you date?
i had a boyfriend for like two weeks in junior year. he lived about half an hour from me and i didn't drive (and still don't)

9. Did you go to prom?
yup, with my friend vicky

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
national honor society, french honor society, scholar's circle, forensics on and off, marching/concert band, gay/straight alliance (which i helped start at my school)

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
anything that wasn't math or science (though my AP biology class had six people in it which was cool and surprisingly i actually remember some stuff from it)

12. What were your non-academic interests?
listening to/playing/buying music, mostly...i was in a 13-piece funk band (i played the clarinet) and our "vocalist" was my friend eric who dressed as a pirate and recited children's storybooks and allan ginsberg in a gruff pirate-y voice over whatever we were playing, which was usually fully arranged versions of songs from assorted sega genesis games (ie the chemical plant zone song from sonic the hedgehog, which we managed to turn into this pretty impressive disco stomper), a couple of herbie hancock songs, and one time we played the theme from ghostbusters. and "the girl from ipanema." needless to say some of my fondest memories of high school involve my time spent with this band.

and reading as well, i guess, but to a lesser extent. the band took up a lot of my time

13. What were your favorite movies?
i didn't really start getting into film/movies until freshman year of college so i honestly don't think i have an answer for this

14. Did you enjoy high school??
freshman year - fuck no
sophomore year - pretty cool
junior year - eh
senior year - started off terribly because of FRIEND DUH-RAMA, had the time of my life by the end of the year

15. Additional comments/ points of interest-- college >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> HS, f'reals

16. Books?
anything by gabriel garcia marquez, joseph conrad, james baldwin, tom robbins

i'm still in contact with most of them and the ones i'm especially close to i think are still tops.

2. Location/whereabouts?
suburban upstate new york

3. What did you listen to?
"alternative", some bad punk. funny because i was not punk at all. i also liked ben folds five at some point.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
i have always had boring taste in clothes. i didn't care about clothes at all, as long as it was somewhat clean. very nondescript, comfortable, didn't stand out, small wardrobe.

5. What were your friends like?
variety. i didn't really like nerdy, shy types because i was in denial. i also didn't like people very much and couldn't relate to them very well so mostly people i could joke around with. i didn't have close friends until junior-senior year, when i started becoming more of a human being.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
on occasion; it's better now that we're apart.

7. Did you have a job?
worked at my grandmother's ice cream store, dog sitting, baby sitting.

8. Did you date?
no.

9. Did you go to prom?
fuck no.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
honor society, crew team

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
spanish, latin, calculus, physics

12. What were your non-academic interests?
i was pretty boring. i liked cooking, some reading, skiing, i can't remember.

13. What were your favorite movies?
tommy boy, ferris bueller, the godfather

14. Did you enjoy high school??
no, not at all. people were so...high school. i guess now it's not any different but you can get away from them now.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
i'm a much, much different person now!

We had a few of those, sure, but mostly we were all geeks. But if you stay in band long enough it becomes a very insular community and you don't really care what the rest of the school thinks of you.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

3. What did you listen to?
Depeche Mode, The Smiths, New Order, The Cure, Swans, Birthday Party, Sonic Youth, Rush (though that was really more in Jr. High), Yes (also more Jr. High), The Smithereens, My Dog Popper, Butthole Surfers, Voice of the Beehive, VoiVod, lots of others

4. What were your favourite things to wear?
jeans, t shirts, sweatshirts, plaid flannel, and a minor phase where I wore shirts with skinny-ish collars buttoned to the top

5. What were your friends like?
My so-called best friends (I only have one friend from high school now, though one of my best friends also went to my school but we weren’t friends then) were either jocks or skaters (as I've said before, cut from the same cloth) or computer nerds, but I got along with most people.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Mostly. They mostly just ignored me, which wasn’t a good thing.

7. Did you have a job?
Many, all crappy restaurant jobs or school maintenance jobs.

8. Did you date?
Until I got my first real girlfriend 6 months before graduation, I went on one date and it was so horrible I didn't bother trying again.

9. Did you go to prom?
Yes, but it was very sparsely attended as everyone left to start drinking. I wasn't taking my girlfriend to the drinking (neither she nor I have forgiven myself for this) so we stayed at the prom for a while. Depressing.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
No. I played basketball and that's it.

11. What were your favourite school subjects?
English, chemistry, politics

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Playing guitar, listening to music, golfing (though I wasn’t a prick about it), fishing, getting drunk, moaning about girls not liking me

13. What were your favourite movies?
Blue Velvet, House, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Predator, Evil Dead II, A Fish Called Wanda, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Talk Radio, Say Anything...

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Sort of. It was fine. I wouldn't want to do it over again if that tells you anything.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I was a fucking asshole, though most people seem to just remember me as the class clown, but in a good way. I was really sad all the time but tried to make sure everyone around me was having fun.

16. Favourite books.
I barely remember as I read a shitload of stuff in Jr. High and was kinda burnt out on reading for fun in high school, but I do remember enjoying Cities of the Red Night and Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume. Crime and Punishment was easily the best book for school I've ever read, university included, and that was in grade 12.

I'm just trying to help the poor trumpet players in the audience, you know.

also our band makeup was pretty varied. you had a lot of popular kids in band, some jocks (not many football players as there was a stipulation that you couldn't be in marching band and on the football team simultaneously), a good deal of your bookish geeks, a lot of people who couldn't care less about being in band and viewed it as just another extracurricular and never really expended any energy towards bettering themselves at it (most of the band was this last type, and it's why we tended to sound lousy, i think). i...wasn't really any of those types, as i wasn't terribly popular nor a geekoid nor did i hate playing an instrument. i wore my band geekdom like a badge of honor senior year, actually.

I threw out all my yearbooks s o I can't check! It's lame!

i was in the orchestra and not in the band! expressly so i could avoid marching and wearing dumb outfits.

If I knew then they wouldn't grow any larger after that, I wouldn't have been so smug about it!

This is what we always told ourselves in the percussion section. We weren't band geeks, we were drummers. Even when we were playing triangle.

Reading this whole thread sort of makes me wish I'd gone to ILX High.

otoh, about half to 3/4 of your average high school population is made up of geeks and nerds of one kind or another, and it's not hard to believe they (we) are disproportionately represented on ILX.

i knew one cheerleader who was really nice. i remember her dad was a helicopter pilot for the army and circa first gulf war we were worried about him. for reasons i don't quite understand, all the cheerleaders in my h.s. were black.

nearly every other high school we played had an all-black cheerleading squad. ours was largely white, but so's my town. like, overwhelmingly so.

plainfield's marching band did this ridiculously great rendition of "bad boys for life" for their half-time show in the guise of an intra-band "war" ("EAST SIDE, SHOW 'EM WHAT YOU GOT! NOW THE WEST SIDE!" - back and forth like this, both halves of the band blasting at each other). we played a chuck mangione trilogy.

16. Where/what, back then, did you think you'd be by now?
17. What would you now tell your teenage self?

Baaderonixx, we have a Q16 already.

At my school if you weren't a band geek, cheerleader or football player then you were probably a gangbanger or drug dealer. Not a whole lot of choice there.

2. Location/whereabouts?
'93-'95: New Delhi, India
'95-'97: College Park, Maryland

3. What did you listen to?
In early high school, "alternative" music and gangsta rap. Once I moved back to the US I started getting more into indie, buying basically everything that came out on Matador or Up!

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Oversized band t-shirts (Alice in Chains, Faith No More, etc.).

5. What were your friends like?
My friends in India were a weird mix of dip and army brats from various countries, most of whom were really smart but did a lot of stupid things, mostly involving alcohol and drugs (which were pretty easy to come across in India). I had a lot of trouble making friends once we moved, mostly because I went to a really horrible public high school for stupid and dangerous kids. Eventually I became friendly with some of the kids from my AP classes, who were the ones who were actually making an effort, but I wouldn't consider them "friends." I was also in a band with two guys who had also lived in India and moved back to the DC area.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
I went through a brief rebellion phase but generally I got along with my parents really well.

7. Did you have a job?
I had a summer job in India the last year before I moved back, working in an office. It sucked. I would go hide in the bathroom stall for as long as I thought I could get away with it.

8. Did you date?
Not really. I was an awkward and not particularly attractive teen. I had a girlfriend for a few months in junior year of high school but she was crazy and I cringe thinking about it now.

9. Did you go to prom?
I went to prom as a freshman and sophomore because my high school was so small that all high schoolers were invited to prom. Both years I took girls that I was "friends" with but of course I had massive crushes on both of them. I also went to my senior prom, by myself, was miserable, and left after about an hour.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
I was in "It's Academic" (quiz show) and the forensics team.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Math classes, art classes.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Music (I was in bands and started doing home 4-track recording on my own, and spent most of my allowance on used CDs).

13. What were your favorite movies?
Barton Fink, Dazed and Confused.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
I spent the first two years of high school having fun but convincing myself I was miserable. Then I moved and I really was miserable.

haha, dead, of course
get some

1989 through 1992.

2. Location/whereabouts?

'89-'91: Goose Bay, Labrador
'91-'92: St. John's, Newfoundland

3. What did you listen to?

As I said on another recent thread, it was a three-way tie between UK new wave / synthpop (Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure), early-90s dance stuff (Black Box, Deee-lite, KLF, and what little real club music I could get my hands on), and hip-hop. This was Hair Metal Central and I guess I thought I was rebelling, but I genuinely loved what I was listening to, and I still enjoy a great deal of it.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

I was a bit of a disaster, fashion-wise, because I wanted to do my own thing but I desperately wanted to fit in at the same time. I was an uneasy mish-mash: think late-80s American preppie with tacked-on elements of new wave & hip-hop. (There's a terrible Daisy Age peace medallion that I'm thankful I was never photographed wearing, and I remember rocking an utterly bizarre mullet at one point.)

5. What were your friends like?

I was never super popular but I always had a handful of close friends. We were a relatively quiet, academic bunch. I wouldn't call us nerds, exactly, since we were too sociable for that title, but we kept out of trouble for the most part.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

For the most part, yes, though I do remember clashing with them over grades & whatnot. My mother in particular was NOT ready for a teenager. There's more to this story but I'll save it for another thread.

7. Did you have a job?

Odd jobs here & there. I babysat my parents' friends' kids a lot, worked weekends at a corner store, and flyered for a high school dance DJ. I also got a small allowance for doing chores around the house, so I always had some pocket money.

8. Did you date?

Yes, I had three different girlfriends in as many years, one of whom I've written about elsewhere.

9. Did you go to prom?

I had two in one year! One in Goose Bay and the other in St. John's. I had dates for both of them, too. I liked the idea of having something to dress up for. (I clean up pretty good.)

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

Choir, jazz band, and drama. I actually had the lead in the school musical one year.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

English, history, social studies, and geography. I hated math in all its forms, but managed to pull off decent grades in it. They kept sticking me in advanced math classes until I insisted that I was in over my head.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Music, books, and riding my bike. (My hometown has a paved bike trail from one end to the other). By high school I was writing fairly elaborately arranged synth tunes over which I would sing (and rap - eep!). I also wrote the usual godawful teen poetry and short stories.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Rebel Without A Cause, The original Star Wars trilogy

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Yes and no. I think I tried too hard to fit in during my first year and I got royally teased for it. Then I chilled the fuck out and stopped caring so much. That's when people started to befriend me. When we moved to St. John's I went to my new high school with a "what the fuck, I'm only here for a year" attitude, and aside from one weird incident that I'll save for another thread, I got along really well there. It's odd - I had zero self confidence for most of my childhood, only to have a switch flip in my head at age sixteen.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

* I was always an urban dweller at heart - I knew that I wasn't going to make my life in Newfoundland or Labrador, and I think that's why I assimilated into Toronto life as quickly as I did.
* I would periodically mail-order some twelve-inch singles from a DJ shop to get my house music fix.
* I wish someone would have told me not to bother with cassette singles. Those things did not age well, and I probably bought fifty of the fuckers, all of which are now in various stages of unplayability.
* A lot of my musical aspirations came true - the things that I daydreamed about in high school are things I now get paid to do.

In middle school, I was told that another class answered my name in unison when a teacher asked them "Define 'nerd'".

This makes me sad. You are the awesome.

88-92. so, 80s and 90s

2. Location/whereabouts?

Seattle washington, baby

3. What did you listen to?

nothing but classics, at first: cure, new order, REM. second half of high school i hit up Nirvana and the locals.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

flannels and cutoffs and long underwear. serious. 1991 in Seattle.

5. What were your friends like?

outcasts and inidviduals? some of both. Future activists and rockstars and grad students. i was going to say 'all white' but i did have one filipino friend.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

generally, yes, until they found out about the drugs. then we hit some rough patches.

7. Did you have a job?

yes: grocery store, movie theater, record store.

8. Did you date?

totally. 10th grade: jennifer gruw3ll, 11th: nicole stanl3y, 12th: h3ather wirth

9. Did you go to prom?

twice. believe it.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

i think i showed for environmental club like once or twice.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

n/a

12. What were your non-academic interests?

taking LSD and listening to music. going downtown on the bus.

13. What were your favorite movies?

my friends and i watched the same movies over and over: Spinal Tap, Heathers, and Gas Food Lodging

14. Did you enjoy high school??

i enjoyed the people i was around and the friends i made. school? not so much.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

nope

What would you now tell your teenage self?
GO TO PROM, EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO GO STAG. You never know how much fun you'll have there, even if it's just the fun you derive doing the dress-up bit. Stop taking yourself so damn seriously and try to act your age at least once or twice in your life. Don't be afraid to be wholly yourself and if others don't like that person, fuck them. Have a social life. Before you know it, you'll be in your mid 20s and rueing your lost youth. And learn to play synths -- you adore Nick Rhodes, David Sylvian, Vince Clarke, and synthpop in general, so why not emulate your idols?

1987-1993.

2. Location/whereabouts?

blackpool, lancashire, UK.

3. What did you listen to?

joy division. new order. the human league, OMD, and a whole heap of other synthpop. i was roughly a decade out of time. then, in 1991, i discovered the NME and indie and got myself a madchester-style curtain-style haircut. it was a glorious new dawn.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

when i was 13 i wore a trenchcoat and trilby hat. i really was an insufferable little prick. by 16 i'd settled into black jeans, black T-shirts ... and far too many black polo-necks.

5. What were your friends like?

two or three absolute diamonds, with whom i'm still in touch; indeed, in an incestuous twist of fate, my best friend from back home is now my brother-in-law. but everyone else i hung about with was a complete knob, to be honest. this was a crappy little private school full of spoiled, lazy dickheads, plus a smattering of smug arseholes, rugby lads and general wasters.

6. Did you get along with the parents?

yes. the reason i never really went off the rails - why i always stopped whatever i was up to before i got in real trouble - was because i loved and respected them and didn't want to upset them. i didn't give a flying fuck what teachers etc thought, but i couldn't bear the thought of disappointing my parents.

7. Did you have a job?

no. (what was that i was saying about spoiled kids?) but when i was 16 i started hanging around a new radio station that had opened, and convinced them to let me read the news on saturday mornings. it was fun for a while.

8. Did you date?

hahahahah. no. i was too busy being insufferable/up my own arse/playing computer games. by the time i hit 16 i began to sort myself out, but it was too late: the damage had been done.

9. Did you go to prom?

my synth-pop duo played the upper-sixth-form dance. two terrified, droning 17-year-olds singing dirges about the gulf war and why we hated everyone to an audience of rugby lads and hockey girls. and doing songs in waltz time so nobody could dance, even if they'd wanted to. wonderful. probably my proudest moment.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

i was in the school general-knowledge quiz team. i did this to impress a girl. this tells you a lot about how little i understood the opposite sex. i used to go to a computer-club thing on a thursday night too, although at least i was under no illusions that i'd pull there. in sixth-form i set up an underground school newspaper, which remains the pinnacle of my journalistic career.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

english, languages, humanities. i hated maths, science and games.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

computers and computer games. there was a brief, tragic and socially damaging flirtation with role-playing. by 16, music had taken over my life.

13. What were your favorite movies?

ghostbusters, the blues brothers, when the wind blows. i didn't watch that many films.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

i fucking hated it.

up until i was 11 or so, i'd been very happy: i was a bit of a loner, but i had friends and enjoyed my life. then i decided i had to align myself with a group; that i needed a proper "gang of mates". worst decision i ever made: i ended up hanging about with people i didn't really like, just in order to be part of something i didn't really want to be part of.

i wish i'd left after my GCSEs and gone to the sixth-form college (i remember my parents telling me they had no problem with me leaving the private school), but for some reason i stayed on and did my A levels there too. this meant any attempts - conscious or otherwise - to reinvent myself were absolutely doomed.

the sheer joy and sense of freedom i felt when i left blackpool is indescribable. i didn't come down for about two years.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

er, i think i've rambled on quite enough.

16. Favorite books.

the hitch-hiker's guide, lots of tom sharpe, some pg wodehouse. later, anything by kafka or thomas hardy. i found comfort in bleakness :)

17. Where/what, back then, did you think you'd be by now?

a journalist of some kind.

18. What would you now tell your teenage self?

i wouldn't say anything. i'd kick him in the balls really hard. it's what he needed.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Be11eville, Ontario

3. What did you listen to?
the most recognizable stuff was Depeche, Cure, Smiths, Cult, Cab Voltaire, P Furs, New Order, Skinny Puppy, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, Sarah MacLachlan, Grapes of Wrath, Midnight Oil, Stone Roses, Moev, Crowded House, Ministry, Sinead, NIN, Dead Milkmen, plus a lots more that just aren't coming to mind right now, and I was a dedicated Brave New Waves listener.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
oh i was a fashion disaster - bob haircut with streaks and spiked bangs, lots of black/navy sweaters or flannel checked shirts, purple and paisley, my dad's old private school blazer that made me look like i had football shoulders, safety pins on my pants, giant flowy black skirts, my dad's jeans cut off into shorts and with bleach spots all over them, absolutely shredded jeans, occaisionally i wore roots sweats or preppy ralph lauren button downs (i was never good at commitment)always hideous shoes like penny loafers without socks, scruffy desert boots or docs with big buckles on them. fuck.

5. What were your friends like?
at school i had a small group of friends who weren't exactly nerds, but were sort of naive, and we mostly kept to ourselves. at first it was because i was too shy to talk to anyone else, but then around my third year i found a second group of "cooler" friends from other schools and sort of lived a double life.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
didn't live with or interact much with my mom, and dad was rarely home. considering there was a lot of yelling and tears when he was, i'd say not really.

7. Did you have a job?
not until the end of school. Harvey's Hamburgers. it was awful.

8. Did you date?
after i got those new friends i mentioned, i dated a couple of them.

9. Did you go to prom?
junior prom only. i went with a bona fide nerd from my public shool who had suddenly gone all bad boy (in his mind at least) and i had an inexplicable crush on him. it went south quickly after that night though when he did things like chivalrously opening a taxi-door for me and then once i was in, he cluelessly sat in the front with the driver.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
i did yearbook - people always wanted my art skills - but really it was so we had our own room to hang out in at lunch and on spares.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
art, english, biology and geography.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
interesting boys, sci-fi, music, drawing, escape from that town.

13. What were your favorite movies?
i'm not sure i remember what the real answer is here, but i do know that i watched Better Off Dead about 20 times.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
not usually. at first i was effortlessly great at a lot of things but my poor attendance level eventually created a huge mess. however, at the time, that seemed like one of my lesser concerns.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
i somehow turned out ok anyway.

Exactly, and they were right. French horn players.. insufferable. Tuba or baritone sax.. sarcastic and unpretentious. Drummers are the coolest people in the band. Flute players know a lot about music theory, actually, they know it all.

17. Where/what, back then, did you think you'd be by now?
New York, maybe? I don't know.

18. What would you now tell your teenage self?
Drink more. Yell at people.

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)

late 90s

2. Location/whereabouts?
Lake Mary, FL

3. What did you listen to?
Metallica, Aerosmith, Alice in Chains, and later on Slayer

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
flannel in 1995-1996, generic bullshit 96-97, Metallica shirts the rest of the way, over jeans. jeans. jeans.

5. What were your friends like?
nerdy

6. Did you get along with the parents?
yes altho dad was a dick sometimes

7. Did you have a job?
Steak 'n Shake for 6 months - quit in mid-shift

8. Did you date?
no, there was a girl with a mega crush on me whose heart I inadvertently stomped on while I was pursuing somebody else who didn't want me.

9. Did you go to prom?
twice with the person whose heart I stomped on. I had no idea cruelty wasn't just "being overtly mean" back then...

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
drama 10-12, choir all four years, lettered 3 times, Madrigal "swordbearer"

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
choir, drama....I loved AP English but struggled to get Cs and Bs in the class and they told me I'd probably struggle in AP Senior year so I went back to honors, then got a 5 on the AP English exam (suck it fuckahs). slacked a lot.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
being a Fundamentalist

13. What were your favorite movies?
Sixth Sense, Scream, Arlington Road (didn't say I was the sharpest)

14. Did you enjoy high school??
fuuuuuuuuuuck no

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I was best man at my friend Joe's wedding last year. we met Freshman year. his wife was also an alumni of our school - but we had already graduated by the time she entered freshman year.

Oh man, how did you dig this one up?

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
Early-to-mid '90s.

2. Location/whereabouts?
Two different (but not that different) parts of rural IN.

3. What did you listen to?
My musical tastes were about as far-reaching as they could've been for someone who was curious but geographically cloistered in the pre-internet dark ages. I listened to the prescribed alt-rock on the radio/120 Minutes, plus lots of Zep and an obsession with the Sundays.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Grunge really worked for me because dressing like a slob entailed pretty much the amount of energy I had for fashion.

5. What were your friends like?
Samples from across the spectrum but mostly stoners (nb: I was the one who did not get stoned) and art kids.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Ehhhhhhh...

7. Did you have a job?
Yeah, I made the pizzas and delivered the papers and bagged the groceries.

8. Did you date?
A whole lotta nope followed by a long-term, (sort of) long-distance relationship.

9. Did you go to prom?
No. My gf was sad about it. I was (and likely still am) a dope.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Art club president, yo.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
AP English with a bullet, followed by art and then probably study hall.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Hanging out, listening to music, reading comics, engaging in stupid creative endeavors with friends. My non-academic interests have been pretty static for decades.

13. What were your favorite movies?
I discovered Film Threat during my freshman year so I was into pretty much anything I read about in there that I could actually get my hands on.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
I didn't hate it but I certainly don't reminisce.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I was a Navy brat growing up, so high school is only slightly less of a blur than the dozen schools I attended before that.

No better time than autumn to dwell on this sort of thing.

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
Late 80s. Entered high school in 87, ended up dropping out/not returning after my sophomore year of 1989. Very unwise.

2. Location/whereabouts?
The burbs east of Atlanta.

3. What did you listen to?
My favorite band was KISS. This was actually an improvement because my favorite musicians in middle school were Huey Lewis and Phil Collins. (I did not, however, covet a watermarked business card.) By the end of high school I was moving across the musical border to slightly heavier stuff like Maiden, Venom, Mercyful Fate/King Diamond, and then to the much heavier stuff like Death, Dark Angel, the big 4 thrashers, etc. I also had a dub of the first Misfits Collection tape which became an obsession. And NPR's Music Through the Night (or whatever it was called then) was very important.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
A JROTC dork, I actually really liked the uniforms. Well, not the horrid khakis, but the camis and dress greens. Other than that, of course it was all band tees and a denim jacket plastered with patches and pins.

5. What were your friends like?
The whole Breakfast Club gamut: jocks, band, drama, musicians, metalheads (or "headbangers" as everyone seemed to call them/us), fellow JROTC folk.

6. Did you get along with the parents?
Yes, even though I did dutifully follow the rebellion script, something I still feel guilty about. The whole quitting school thing was an obvious flareup of cosmological proportions but my parents ultimately were supportive of my lunacy.

7. Did you have a job?
Little Caesars. I even dressed up in the gigantic "Little Caesar" mascot costume for some kind of church function.

8. Did you date?
Nope. I was so inept. I did however start dating right after dropping out, when I was still quite inept.

9. Did you go to prom?
Not my own, but I went a couple years later to my then gf's. (A couple years after dropping out, I should add; otherwise that sounds odd.)

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Aside from the aforementioned JROTC, which accounted for a lot of time and energy, I was in the Science Club, the Literary Club, and the Key Club. I remember nothing about these things aside from the names.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
Really I enjoyed it all, even, maybe especially, JROTC, despite my anti-authoritarian posturing. (There was an entire wing of the school dedicated to ROTC, complete with a firing range. The instructors, retired Marine Corps all, would smoke cigars in their offices between classes.)

12. What were your non-academic interests?
METAAAAAAAAAAAL. Going to shows. Watching Letterman. Amateur astronomy. Also writing.

13. What were your favorite movies?
To complete the caricature of the teenage metalhead, my cinema diet was pretty much slashers, ninjas, and sword-and-sorcerers. I remember the second Texas Chainsaw Massacre being a fucking event. (Renting it, anyway.) For no reason that I can come up with, however, the movie I watched the most throughout my middle and high school years was a made for TV detective flick called Triplecross -- starring Ted Wass and Markie Post. It's an eternal mystery why I became attached to this thing. Good odds I still have that VHS tape in a box somewhere.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
At the time, no. In retrospect that perpetual background radiation of angst seems nothing more than theater. I had loads of friends, excelled in my classes, got along with most of my teachers, was never bullied. A friend of mine and I had a sort of feedback loop that fomented many bad decisions and culminated in our decision to drop out.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
Before dropping out, my friend and I decided to "quit" the biology class we shared, mostly because we viewed the teacher as a tyrant. As a result he was moved to another classroom, merely to occupy space and not to participate, and I was simply ignored by the bio teacher for the remainder of the semester. It was all very surreal, very Bentley Little.

16. Favorite books.
An unending supply of pulp horror novels, thanks to a local shop called The Bookworm. My go-to author was Rober McCammon, a sort of second tier Stephen King. I think he's become a right wing crank or something. Collections of the Bloom County comic strip were also very crucial to my identity.

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)

Late 90s to 2003

2. Location/whereabouts?

Canada, near Vancouver

3. What did you listen to?

Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, Broadcast, The Pixies, Aphex Twin, Bjork, Portishead, Pj Harvey and Tori Amos.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?

Suit jackets, dress shirts, custom made t-shirts of Pac-Man, Tori and Bjork.

5. What were your friends like?

Spent a lot of time with theatre kids but I was mostly on good terms with everyone due to being an odd-ball physical actor that made people laugh. (I'm not funny on ILX though).

6. Did you get along with the parents?

For the most part, but my family is fairly religious so they tended to think my poetry writing or lack of interest in dating was problematic.

7. Did you have a job?

Worked at IHOP as a dish washer, with a kid who was younger than me and looked like Teddy Ruxpin. :-/

8. Did you date?

Did not date until grade 12 as I was coming out of High School.

9. Did you go to prom?

Yeah, brought a girl I had a major crush on but it turns out we didn't have much chemistry that way. Seemed like we got along better on ICQ.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?

I was a theatre/video rat. Played Seymour in Little Shop and wrote a play in grade 12.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?

English, Drama and Video.

12. What were your non-academic interests?

Smoking pot near the 711, going to 711 for munchies and producing electronic music at home with Fruity Loops.

13. What were your favorite movies?

Mulholland Drive, Donnie Darko, Jacob's Ladder, Virgin Suicides, Amelie, Suburbia, E.T. and Waking Life.

14. Did you enjoy high school??

Enjoyed the social aspects of it the most and some of the academics (like English) in the earlier years but mostly liked the creative/social side. By Grade 12, was attending far less due to spares or using CAPP as an excuse to go buy cheese noodles. Not like CAPP prepared anyone for life though.

15. Additional comments
/ points of interest
--
n/a

16. Favorite books
catcher in the rye, 1984, animal farm, chrysalids, but mostly music magazines/books tbh

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
late 90s
2. Location/whereabouts?
SE MO, US, an hour and a half NW from where rush limbaugh grew up, an hour south from where Ozzie did backflips
3. What did you listen to?
9th: dream theater, village people, queen 10th: dave matthews band, ben folds five, radiohead, mid-90s britpop, placebo, 11th: radiohead, smashing pumpkins, death cab for cutie, belle & sebastian 12th: radiohead, r.e.m, beatles
4. What were your favorite things to wear?
in 9th grade i wore this shirt that said "hocus pocus i'm out of focus", white text on black, blurry from up close but legible from a distance. i wore nothing but lightly saturated green and blue pants. a friend of mine refused to wear jeans and was very influential on me. no jeans.
5. What were your friends like?
from a distance, band and theater nerds. this was a small town in a shitty part of the country and they were really, really cool. lots of people were really down to earth. i laughed so hard, so often, my stomach hurt all the time. lots of really funny and creative people i had a ton of friends back then and i miss a lot of them intensely to this day.
6. Did you get along with the parents?
no, i didn't talk to my dad for most of high school and i was a total dick to everyone. one of my best friends killed himself and my dad wanted me to get over it way before i was ready too so i took everything out on him for a long time.
7. Did you have a job?
i worked at long john silvers for a couple years after i turned 16. fry cook. my sister was the shift manager most nights. it smelled like fried fish and chicken in our house.
8. Did you date?
no. i didn't hit puberty til high school was halfway over and by then i felt so confused and behind everyone. i was everyone's friend. i had a few intense crushes but could never say anything about them. some people felt sorry for me and i definitely felt sorry for myself, but in retrospect i was totally doing the weirdo fucking asshole "nice guy" routine and deserved what happened. i didn't discover masturbation for a really long time. that probably would have helped.
9. Did you go to prom?
the girl i wanted to take went with one of my best friends and i got really emo about it and didn't tell anyone. on prom night i ate a bunch of 3D doritos and played jungle strike on PSX. there were a bunch of worms that crawled down the basement walls.
10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
i was the section leader in drumline, on the battery side. i played in a high school band that was well known - it was not a densely populated area and there weren't many bands, so just playing every couple weeks and pressing a CD made us locally famous. in high school my identity was completely musical. i started recording my own music and passing the links to confidants, hoping they'd share it with others. it was all really fucking lame on my part
11. What were your favorite school subjects?
i was a mathlete, and i really liked history as well.
12. What were your non-academic interests?
i'm trying to remember what i did in 9th and 10th grade. it was a weird time. i was moving away from baseball, a previous love, because i was still 4'10 and i just couldn't play with the bigger guys. in 10th and 11th grade i started getting high and occasionally drinking, and that started to become a bigger thing and general objective of the night. but the two years before that? i think i played a lot of videogames. i was depressed. i was sort of on the internet, but not in any communities, and it was so slow that i was just happy to read any page that fully loaded. it was a weird time.
13. What were your favorite movies?
braveheart. forrest gump. hoop dreams.
14. Did you enjoy high school??
i hated it. i slept a lot of the time. i'd finish the hw in class and then sleep in the back for the last 20 minutes. no one ever woke me up. i walked out to my car a lot and just drove off. no one ever checked, i never got in trouble. i worked at long john silvers at night. on the weekends. i'd save up all week to buy the starcraft 3-game + strategy guide bundle on PC, read the guide cover to cover, then play 5 missions and quit at the first sign of struggle. i spent most of high school obsessing over girls who didn't like me back. i was really pathetic. i lost my connection to god the first year, and then i started to get really antagonistic about that loss. i wasn't talking to my dad. i was the biggest asshole of all time to my family, and i worshiped my friends. i had a lot of really, really good, genuinely amazing times with my friends. i teetered back and forth on railroad bridges in total darkness, blackout drunk on vodka and fresca. i barfed on one of my friend's front lawns repeatedly throughout the year. a close friend killed himself and we all collectively lost our minds for a few months. i looked in the mirror and saw a little kid. everything was weird.
15. Additional comments/ points of interest--

looking back vs. when I took this, I wouldn't say that I didn't get along with my parents. They mostly left me alone (for better or worse), there were never real fights, I never got grounded - what I perceived as not getting along was more just distance and being very private.

Fuck yeah I'm so down for this. I actually ran into a few of my old teachers at a bar last night so good timing too

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
2008-13 (my username checks out)
2. Location/whereabouts?
West Vancouver, Canada (yeah, yeah, I know)
3. What did you listen to?
Pavement, LCD Soundsystem, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Shins, the Wrens, kanye, the dismemberment plan. I was still in my early pitchfork phase, basically
4. What were your favorite things to wear?
button ups, t-shirts, shorts
5. What were your friends like?
They were oddballs and burnout-types. It embarrassed and exhausted me when i was young but looking back i wouldn't have wanted it any other way
6. Did you get along with the parents?
Yes, but not with my brother. we still barely talk.
7. Did you have a job?
Was a dishwasher at earls restaurant in grade 12. that job kicked my ass.
8. Did you date?
two 2-3 month long relationships. so nothing special, but i was a hormonal little fucker so i was miserable when they ended
9. Did you go to prom?
Yup. it was called semi formal where i was from. I got dumped 3 days before it so i didn't enjoy it too much. also the principal caught me drinking behind a trashcan when i tried to go in, but he let me in anyways when i told him i barely drank anything and that i got dumped earlier. I saw him last night at that bar but i don't think he remembered me
10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Rugby. School newspaper too but they barely had any issues. I sucked at both but i've gotten better at writing at least
11. What were your favorite school subjects?
english and social studies/history
12. What were your non-academic interests?
Bass guitar and running. I even had a few bands, which earned me serious cool points.
13. What were your favorite movies?
Barely watched films/tv back then that much so i'm not sure. I remember loving the Exorcist though
14. Did you enjoy high school??
Yeah, I'd say so. A few bad times, sure, but I was kinda unhappy in elementary school (gr 6-7 especially; hs is 8-12 in vancouver with no middle school) and every year in high school felt like an upward step so yeah it was good.
15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
My favourite memories of high school were probably going to record stores in vancouver and learning so much in them. Good times, good times, even if it was such a waste of money looking back because streaming services make it all easier these days

iirc

Aimless's HS dossier:

Decade? Location? I started HS in Sept 1968, age 13. I graduated in May 1972, age 17. Because my birthday fell in November, I was always the youngest student in my grade level. I grew up in Portland, Oregon (before anyone knew it existed).

Music? The stuff everyone knows from that era. Aside from whatever was on the pop charts and got a lot of radio play, I didn't explore much. otoh, I owned Cheap Thrills, some Dylan, a Mothers of Invention album, and my best friend 'discovered' BB King and played him for me, so it wasn't all Bee-Gees & Motown.

Clothes? Levis shrink-to-fit blue jeans and work shirts. It was the MOR alternative to hippie clothes.

Friends? I knew all the 'smart' kids who were in my classes, but I also hung out a fair amount with the poor kids, at least those who weren't too criminally-minded. I do mean poor, too. Borderline homeless. Jelly-on-white-bread for supper types. They seemed so happy to have someone just treat them like people.

Parents? My parents were super. Even if they didn't get much direct information about what I did and thought, they trusted me and never held the reins too tight.

Job? Dating? Prom? No jobs except brief temp jobs that lasted a few days at most, like selling ice cream during parades. Consequently, I had almost no money. This, plus my being so young in my grade meant no dating per se. It was always just hanging out with girls I liked, during and after school. Prom was never a thought in my head.

Activities? Clubs? I invented a new school club called the Apathy Club and actually got it officially sanctioned as a school club by the HS principal (name: Mr. Skinner!) It had the largest membership of any club in 1971-72. I was on the school's quiz team that appeared on a local TV station. I was a 'star' in several dramatic productions -- but not the musicals, where I worked stage crew instead. In short, I straddled the milieu of the computer geeks and the drama nerds. No sports.

Fave Subjects? English, drama, biology. I LOVED plane geometry, but hated trig.

Enjoyed HS? I successfully found ways to pass the time in HS that kept me from being too bored. I was known, recognized and widely liked. So, yeah, I liked it OK. otoh, it was a miserable and confusing time for young people, with the war and all the turmoil in the country. Nothing out there made much sense and the world kept changing in crazy ways every couple of months. There was a lot of barely suppressed desperation and mania around.

how worried was everyone about being drafted?

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
Late 90s/early 2000s

2. Location/whereabouts?
NYC metro area

3. What did you listen to?
Black metal, dark wave, EBM, Shostakovich, Joy Division, Kraftwerk, experimental sound collage bullshit

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
Cargo pants and polo shirts

5. What were your friends like?
Druggies, burn outs, sadistic punks

6. Did you get along with the parents?
No.

7. Did you have a job?
Worked as a cashier in a grocery store

8. Did you date?
Yes. Had a bunch of girlfriends, but they were sociopathic creeps because they thought I was a "bad boy", but I really had a puppy heart

9. Did you go to prom?
Yes. I went stag, because I had nothing in common with any of the girls in my school

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
No. I had my own extra-curricular activities. I organized and ran a pirated CD ring that expanded to another town/school system before I shut it down. Belonged to a group of hacker kiddies and ended up in an issue of Harpers for it.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
German. Also, the principal was a philosophy Ph.D. and did a class on that for fun, and it made me wish they offered that in school.

12. What were your non-academic interests?
Obscure, untranslated Japanese video games

13. What were your favorite movies?
Conan the Barbarian, For a Few Dollars More, Dirty Work

14. Did you enjoy high school??
Absolutely not. I graduated "Most Likely to Change [Blow Up] the World" and was a local "celebrity" among the kids, but that wasn't the real me, and I fucking hated all of it. I've now disappeared into the mists from that world

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
None

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
1996-2002 (high school in the scottish system is a minimum of 4 and maximum of 6 years running from roughly age 12 to roughly 18. i started high school the month after i turned 12 and finished it the month before i turned 18)
2. Location/whereabouts?
hamilton, south lanarkshire, scotland. 12 miles south east of glasgow.
3. What did you listen to?
start of high school - nu-metal, korn and deftones were some of my first gigs. then got more into punk and pop-punk. ended up listening to indie and post-punk and electronic music around the time i left high school.
4. What were your favorite things to wear?
had a 90s baggy jeans stage. with hoodies and t-shirts. ended up dressing in slacks, chucks, plaid shirts, wool coats. so from one kind of dorky to another.
5. What were your friends like?
childhood friends who i grew out of during high school. my friend fat cha' and i met when we were 5 because he lived 100 yards from my home. he left school when we were 16 and ive never seen him since. i had moved towns between primary school and high school and my slightly older and non-catholic school attending friends in my new town were my enduring friends from that era.
6. Did you get along with the parents?
yes, they stopped making me go to catholic church when i was about 13 and managed not to notice my underage drinking until it had been going on for years already.
7. Did you have a job?
i delivered papers in the summer a few years.
8. Did you date?
no. i was definitely a nerd and social pariah and high school. the one girl i dated in high school didn't go to my school and so didn't know i was a social pariah, and i was friends with her older brother and drank and smoked weed with those guys (i was 14 at the time) so she mistakenly thought i was cool or badass or something. she dumped me after a month and i was super upset about it (we would later date when we were 19/20 and then again when we were 24/25). all the kids in my school were flummoxed as to why she went out with me because she was very traditionally good-looking.
9. Did you go to prom?
yes, without a date. i drank whiskey at an after party with a girl i liked (who had a boyfriend) and we started a flirtation which developed into a kind of chaste affair during our first year at university where we had some classes together.
10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
no. there weren't really many school activities to speak of mind you.
11. What were your favorite school subjects?
history and english.
12. What were your non-academic interests?
i started drinking when i was 12 and getting drunk and high on weed were my main weekend recreation activities during high school.
13. What were your favorite movies?
godfather 1 and 2.
14. Did you enjoy high school??
no, i hated it. i was unpopular and that sucks, on top of that i am an extremely anxious person and the casual violence of west of scotland boys wasnt a great milieu for me. also suffered from depression from puberty at 12 til i was about 22/23. i used to every once in a while not go to school for a couple of weeks at a time - i would go and hide in the garage til everyone left then sleep til around 2pm). I would always get in trouble when the school eventually got in contact with my parents (would sometimes take a long time as i would delete voicemails they left during the day). i ended up enjoying university even less tho so whatever i guess

Decade? Location? 1974-79; Georgetown, 30 km outside of Toronto.

Music? On one hand, Neil Young and rock-criticky stuff like Highway 61, Who’s Next, and Let It Bleed. On the other, art-rock, glammy metal, and stuff too unforgivable to mention.

Movies? American Graffiti, The Heartbreak Kid, Jaws, The Paper Chase.

Clothes? Plaid lumberjack shirts, Adidas T-shirts, “painter pants,” overalls; see Dazed and Confused.

Friends? Basketball friends, drug friends, Fernwood Tonight/Gong Show friends--a lot of overlap.

Parents? They were great; I wasn’t especially communicative.

Job? Dating? Prom? Backshop at a golf course, washing clubs; a thousand crushes, but no; no.

Activities? Clubs? Twelfth guy on the basketball team.

Favorite Subjects? Math came exceptionally easy; liked English the last couple of years.

Enjoyed HS? It certainly had an effect.

how worried was everyone about being drafted?

My brother was one grade ahead of me and was the Student Body President. His proudest achievement was securing a draft counselor from the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) who came once a week and talked to the students facing the draft about their options. It was a very popular service. By 1970 no one in my HS was enthused about the war, yet there were still hundreds of thousands of US soldiers in Vietnam, getting killed on a daily basis, as testified by the nightly news. So, yes, lots of worry. It was very real to all of us.

I was in the first batch of the "draft lottery". iirc, the projected cut-off for the call-up was around #150 and my lottery number was about #170. I tried very hard to believe this protected me.

i can't even imagine. thanks

what can I say? you're born into the world you're born into. overall, I'm grateful and feel enormously lucky. I never was drafted, btw, which means I won that lottery and I know it.

lol ok

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
1998-2002

2. Location/whereabouts?
a catholic school in suburban boston, ma

3. What did you listen to?
90s matador and t&g stuff, built to spill, a bit of emo and hardcore. other than the emo this.....set me apart from most of my peers.

4. What were your favorite things to wear?
not really a concept i understood, just like wide jeans and t-shirts

5. What were your friends like?
i guess cool nerds is the easiest shorthand--bright kids with nerdy interests who weren't that awkward and did ok in our somewhat sheltered environment

6. Did you get along with the parents?
yeah

7. Did you have a job?
i worked 2 days/week in a small drug store

8. Did you date?
i dated one girl; the school was small and my class was particularly lacking in girls who were dateable given where i was at on the totem pole.

9. Did you go to prom?
yeah, went to both jr. and sr.

10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
plenty of adult experiences have borne out the fact that i'm not a joiner, but i did academic decathlon and that was kind of fun in its own way.

11. What were your favorite school subjects?
english, history, normal lib. arts stuff

12. What were your non-academic interests?
music, playing guitar

13. What were your favorite movies?
this is really hard to remember! i'm just not a favorite movies person.

14. Did you enjoy high school??
i had a better experience than a lot of people for sure; it took about a year but i made amazing friends (who are all still my closest friends), and the vibe of the school was such that bullying/cliques weren't a huge deal--most ppl in my class figured out that coexistence was the easiest path to take. that said i never think about high school and to me it's a transitional period that got me to adulthood/independence. there's nothing about it that i miss at all.

15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
i guess the only thing interesting is that my friend group was like 100% sober and that was basically how we positioned ourselves contra other groups. it wasn't like a combative thing but we definitely spent some time and energy on it. it worked well enough and then everyone fell off the wagon in their first year of college.

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
90s
2. Location/whereabouts?
Milton, Ontario, Canada
3. What did you listen to?
Nine Inch Nails, Tori Amos, Bjork, Lisa Germano
4. What were your favorite things to wear?
I liked Beck's fashion and bought Mexican-style shirts from the vintage store and described my look in retrospect as "miami beach hoser fag"
5. What were your friends like?
Evangelists. We would sit around a campfire talking about how we didn't believe in sex before marriage but I was blushing furiously because I was sucking off a dude up in Georgetown and my best friend was staring at me grinning smugly because he's the only one I'd told
6. Did you get along with the parents?
No, my stepfather was depressed and aggro towards me, he's great and we're great now, but at the time it was stress
7. Did you have a job?
Ski instructor
8. Did you date?
Had a girlfriend age 14, a secret boyfriend age 16, did have crushes on people around the school but was held back by a poor choice in hair
9. Did you go to prom?
I invited a girl I really was attracted to, I fixed my poor choice in hair before doing so, but it turned out she was attracted to my friend Scott and was waiting too see if he would invite him. I was sad about that. I don't know 'what happened next' was subconsciously devious, but I invited my highly sexually active friend from Toronto to come as my date instead. With no prompting from me, she fully seduced Scott and ended up having sex with him on prom night in his tent. I remember the girl-I-was-attracted-to getting into a car while this was happening to go home, and me being like "yeah? how do you like me now? have a nice night". She is now a dyke; I am now a fag
10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
Long distance running and band
11. What were your favorite school subjects?
English
12. What were your non-academic interests?
Video games
13. What were your favorite movies?
I always loved 2001, since I saw it as a kid, but the first time I proclaimed "this is my favourite movie" was The Thin Red Line, lol
14. Did you enjoy high school??
No more or less than any other period
15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
I had a very good rapport with the drama teacher, but when I came back two years after graduation it was clear she barely remembered me, and that was a good life lesson

proms vmic, apart from you fucking someone entirely unexpected <3

3. What did you listen to?
Pavement, LCD Soundsystem, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Shins, the Wrens, kanye, the dismemberment plan. I was still in my early pitchfork phase, basically

i also had this phase

i discovered pitchfork just after high school ended and immediately entered into my early pitchfork phase

how worried was everyone about being drafted?

I had dropped out of college a week before 9/11, my mom immediately started trying to figure out if I could get Canadian citizenship via my (deceased) grandmother in the event of a draft.

And then my first year of uni was my poptimist phase where I constantly talked about how great R Kelly's Ignition remix and Ginuwine's pony were. I would've loved ilm if I knew it existed at the time

1. First of all, what decade is/ was this? (no need for shyness here)
early 90s
2. Location/whereabouts?
suburban northern new jersey, bunch of noveau riche republicans
3. What did you listen to?
pretty much exclusively zep, also classic rock radio. k-rock and there was another one i think. i spent years getting tape copies of all the led zeppelin albums. it took me a long time.
4. What were your favorite things to wear?
led zeppelin t-shirts and khakis. i wore led zeppelin t-shirts until they got holes in them.
5. What were your friends like?
nerds who called computer bulletin board systems. mostly non-white, now that i think of it - i was white and "catholic" but i didn't really get on well with that set.
6. Did you get along with the parents?
not really sure what that means tbh
7. Did you have a job?
yeah, i was a library page, shelved books at the local library
8. Did you date?
god no, i thought i was loathsome and disgusting and that nobody could ever possibly like me.
9. Did you go to prom?
god no, it sounded like the most awful thing ever
10. Were you involved in school activities like clubs and stuff like that?
yeah, i felt i had to in order to appear "well-rounded". fucking hated it. fake-ass bullshit. i was in key club until i sliced my hand open trying to remove some burnt cookies from a baking pan on the last day to get my "hours" in for key club. wound up in the hospital and said "fuck key club, fuck getting into a 'good college'" at that point. still proud of the lines from those stitches to this day. i was also a boy scout.
11. What were your favorite school subjects?
history, i loved history a lot. english was good too but the english teachers were fucking weird. the senior english teacher wore a tweed jacket and everybody knew he creeped on the girls in the class and sometimes fucked them.
12. What were your non-academic interests?
video games, computer BBSes, wearing women's clothes (the last one only in secret mind)
13. What were your favorite movies?
didn't really get into movies until after high school, tarantino and mst3k films and shit like that. in high school mostly i was into taping doctor who off NJN. i think i'd mostly gotten over my obsession with the police academy sequels by that point.
14. Did you enjoy high school??
academically, sure. because of the noveau riche thing the schools were pretty well funded and i had a lot of good teachers. i feel pretty privileged to have had the high school education i did.
15. Additional comments/ points of interest--
question too vague
16. books
oh, a lot of stuff. i read a lot of steven king. i was into the james bond books - still remember fleming describing genital "tucking" in _you only live twice_. (one of these days i'll read the book and realize it's not in there and be really disappointed). and lots of douglas adams. i read a lot of comics, too. _the demon_, was really into that one, though it went to shit when garth ennis took over. and batman. i loved the batman '89 film.