staying off school: c or d?

for the gargantuan amount of guilt and feeling that you've missed *everything* - dud

i intend to go to my second class; i am going to borrow my girlfriend's metrocard.

Being sent home when a disgruntled sixth former phoned in a bomb warning because he wanted to go surfing: also classic

man UK has the easy life! A bomb threat last week just left us outside for an hour and a half.

We've been freezing this week. No more heat this year, says the maitence man. Meanwhile I have a broken window in my room and continual blue nails and lips from the frigidness. brr.

prolonged periods are dud.

Dud was during my senior year of college when I had to go home for a month due to prolonged illness and missed out on a lot of shenanigans.

I was really hoping that campus would be closed today because of the snow so I wouldn't have to work, no such luck.

school authorities: "hmmmm, terrorist w.pipin high voice and SHOPSHIRE ACCENT, all girl's school, ONE PUPIL ABSENT — what can possibly be going on here?"

still i wonder who the first kid to phone in a fake bomb threat wz? (i mean, i REALLY doubt it wz my sister's friend but how much BEFORE the 70s can it have been?) (matt@coastaltown is a bit older than me i think but his deal when when he wz sixth-form)

I love all the diferent stages you go through with it, as well:

kindergarten/primary sk00l - Pretend to be sick in order to avoid sk00l. This gets honed to a fine art, even tho you know your parents will find out at least by the time they get back home and see that you're just lazing about on the couch watching cartoons. Also, you don't usually leave the house, and if you do you get real paranoid that a classmate's going to see you - cos they'd surely tell on you to the teacher, kids at that age have no sense of solidarity.

primary sk00l, as soon as you're old enough to find your way back home by yourself, you also get to try the illness-faking out on the teacher. This usually works even better than with parents, who by now are pretty much used to your shtick. Only drawback: if you overdo it on both fronts, sometimes you end up being sent to school even if you *are* sick (happened to me twice!)

middle class/early high school - skipping becomes more social, more of a group activity. You go to someone's house, eat chips, play video games, just generally hang out. Sometimes the host's parents will show up, leading to much hilarity (tho not for the host, of course.) Host usually some poor shmuck who *really* wants to fit in and has *no sense of authority whatsoever* - thus leading to wilder and wilder get-togethers, non-offered food being consumed, precious things getting broken/stolen. My regular haunt belonged to a couple of brothers, both of whom brought many friends, and ppl who quite clearly weren't their friends at all. Things got out of control pretty fast.

Also, at the same time, moving from a single teacher to a multiple teacher system gives you a whole new world of possibilities re: solo skipping. No more awkward faking of illness - a simple "teacher (x) couldn't make it" will suffice! Works especially well when, like me, you were going to a school where the teachers actually did miss a lot of classes and no one even dreamed of calling in a substitute unless they were missing for, like, a month. This is also where you start getting priorities re: skipping - you'll sit through a few hours of some subject you're not too bad at, even if you feel like skipping, because that way it'll be easier to miss a class of the subject you REALLY hate.

Getting kicked out of class for bad behaviour always struck me as a skipping of sorts, it was like a total "get out of jail free" card!

High school - Slowly but surely, skipping becomes just something you do, judged neither positively nor negatively. Teachers stop asking where you were last class. Fellow students stop organising school-skipping get-togethers.

College - Skipping now totally normal, no one really cares unless you're *totally* outrageous about it, in which case a faint glow of coolness does surround you. Mostly tho you'll get in trouble for missing out on lunch with friends.

I think that in college, dropping classes entirely becomes the new skipping. Same sweet temptation, same sudden surge of freedom, same bittersweet mix of guilt and satisfaction for having done so, same mix of envy, disapproval and admiration from yr classmates.