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Yeah, I agree. It's awesome though; excellent thoughts. Very good, and it really portrayed what he was thinking rather then getting into the structure of an article, which is excellent.

In reference to James' article

I'll give him props for being semi-literate, but I'll voice my dissaproval of the tone in which the paper is presented.

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The way I see it, merely by acknowledging that there are social groups is a fault. In all reality, I was a very naiive person when I started Highschool. Like most, I was part of a clique. We were the people who came to school on the bus, were better than most people acedemically, left on the bus and didn't get involved in any extracurriculars.

However, my 11th grade year, something interesting happened. All the other members of my clique started going to college via running start. I'd stayed behind because I'd got a taste for the theatre and wanted to be in the school play. This whole thing put me in a unique position; I had no social group. I took this as an opportunity to study the societal structure of the school.

One of the things I learned is that in most cases, if you're interesting; people don't care if you infiltrate their social group. Mingling with any clique or sub-group was easy as pie for me because I brought something to the conversations that wasn't there before. This tells me two things. One, that only people deserving of a title (goth, prep, jock) will be labelled with it and excluded from other groups; and two, that cliques exist to cater to people with little sense of individuality.

What this leaves us with is a shocking revalation. If we ignore the catagorized cluture of a sub community and instead strive to be our own person, complete with interesting ideas, opinions and personality, we can transcend the boundries that keep us seperatated into groups. The problem is, most people tend to lack the strength of character to strike out on their own, and that is why cliques are formed. Weak individuals bond with others to form a strong group, a support group if you will. These people help each other out, allowing the unofficial membership to have an easier time coping with the hardships they're forced into.

What am I saying? I'm saying that cliques and stereotyping are the product of a reaction to the hardship of being an individual, a necessity for all people of weak personal character who feel like they don't belong. The groups must exist, for the individuals are too incapable of being individuals to adjust to the microcosm around themselves. Cliques and stereotpyes may not be a good thing, but they are a necessity of existance for many people.

For these reasons, I find it quite unfair that James would have such a resentful tone in his article. Really, he ought to just make light of the entire situation and let the world run its course. Personally, I think all social groups should be made fun of in turn. Each and every one of them has it's flaws, and they need to be exploited for the purposes of mirth.

i like it, bit tough on preps though.

erm... i'm not too good on giving critisism.

so...
rawk on!

eah, it's REALLY bad in our school. Here's MY example:

I have some long hair. I am one of around 5-6 guys total in our school with long hair. I m cxonstantly ridiclued for it because they think I lok like Michael Jackson, or like a girl, and always act "surprised" wen I enter the boys locker rom. Also, about half the school, at least, KLOVES gay bashing. Since I don't like to hear gay bashings every nanosecond, I tend to ony stay friends with those who tend to keep an open mind.

I'm considered the school drifter, because I CAN drift from group to group and I'llbe able to blewnd in with most groups without them really noticing me there. I jsut chose not to because 1: they're mstly assholes and 2: I prefere hanging out with FRIENDS rather than Rumor-starters.

\I hate the majority of the students and the majo0rity of the faculty & staff in our school, because they generally hate me and my friends. and I LOVE to stand up for my friends[Whe I'm able to].

It oesn't help that we live an a rural school district.

The problem with your assertion is that I come from a small, country school. The real issue with my opinion is that it's bias due to my lack of experience. I've only ever been to the smallest type of school they have a classification for in my state, so I have no idea what it's like to go to a large city-type school.

However, I base my opinions on the idea that city schools are a large-scale model of the country schools. This may not always be true, but it's what I've come to think.

Anyhoo, point is that while I've been limited to a small school; I was not limited in my actions at the small school despite being a openly bisexual guy with no social group to cling to. Sure, some people wanted me the hell away from them, but that was a combination of homophobia and general dislike of my long-standing reputation as a nut-case. On top of that, the rumors that flew around about me were quite amusing. Aparently I was getting more sex than I ever knew or wanted.

The way to survive highschool is to ignore everyone's opinion of you. Once you've mastered not caring what anyone, even girl/boyfriends, think about you; you're set. You can do whatever you want and if you don't care nobody else will. In fact, you can even gain popularity this way, not that you'll care. Highschool is a pathetic four-year ritual of social degredation, and it's best to ignore all that and try to enjoy yourself. Why bother being bothered by people who are bothered by you?



My hair was long enough to reach the small of my back for most of highschool. I cut it halfway through my senior year so that it only reached my jaw because I needed to be able to slick it back for the play. A girl who transferred to our school actually looked more like me than her mirror-twin sister whenever I saved and wore a hat. You can imagine the teasings, especially since we were good friends.

Again, simply not caring what people think of you is the best way to deal with anything school can throw at you. If you find it hard, focus on the fact that most of the people you know from highschool, you won't ever see again outside of it.

oo; I don't really care what people think anymore, but that's just because people have learned to accept me. I'm a very social person and, besides, I take classes with the AP-kids, a.k.a. the open-minded-ones. Well, accept in Algebra 2, but the Juniors don't really pay attention to me...

In junior high and below, though, I was put down so much it wasn't even funny. I was a tomboy in elementry school and unpopular, I was the freaky "Japanese Cartoon" lover in sixth grade, and I was "That Lesbian Chick" in junior high. And my "group" didn't care enough about me to protect me until my freshman year of high school, so I was all alone. I admit that I like the idea of social groups now, but some people just don't feel that way.

My bud James, though, doesn't like them.

He's singled out and bashed so often that we can't protect him. He has, after only one semester in high school (we have a seperate school for freshman), officially been labeled "The Gay Guy". And he hates it.

Seriously. oo; People don't know me by my name, anymore. I'm "that one chick who hangs out with The Gay Guy and That Hollingsworth Kid". ("That Hollingsworth Kid" either refers to my friend Jim or his sister, Elizabeth, who have been singled out because of their hippy ways. >>; Their parents raised them like that, though, so our group holds nothing against them.) >>; It's really evil. And it doesn't help that I live in Texas... stupid homophobes...

It's not as bad as some other places, but, since Texas is just soooo in love with Bush, and he's all against gay rights and all that... --; My History teacher can ditch an entire lesson if you mention gay rights in his room. He'll spend the entire period talking about how gays are evil. He's a republican.

::huggles Kohki:: 'Tis okay, though! My group's almost always there for anyone who's gay and needs someone to protect them. ^^; Actually, now that I think about it, we're not really a group. We're just a ton of people linked by one person (James, oddly enough) that support everything there is, excluding close-minded-ness. It's pretty cool...

oO; Did that make sense?

religion class drawing, eep, it sucks because of the penness..i hope it isnt too big