high-school reunion

[cellio]

It's not my imagination; I really am from a different planet than those folks.

Today's mail brought a pitch for a high-school reunion (round-number year, so presumably special). Now even if I wanted to go this one starts out with two fatal flaws (a Friday night, and Thanksgiving weekend), but... no, let me just share the list of highlights for the weekend:

Friday:
- WPIAL high-school football finals
- dinner with cash bar

Saturday:
- family get-together at "FunFest" (whatever that is)
- flag football game (playing, not watching)
- Pitt football game
- "hanging out for the evening at a local establishment...suggestions welcome"

Sunday:
- Steeler party

No, I really don't think so!

Comments

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I got an e-mail today about the events planned for the 10th reunion of my grad school class, and my feelings were similar.

Highlights:

- wine and cheese reception on Friday evening
- dinner with classmates after reception
- family picnic at National Zoo on Saturday around midday
- drinks on Saturday evening

It felt pretty good to RSVP "no", not least since all this quote-unquote fun is going to be taking place over the first days of Sukkos.

[cellio]

family picnic at National Zoo

At least you have a destination that some people would go to independently. :-)

But yeah, I can see how that entire package would fall flat for you, even without Sukkot.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

I dunno--yours sounds way better than the one ellid described (but I happen to like the National Zoo :-D)

[jhayman.livejournal.com]

Interesting isn't it?

This year is/was my 20 year reunion from my nursing degree. I looked at the Grad weekend activities and it was clear that unless you're an athlete or in BUSINESS, you don't rate. This struck me as really odd from a university with the most innovative Medical/Nursing program in the world. I told them that I'd give it a miss and why. I think that's the part that's important, because otherwise the people those activities appeal to attend and those choices are reinforced.

[cellio]

That sounds awfully lame given the school, yes!

I told them that I'd give it a miss and why. I think that's the part that's important, because otherwise the people those activities appeal to attend and those choices are reinforced.

Well, they could also get it from numbers. And if the vast majority of my classmates think this sort of thing is spiffy, they're not going to listen to me anyway. This isn't the first reunion, so I'm guessing that past attendance has guided them.

Perhaps a better person would try to explain instead of just ignoring them like I'm doing. Maybe I'm too lazy. :-)

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

My 20th High School Reunion involves a "scavenger hunt around Harvard [hometown], to show our kids where we grew up." Screw that. I don't have kids, and if I did, I like to think they'd find that lame.

[cellio]

Eww, lame. As is the assumption that of course everyone (1) has kids (and of an appropriate age!) and (2) wants to bring them.

Been there, done that, got the commemorative glassware

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

My 20th anniversary high-school reunion, five years ago, caused similar feelings in me, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how much some of those I remembered as teens had matured since then.

[magid.livejournal.com]

My college reunions tend to be of the not-going-to-happen variety (on a different axis than yours, but still not interesting enough to make the bother worthwhile), but my last high school reunion was great, just a big gathering the Saturday night of Thanksgiving weekend. It would've been even better had they not gotten a band (everyone went to the other room to be able to hear each other), but it still worked.

Is high school so important that people will spend a whole weekend on reunion?

[cellio]

Is high school so important that people will spend a whole weekend on reunion?

Maybe to some, but not to me. Only about a quarter of my graduating class declared an intention to go to (4-year) college, so maybe this is a big deal to a lot of my classmates. (Some went to "business school", which didn't mean MBA but rather secretary++, some went to trade school, some got jobs straight out of school, and I think a few went into the military. A surprising number declared the intention to become beauticians.)

Other demographics to give a feel for the academics of the place when I was there: no national merit scholars, one national merit "commended student" (next step down) (wave), two AP classes available only in senior year (so I missed 'em), no official support for advanced students. The place has changed since then.

[magid.livejournal.com]

High school is formative in many ways, but only four years, after all. Though if people didn't go on to college, this is the only possibility for this kind of reminiscing, so I suppose it makes more sense. I'm a much bigger fan of the 'one big party' approach for this kind of thing. Plenty of time to chat with people, reconnect, arrange to meet later if that's what's wanted. Because for me it's about the people, not dusting off that tarnished (if it ever existed) school spirit or something.

[ariannawyn.livejournal.com]

Assuming this is Pgh, Funfest is a glorified bowling alley / laser tag place in Harmarville. I go bowling there with the kids sometimes, though it's outrageously expensive and the .

Yes, they live on a different planet. That's why you're in the SCA. :-)

[ariannawyn.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that should have been - and the strobe lights give me a headache.

[cellio]

Thanks. Yeah, it's local, so that's probably the place.

(Strobe lights? Why do people do that? They give me headaches, too.)

[tyedie.livejournal.com]

Huh, I don't think I ever knew that you were actually from Pittsburgh. All your stories seem to be dated from the time you were at CMU, so I just assumed you came from someplace remote and got sucked into the gravity well like so many others.

[cellio]

Yeah, I'm from around here. Not technically native (I was three when my family moved to the Pittsburgh suburbs), but functionally so.

I suspect that tales of my time in high school would mostly be pretty boring; I was your typical smart kid who didn't yet know how to get along in groups that don't value that. (My school didn't value it structurally, and many of the individuals -- including some teachers -- didn't seem to value it personally.) By the time you're in college you're starting to learn how to adapt to different types of people and social situations; one of the problems with growing up in a small school district is that even if you do get these clues as a teenager (and I mostly didn't), these are the people you've mostly been with since kindergarten and memories are long. So I don't exactly have lots of fond memories of my large group of friends.

I'm not hostile to these people, just indifferent. I don't think having a common past is enough of a reason to expend effort, and there's no one I'm particularly looking to reconnect with. (Well, none of the students; there's one teacher I wouldn't mind catching up with, if I had any idea how to accomplish that.)

[jducoeur]

Yaas. I went to one high-school reunion (pretty early, something like the third year out), and realized that I had already lost all commonality with most of these folks. Even the fellow geeks were from a different reality than me. So I've wound up not worrying about it much: there are a few people I miss, but I'm not exactly lacking in social life these days...