THE
ABC’s OF
MY HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE ALLISON SHIMAN
Š Copyright Allison Shiman 2010
Thank you to all of the teachers that made high school bearable. somewhat
WELCOME BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL. Dear High School Self, I am probably crazy for wanting to re-visit you for this book. I know these four years have been painful, but it gave me a lot of killer content, so thanks. Just know that it was all worth it and that you will grow up to be a worldfamous graphic designer. (Ok, maybe that last part’s not true...yet.) Love, your Older and Wiser Self P.S. Sorry about the purple hair.
ACT’s
A
ll of my friends got perfect scores on their ACT’s. I chose to go to art school.
BUS
N
ot having my own car meant having to take the bus for way longer than what was socially acceptable.
COMPUTER ART
C
omputer Art w as my favorite c lass in high scho ol. It was the cla ss that made me want to beco me a graphic designer.
DETENTION
I
got detentions for being late to school all the time, but I told everyone that they were for reasons that sounded much more bad-ass.
EMO
F
or more info, please visit my Livejournal.
FAVORITE BANDS
IGood Charlotte, Taking Back Sunday, and Fall Out Boy. n high school, my favorite bands were
(See
previous page.)
GYM CLASS
F
reshman year, there was an error in the scheduling system and a couple of girls ended up in freshman boys’ gym.
I was one of them.
The gym teacher was a former Marines drill instructor. On the first day of gym class, he warned us that we wouldn’t be treated any differently than the boys. Then he made us drop and give him 50.
HAZING
T
he football team got in a lot of trouble for a hazing incident involving a banana...use your imagination.
ICE CREAM
I
ce cream vending machine in the cafeteria meant ice cream for lunch.
JEWISH
P
retty much everyone that went to my high school was Jewish.
KISS THE PIG
T
here used to be an event during pep rallies in which a teacher would have to kiss a live pig. It was cancelled shortly after the school received a threatening letter from PETA. Guess who contacted PETA about Kiss the Pig.
(Some people still hold a grudge against me for it.)
LOCKERS
All four I never
years of knew
high where my
school locker was.
MASCOT
O
ur school mascot carried a rifle. He was really controversial.
NURSE S OFFICE ’
ometimes, when I didn’t feel like going to class, I would go to the nurse’s office and sleep on one of S the cots. I wasn’t the only one with this idea and there was usually a pretty fierce battle over who got to stay and sleep and who got sent back to class. How did I always end up getting to stay? Two words: “Female Problems”.
OFFICER
O
ur school had a seriously good-looking police officer.
He was a Silver Fox that we called “Officer Hottie”. ...Or maybe that was just me.
PEP RALLIES
P
ep rallies probably would have been fun, had I gone to any.
(We had so many students that it was impossible for the whole school to fit in the auditorium, so we usually watched the pep rallies on TV monitors in the cafeterias.)
QUEEN
Homecoming queen nominations were Serious Business.
RECYCLING
I
n an exposĂŠ by the school newspaper, it was revealed that the recycling was actually being mixed in with the regular garbage in one large dumpster. Scandal!
SENIOR PRANK
P
roposed senior prank: release 99 red balloons in the building with two-story tall ceilings. Balloons will have to remain there for months until they deflate. Become the talk of the school and go down in history for having the greatest senior prank ever.
A
ctual senior prank: A couple of guys went swimming in the nasty pond by the side of the road. Nobody cared.
TARDY
(I have no idea if this is what the morning bell actually sounded like. I was never there to hear it.)
I
was tardy for the majority of my high school career. Is it my fault that school started at 8:30 a.m.?
UTERUS
uterme + uteryou = uterus
I
dressed as a uterus for Halloween one year. I dont’ even know why.
VEGETARIAN CRUSADE
made the decision to I become a vegetarian when I was a freshman in high school.
During my senior year I went on a onewoman mission to try to get the school cafeteria to start offering vegetarian options. I distributed petitions, collected signatures and had several meetings with the cafeteria staff and school administration but, by the time I graduated, I still had no veggie burgers.
WINTER BREAK
N
o school. ‘Nuff said.
X-RATED
THE SEX ISSUE
T
he journalism team did an x-rated issue of the school newspaper that was all about oral sex. It received national attention after an intense freedom of speech battle with school administration who tried, but failed, to keep it from running. I still have a copy of it.
YEARBOOK
G
etting your yearbook signed by everyone was a really big deal. It meant having all of those people whom you
haven’t talked to since grade school together in one place to write about your everlasting friendships.
ZERO TOLERANCE
Y
ou name it, we had a zero tolerance policy about it.
COLOPHON This book was designed and edited by Allison Shiman for Craig Jobson’s Publication Design class at Columbia College Chicago. It was printed digitally and bound by hand. Fonts used are Jolly and Hyperbole. This book was made in December, 2010.