Danny ChaiRandom fact about me: I loved junior high. Unequivocally, completely loved it. I look back on junior high with a lot of fondness. I think this is unusual. I think a lot (most?) people see junior high as a time of angst or pain or conflict or whatever. But not me.
I think the reason is, junior high is when I realized that you don’t have to be “cool” to be liked, successful, and have a good time. I think in elementary school I was always a little bitter that I wasn’t “cool”. But that changed in junior high. I’ll be honest – a big reason for that was the realization that nerds could have girlfriends. Revolutionary, I tell you.
Actually, maybe the biggest factor was band. I dunno, when I think about it, my experience in jazz band probably changed my life in a lot of ways. But yeah, we were really successful and we had a lot of fun. And in certain ways, things were flipped – like the “cool” people in band somewhat admired me, which was a shocking little surprise. So yeah, we were successful and had fun, and that’s when I realized, who needs to be “cool”? And I think I’ve been rejecting being cool ever since.
So yeah, for me, in contrast to a lot of people, junior high helped solidify my character, not confuse it. Random fact.