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Really interesting essay about HS

Author	Topic
Kady Mae Junior Member USA 261 Posts	Posted - 26 Feb 2003 : 12:31:49 I think most of us will find this really relevant. Beware, it's long. http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html "The popular kids learned to be popular, and to want to be popular, the same way the nerds learned to be smart, and to want to be smart: from their parents. While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please." and "If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some advice, the main thing I'd tell him would be to stick his head up and look around. I didn't really grasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in was as fake as a twinkie." --- 68K's liberated: 4 68Ks adopted to loving homes: 2 PowerMacs adopted: 1
maclover5 LC Doctor/Hot Rodder Australia 5830 Posts	Posted - 26 Feb 2003 : 14:45:43 Very true report there. Highlights a lot of things that really do happen in high school. -------------------------- Give your dreams a chance.™ - Apple in the mid '90s Warrior maclover5 68k Macintosh Liberation Army Number of 68ks Liberated: 7
oldmacman Full Member USA 713 Posts	Posted - 26 Feb 2003 : 17:56:48 IMHO, this is a bunch of BS. There is a very simple way to bypass all the nerd/prep nonsense - TAKE HONORS/AP CLASSES! If you're in a class where all of the people are of the same level of intelligence as yourself, then you won't be thought of as "the smart guy." The best way to win the popularity game is not to play. About girls: The only reason why some nerds can't interact with members of the opposite sex is because they lack basic social skills (i.e. conversing about something other than school) and/or because they lack basic personal hygiene (i.e. shaving more than once every three weeks). Maybe it's just me, but at my school there are quite a few attractive, intelligent girls who are attracted to people by more than appearance. BTW, several of them are cheerleaders. About sports: There is no reason that nerds cannot play sports. In fact, sports are the only activity in which everybody can participate and from which everybody can benefit. Though people cannot change their level of intelligence, there is not one person alive who cannot better his or her self through physical activity. There exist many athletic opportunities outside the narrow scope of team sports. I hate team sports, yet I lift weights every day after school, and I enjoy bicycling when the weather is warm. Official 68kMLA Music and NeXT Expert Macs Liberated: SE (2), LC, IIsi, PB 145b, Quadra 700 (2), LC 575, 6100 (2), PB 5300, PowerMac 5400/200, Performa 6400/180 PCs liberated from Windoze: 3
cory5412 68KMLA Comrade-in-Arms USA 4679 Posts	Posted - 26 Feb 2003 : 19:37:17 well see... here at my new HS there's fewer levels, and really at the old one it wasn't even "levels" just "groups" a few of which intersected in odd ways... At the new school nearly everyone is a skateboarder or a prep type... so I feel out of place, and the only person I'd place "lower" than myself on a foodchain... well he's the only of his own type... kind of makes me feel sorry for him :-\ really now if I HAD honors/AP classes and/or the school would LET me IN to them... (around here I guess you have to be stupid to get into a good class) Official 68k videographer
jruschme Junior Member USA 196 Posts	Posted - 27 Feb 2003 : 08:49:35 quote: While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please. That seems too simplistic. Being trained to please transcends being a nerd or being popular. If anything, I'd say that I became a nerd because I was trying too hard to please my parents. Perhaps the answer lies more in who one has been trained to please. <<<john>>>
foetoid Full Member USA 554 Posts	Posted - 27 Feb 2003 : 14:09:07 I like what OldMacman had to say about the best way to win the popularity game... It is by not playing. I don't try and do anything for anybody on that sort of level, but be who I am, not caring about what others are thinking, and somehow I wind up in the center of attention, not seeking it, just getting it. Kinda like something in the Bible. This isn't an exact quote, but it's the same thing basically just in a different context, look at God and a dove of peace flys into your heart, look at the dove and if flies away. Basically if you do what pleases you and not worry about what others think, your freind and popularity level begins to rise, but then when you start to look at those things and focus on them and enhance them, things turn cold once again. ________________ foetoid, that's (fee-toy-duh) http://www.foetoid.doesntexist.com
cory5412 68KMLA Comrade-in-Arms USA 4679 Posts	Posted - 27 Feb 2003 : 15:31:56 that was starting to happen at my old school... people just kinda started coming to me... iDunno... the Integrated Program had something to do with it iGuess... and being older than the eighth graders I had at least one good friend from each little group of people... Official 68k videographer

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