How'd they do it

I've caught glimpses of some local soaps on the telly. Well. I'm not sure soap is the right term to use because there are no Mexicans, and the actors' lip movement and sounds you hear actually seem to match.

Those set in high schools particularly intrigued me. Partly as they provide some insight into the psyche of young people these days. But like most things it got me wondering. How did guys who went to high school in day schools manage. It was my first career decision I guess, selecting which schools to potentially go to on finishing primo. Had to select one national school. There weren't too many choices here. Not for me anyway. Knowledge of the school my dad had attended wasn't a contributing factor. Not consciously anyway. I just didn't like the others. Didn't know anything tangible about them so it wasn't some rational pros and cons thing. Then came the provincial schools. This was a bit tougher. Well. Not tough really but I had to apply some logic to this one. I didn't want to go to a day school. The commute to and from school had been a source of significant trauma throughout primo. I didn't want more of that. I figured that boarding life was too punitive for primo but I should be able to survive OK in high school. And I wasn't sure I'd survive high school if I was home all the time. Too many distractions, surely. My grades would likely not be too good and that wouldn't be a good thing for campus and beyond. So I went through the list of schools. There was only one boarding school for boys in the province. Not much choice there then. Had to select one more. At least one anyway. But I figured if I'd not gotten enough marks to go to any of the choices I'd made already, I was pretty much sunk and it wouldn't really matter where I went. So the third choice was more about name recognition. Luckily I got into my first choice. And from what I heard the mark I got was the cut off point. So I got in by the skin of my teeth. One mark less and my life would likely be unrecognizably different right now.

The other thing that intrigued me was how people survived in mixed schools. I mean. That would be just too much drama. I'm trying to imagine that commotion that preceded funkies. On a daily basis. My hat goes off to those who pull it off. We had a couple of significantly older female teachers to lust after but that was about it. Occasionally there were those [young] teaching practice types. Can't remember any of them teaching our class actually. I wonder if they were any good. Good at teaching that is. They certainly were good to look at. And chat to and whatnot for those who were brave enough. Whichever the case, they certainly were a source of preoccupation. When I extrapolate that to a co-ed situation, I'm not sure how guys get or retain any of that academic stuff that teachers go on about. Perhaps you get used to it and don't spend the entire 4 years trying to get with the next chic. I of course went to a boys school, ended up in a campus class with virtually all guys and onto a profession where majority of colleagues are male. So I didn't have the pleasure of getting used.