Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: Disunited

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  • Sayana,

    Okay, I'll take that as proof of life - no-one writes quite like you!

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    Yay, an Up Front! So pleased. :)

    I have an American friend who's always trotting off to high school reunions. I couldn't think of anything worse.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • JackElder,

    This is precisely why I'm not on facebook: the prospect of a long, rolling high school reunion. Only without the one saving grace of a high school reunion: that you only have to lie about how well you're doing in your career once every decade or so.

    Wellington • Since Mar 2008 • 709 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    always trotting off to high school reunions

    His/hers, or somebody else's?

    There are a bunch of people out there who over the years have tried to make me join all sorts of high school former pupils groups and forcibly include me in their mailing lists - darn Internet. Luckily, living a whole world away saves me from coming up with excuses or (more likely) pointed suggestions for alternative places where to insert the invite.

    Yay for Emma postage.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    I have an American friend who's always trotting off to high school reunions. I couldn't think of anything worse.

    My mother was a school teacher. She LOVES reunions: if she'd been to fewer than twenty I'd be surprised. She was utterly flummoxed that I wasn't planning to go to mine.

    This is precisely why I'm not on facebook: the prospect of a long, rolling high school reunion.

    Almost noone from my high school is on Facebook. This is usually where I make the nasty jokes about literacy. OldFriends was a problem for a while. But the people that I would actually like to know what happened to (not necessarily communicate with) are never there.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    His/hers, or somebody else's?

    Heh. His. The twentieth, the twenty-fifth, the thirtieth *elementary school* reunion, blah blah blah. FFS, I'm nearly 35 years old. I finished school a month after I turned seventeen. I can hardly remember it, and what I can remember mostly sucked. Isn't it just a place to be miserable and then happily escape from at high speed?

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Don Christie,

    But given the choice between a school reunion and brain surgery, Sharon was completely right. I will go to great lengths.

    Totally. A complete no-brainer.

    Kaaboomcha

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1645 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Brislen,

    Oh Oh! I've got one...

    School reunions: you need that like a hole in the head.

    Ahahahahahahahaa.

    Best reunion ever: Grosse Point Blank.

    the rest suck and I say that as someone who's never been to one.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 200 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Saw headline, expected something allegorical, great to have you back. Succumbed to any shopping urges?

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Best reunion ever: Grosse Point Blank.

    Seconded. Real ones would just be a let down.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Succumbed to any shopping urges?

    heh, I may have enlisted someone else to indulge my shopping urges for me.

    Paul, you are a saint, and one of the reasons I've retained any sanity at all.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • George Darroch,

    This is precisely why I'm not on facebook: the prospect of a long, rolling high school reunion.

    Don't friend them. Though you're probably better off without it anyway.

    WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    The thing about school reunions is that there is always another one in 10 or 20, 50 or 100 years.

    I'm definitely not a reunion person, but I did enjoy collecting reminiscences for the school history I helped compile. When you've got an alumni that includes Trevor Mallard, Catherine Delahunty, Jeremy Coney, Georgina Beyer, Simon Wilson, Jamie Belich, Ian Wishart and Kate Camp for starters there is some quite rich material. The less famous people had interesting stories too.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Rebecca Williams,

    My dad went to his wife's school reunion in Christchurch last weekend. The first thing that happened to him was a very short man started telling him about how much he hates Auckland, and refused to be deflected, diffused or ignored. I think it kind of ruined it for him.

    I'm with Emma on the Group A, Group B thing. I already see people I want to see from school.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 120 posts Report Reply

  • Andrew Stevenson,

    Yay for Emma postage.

    Guess she is not a zombie after all...
    Can we get signed copies of NSFW?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 206 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Can we get signed copies of NSFW?

    Eventually? Yes. First Megan has to find me a dress, though, as I am clearly lacking one.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Christopher Nimmo,

    I'm definitely not a reunion person, but I did enjoy collecting reminiscences for the school history I helped compile. (...)

    Oooooonssssllloooooooowwwwww!

    Wellington • Since May 2009 • 97 posts Report Reply

  • Public Servant on a tea-break.,

    I completely agree with Mr Brislen, and his school reunion is the same one I wouldn't go to.

    Wellington • Since Apr 2008 • 67 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    I haven't been tempted by school reunions -- I subscribe to the A group B group theory too. I have accepted Facebook "friends" though. If people want to find out what I'm up to, I don't mind.

    I know of a couple of people from my year at secondary school who are very diligent about keeping tabs on everyone, but I really don't understand why.

    The notion that your teen years are the best ones of your life and that you would want to sit around reminiscing about them is very odd to me. Even if they had been consistently super-awesome, I want my life to get better, and not be a downward slope from 18 until death.

    (Is it a coincidence that Paul B and I and perhaps Public Servant all went to the same secondary school?)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • Isabel Hitchings,

    I'd pick the brain surgery over the reunion too.

    Several times I've been utterly bewildered by running into someone I knew at school and having them greet me with what seems like genuine enthusiasm when all I can think about is how thoroughly unpleasant they were to me at a time when it might have mattered to me.

    Christchurch • Since Jul 2007 • 719 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Parks,

    Saw headline,...

    "Oh, yes. There will be blood."

    Frankly, I'd rather go to "Saw 5" than to a high school reunion.

    Wellington • Since May 2007 • 1165 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    The notion that your teen years are the best ones of your life and that you would want to sit around reminiscing about them is very odd to me

    To be honest about my slight touch of hypocrisy here, I am sort of organising a university/KAOS reunion for early next year. It'll be twenty years we've all known each other, which just doesn't seem possible. Those were great days and I'm looking forward to getting people together and reminiscing, so I can kind of understand other people feeling that way about high school.

    But that's a group of friends more than an organisation.

    all I can think about is how thoroughly unpleasant they were to me at a time when it might have mattered to me.

    When I was in about my second year of varsity, I ran into one of my old high school bullies in town, and she was determined to pick up where she'd left off. I couldn't fathom it, that she still cared enough to bother.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Isabel Hitchings,

    I had a remarkably weird experience at Uni orientation my first year when someone who had ignored me most of the way through high-school shook my hand and congratulated me on the fact I was drinking beer and snogging a boy (because obviously the parties she didn't invite me to had previously been the only place I could possibly have done those things so this must have been my first experience of both).

    Christchurch • Since Jul 2007 • 719 posts Report Reply

  • Jackie Clark,

    Oh yes, school reunions. I've been to two - one of which I organised, and it was a class reunion so, yeah, not school at all. I loved school. I went to Marsden in Wellington as a boarder, and then came up here to Rangi for a year. Most of my old friends are from that one year, 1981, and it ruled. I think, initially, that some boys tried to bully me, but they soon realised I wasn't having it, and that was that. The reunion I organised was great, but I have to say that I do agree, Emma. The people you want to see you can track down by fair means or foul. You don't need to see the other lot. And as for single sex schools...........for me, that was hugely important. I had 4 brothers and I was very happy that I didn't have to spend every day for 4 years with them, and when I did come home for that final year, they were off at boarding school, and I had Mum and Dad to myself, most of the time.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    Yay for an Emma post and brain surgery jokes.

    As for reunions, I just don't really know. I have some very fond memories of school and some very unhappy ones. I wasn't part of the "in crowd" but I wasn't universally hated either (I think).

    I'm kind of curious what the girl I had a crush on for 10 years is like now, of course I'm eternally grateful I never had the guts to do anything about it because if I had I wouldn't be with my darling now.

    I think the real problem is that even a couple years after I left school I was a totally different person and the friendships I had then just didn't make sense any more. And if I changed that much surely they would as well.

    But some people seem to establish who they are very early and don't really change as much, or don't seem to. For those folks it makes sense that those who they liked then will still be people they like now.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

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