I loved elementary school (K to 8). I never wanted to miss a day, only did when I was far too sick to go. If I was home sick, I’d lament over all the fun I was missing, especially gym class and floor hockey. I recall once barely getting over a stomach bug I woke up with, and rushing to school to not miss the latter half of the day. On the last day of 8th grade, as we were waiting to get picked up, I vividly recall looking out at the school and wondering if the next stage of life could be as good as this one.
It wasn’t. I went to one high school while all my closest friends went to another, because the rents were adamant that I stick with private school, and I was legit depressed for most of ninth grade. Older guys ruled the school, dating all the girls in our grade, the guys in my grade were meh, apart from the main group that I became friends with, and the workload was intense, way more than what my friends had in public school. Not to mention, they got out at 2:30 while we got out at 4:30. Not fun. I didn’t even give two shits about grades suddenly because I knew 9th grade didn’t count for university. This after being top of the class always. But each year got better, and 11th and 12th grades were pretty fun, and I was well back to being top of the class during those years. Getting the drivers license was a big event that definitely made things a lot more fun and interesting. At the end, I was happy to get out of there though, and see what university was like.
Going to a university that was billed as all work and no play, which lived up to and far exceeded its reputation, was bittersweet. I loved the prestige factor, but damn the workload was insane and getting high grades was really hard for the first time in my life. But I worked my fucking ass off and did really well, but to this day, maybe once a year or two, I have a really bad nightmare about missing a credit and failing to graduate and wake up in a panic. Those years were defined by work, and there was zero social element at that school. I was again pretty much the only one among my group that went to this school, and I almost exclusively still hung out with my elementary and high school friends, and the new people that came into our orbit from the kids they met at their schools, which were infinitely more social than mine. So I sort of enjoyed the university life from a results standpoint, but I can’t relate at all to other people’s amazing university experiences (especially here, the American kids and their best time of their lives, frat and sorority filled, “college” lives). For me, university was really mostly the beginning of my work life.
This continued in law school over here, where the workload honestly wasn’t really close to the madness of the prior years. And sociallly, it was incredible. I definitely hated the forced subject matter of the curriculum in first year, mostly all classes I’d never choose to take. But you spend the whole year in the same group of around 80 kids or so, and you get really close to people because you’re with them all the time. Second and third year were great because now you could pick your classes, and it just got better every year socially. But I was well over school by then and couldn’t wait to get a job and make some money. I remember telling this to an uncle, and he was like, you’re crazy, there’s nothing but shit and stress in the work world, this is the best time of your life, relish the remainder of school. And I was like, nah, I’m sick of working for grades, and will never look back and say I wish I was still a student. And I never have.
But now I work crazy hours, though I like what I do, so no complaints, except that I’ve never had a good handle on work life balance, which is something I’m hoping to figure out one of these days (soon).