Where I Went to High School: Montgomery Blair

Unlike the last GentleMonth, my high school years were at best undramatic. Looking back, it was only during an improvised beach week with friends the summer after I graduated (and not the beach week, as we were all sober and at one of our friend's parent's timeshare) that I even really thought to look backwards and wonder about the what-if's of high school. But there wasn't much drama, I made the right choice, even if I didn't have a great time.

I did my four years of time at the lovely Montgomery Blair High School in real Silver Spring, Maryland. My first year was at old Blair, a fine old building where Ben Stein, Goldie Hawn and Carl Bernstein had also attended class. My last three were at new Blair, which was not a bad building by any means, but was much lacking in character when compared to the original.

But as I said not much happened to me in high school. It was a means to an end and I needed to get through it to get into college. I busted my ass -- chemistry almost killed me, Calc 2 almost killed me, my research paper senior year was a royal pain -- but I made it through and got into Maryland. That was the goal. I rarely hung out with folks outside of school and I'm not in touch with very many folks from high school now. My living really started in college, and even then thing didn't get all that interesting until sophomore year.

But it was not all drudgery. The thing that kept me sane in high school was Jazz Band every day, in the middle of the day, for my last three years. I cannot stress enough how beneficial it is to spend 50 minutes a day doing something you really enjoy. Sure in an ideal world it would be 8 hours a day for the rest of your life, but you've got to start somewhere. Hell, it should be mandatory that 5th period should be the "Do Something You Enjoy" period, be it music, art, gym, creative writing, etc. Something to re-energize teenage brains right before or after they have a (healthy) lunch.