kids learn that they fucked up by having adults tell them "you fucked up." part of growing up is learning to figure this out on your own; by the time you hit adulthood, you should be able to infer when you fucked up without help. adults show each other that we fucked up more subtly. our shoulders shrug, we sigh, our faces get sad. we usually don't say "you fucked up," because that's how you talk to children, not other adults.

fucking up at berkeley high often got you talked to like an adult, not a child.

berkeley high had spirit week. it was traditional enough to end in a football game or dance or something, but my social cohort celebrated our school spirit in another way (irreverence) so the attention i paid it was only passing and incidental. i remember only two days of spirit week. one, the day on which we were all supposed to wear our school colors, was traditional and anodyne. the other was pimps and hoes day.

during my junior or senior year - i can't recall which - i somehow managed to juggle my schedule such that i was done with classes by 1pm. i was the only one who did this (it required the questionable decision to take biology over the summer), and consequently, i had one to two free hours between the end of my school day and the end of my friends'. my only recollection of how i filled this time was screwing around in novel ways.

like crashing one of berkeley high's latin classes.

"i'm assuming cody's high school had various student-organized collectives who published zines to keep the other students informed"

my high school was a strange place. it was pretty large (approximately 3200 students when i attended) and one of berkeley's few remaining reservoirs of reflexive rebellion. the student body worshiped ungovernability; bringing order to chaos required first showing cause, and adults usually couldn't. a lot weird stuff i remember turned out to be shockingly relevant to my adult life. berkeley high was, in many ways, closer to a community college than a high school - and a weird one at that.

i've told enough odd stories about my experiences there that one of my friends suggested i write them down. it sounded like a fun idea.