Skirv and Uni High

I attended Uni High from 1989-1995. It was a high school; it did good for me, it corrupted me, it helped me figure out who I was and what I could be, and it got me into college. I made friends there, and I learned a whole lot. There were scandals and soap operas. I was picked on, I picked on others. And, well, I just generally existed.

Subfreshman Year: 1989-1990

Subfreshmen year. Uni is a five year school; you skip 1-2 years of middle school to make up for it (I skipped both 7th and 8th grades [thankfully!]). I didn't make too many friends, but I wasn't used to friends anyway so it was no big deal. I spent a lot of time reading (Piers Anthony's Xanth series was my favorite), which annoyed my teachers. I did fairly well, but not extraordinarily so.

I never did get the hang of fitness (running around a track for 20 minutes every other day, 15 laps per mile), not over my whole Uni career. It was especially bad as a subbie.

I got the name "Scurvy" this year. It was by no means intentional - in fact, I did my best to fight it - but it stuck well. It took a few years to be cut down to "Skirv", which I'm much more fond of. It was important to be called something besides Tim, for the record; there were three Tims in my class, and I often sat between the other two. Many of the teachers took to calling me Scurvy as well, and it really did help.

Freshman Year: 1990-1991

Freshman year was when I started getting a social life. In Biology I sat with other people that wanted to roleplay - Steve, Nathaniel, Jeremy, and others. I had started getting to know them the year before, but now I had a chance to talk with them regularly. Before long, we were having regular overnights to play Battletech and other RPGs (plus some occasional sword-fighting). It was great - for the first time in my life, I had actual close friends. We argued, we brainstormed, and we had a great time.

I learned about the BBS community this year; Jeremy's brother ran one, and I was intrigued. Soon enough, I tracked down a 2400 baud modem and started spending large amounts of time online, playing one online game or another. But even that was just part of the general socialness; my friends were all playing, too.

You notice that I haven't said anything about actual *school* here, yet? Well, there's a reason for that - I didn't care. My grades plummeted; I found this upsetting, but not horribly so. Some of my classes were fine; others were just horrible, excuses to think about anything else. It didn't help that my math class (Algebra II) was taught by the worst math teacher I'd ever had in my life, Mrs. Jockusch (she later went on to chase my friend Sean, a math prodigy if ever I've known one, out of math altogether through her casual cruelty). Anyway, at the end of it, I was lucky to not be kicked out... But fate intervened in its own cruel ways.

Sabbatacal: 1991-1992

Without going into too many details (leave that for the Australia page), I went away after my freshman year to Australia. This was really a pretty good idea; my grades were bad and I was turning into a fairly anti-social kinda kid - ie, I was becoming "normal". But by the *Gods*, did I hate it! It dragged me away from my friends, and I'd never rejoin them directly...

Sophomore Year: 1992-1993

When I got back from Australia, I figured I'd just pick up where I left off (I hadn't quite gotten the idea of how badly I'd been doing before). The world decided that things wouldn't work that way. Certainly, I was now in a different class, with different people around me; I fit in with them well enough, but I was two years behind. And as for my old friends... after a few fights over RPGs, I was essentially banished from my social group; and so I fled into anti-socialdom. It hurt for a while, but not that long. Besides, I had BBSes, and I discovered the chat forums on them fairly quickly...

I finally got the hang of Mr. B's history class this year; this is great, given that he's one of the best teachers I ever had. I was in the basic Geometry class, thanks to misadventures with Jockusch in Algebra II (I really disliked her!), and while I loved it I knew even then that it was far, far too easy for me. My poor Math skills never really recovered.

Junior Year: 1993-1994

Junior year was quiet, for me at least. I still didn't have friends, and I didn't have any intention of finding them; I spent most of my time online on either BBSes or Usenet. I started talking with some people, which is something; but I really wasn't very serious about it. I did enjoy my classes (mostly). I really started getting into Latin. I even enjoyed English that year. History was fun, because I was in a class of not- quite-slackers - that is, we paid attention and learned but we didn't like our teacher to realize it. He enjoyed playing along.

There was one big scandal that year: Hilary and Erika were chased off from the then-freshman class (1997) in an ugly sexual harassment case. This was ugly, certainly, but really only impacted me in one way: they took away my History teacher, Mr. Sutton, to go be a Guidance Counselor (he wasn't involved directly, but the rest of our counselors were female, and the administration felt that we needed a guy for the other guys to talk to). This upset me greatly, because Mr. Sutton was a great teacher. Later on, of course, Erika went on to become Miss America, so this scandal made a bit of impact on the world...

Oh yes; this was the year of Magic: the Gathering. I got into it thanks to my brother; I wasn't great at it, but I enjoyed it. It was a fairly social thing to do in the halls, in boring classes, wherever the urge hit me. The teachers hated it, of course, but they grew to forgive me...especially Mrs Laughlin, who was quite excited to figure out that I had a good speaking voice. If only she'd been able to talk me into choir...

Anyway, other than that I stayed out of the way of things. We went through a bunch of principals that year, which led to general unrest and badness everywhere; many that I've talked to blame Dr. Meares for many of Uni's later problems. I did watch and listen, but I never really got involved. But it was all a good prelude for Senior Year...

Senior Year: 1994-1995

Senior year I really started to Get It. Early on in the year, I decided that the time had come to be a bit more social. It wasn't enough that I had gotten involved with unihigh.*; I wanted to socialize with people a bit. And so I did; I had a long lunch period (both of my free periods flanked lunch), and I didn't really want lunch at all, so I moved into kitchen cards-playing crowd with earnest. They didn't particularly want me at first, but I was persistent; soon enough, those that tried to chase me away tended to be chased away themselves. This made me some enemies, but it was worth it. I played a lot of Euchre, Hearts, and Moo that year; we even made up rules for Psycho Hearts (Hearts with a blind, essentially), because we got so good at the original.

I started making friends for real this year. George, Andy, and Harf all later went on to become my roommates. I started hanging out with Amy (Andy's sister) in the halls. I spent a lot of time talking with the underclassmen, especially the then-freshman class, and made several close friends amongst them (Zhenya, Chrispy, Ursula, etc; I've lost track of some of 'em, but not all). I didn't realize it at the time, though. After all, I was stuck on those friends I *didn't* have...

I was on the school paper; mind you, I wasn't very good at it, but I was enthusiastic. I also started helping out with theatre stuff, because I was in Drama (thanks to Mrs. Laughlin's advice the year before); I was crew (all of it) for Cabaret, and otherwise did odd tasks here and there for fun. Nobody was quite sure what to make of me; I didn't really want to act, except maybe improv, but I did like the whole theatre experience.

I fought with Shelley Roberts, our principal, a lot. That was fun. I also fought with Coach Driskell (our Driver's Ed teacher) and never got aroudn to my license as a result. In annoyance at Sally, our fitness teacher, I started to actually care about running a bit and got reasonable at it; this was what she wanted, oddly. My 5K was run in 28 minutes that year, on the dot, which is exactly the school's goal.

I started attending dances this year; I scared people at them, it was fun. I also had one of the post-prom parties. This confused everyone. Why the social change? Probably because I started wearing a different button every day. People really liked it; at least 20-30 people every day made a point of tracking me down to see what I was wearing. It was fun. And it also did a good job of socializing me.

Finally, for graduation, I was one of those that stood up to my classmates and demanded that we use The Imperial March as our processional (there was a last-minute revolt over this that had to be put down). I wore my Don't Panic button on my mortar board. And then it was over.

Later Visits

I visited Uni fairly regularly over the next couple of years, to say hi to teachers and students that I liked (Amy, the entire class of 1998). But really, it cut down pretty fast; it just wasn't my school any more, and college kept me plenty busy. So over time I lost track of everyone...

We never had a 5th reunion. I did attend my 4th - ie, I showed up accidently for the 5th reunion of the class before me (which was my class for subbie and freshman years). It was enough nostalgia for me.

I still stop by occasionally, and talk to the teachers I still like to talk to... But Mrs. Newman (my Latin teacher) recently retired, and most of the rest are too busy to talk. I still attend Mr. B's annual Christmas Lecture, and say hi to Frances Jacobbson (the librarian), but that's really about it...