Kostya

To occupy and amuse myself during the far too long Summer break, I have decided to compile a series of anecdotes of my high school years. Of course, I’m sure that most will find them tedious and will be unable to relate to the cultural specifics. I have decided not reveal the actual name of my school, since the many of scandals and intrigues I wish to write about have been well covered up by the administration, they were always big on salvaging the public image of the institution, thus I have decided to write is such that only someone who actually attended or taught there would recognise which school I am talking about. I have also decided to call everyone by their nickname, which is not an issue since there isn’t a school on the entire continent of Australia without a Robbo, a Blocka or a Red. I have always looked back fondly on my school days, a time when youthful caprice and boisterous shenanigans were the daily fare, so hopefully, this catalogue of high school lore will be lukewarm entertainment for anyone who accidentally clicked this link.

Orientation Day

I don’t know what they called it at other schools, but here, they called it ‘Orientation Day’, I recall it vividly, the entire experience was very much like the procedure for those entering prison. The lead up to Orientation Day had been exciting, I had purchased my textbooks, gotten new shoes and a haircut. Getting the new uniform was an experience though. The Uniform Shop was presided over by two ancient ladies, who had both made it their mission to combat the rising trend of baggy clothing. One was a tall lean woman, a cloud of silvery hair surrounding her thin, sombre visage as she constantly sent you back to get a smaller size, despite your constant pleas that you would ‘grow into them’. The other was the same age, but had decided blatantly dyed hair was better than accepting the effects of age, I recall that her hands were laden with jewellery, thick garish bands, encrusted with cheap stones and cubic zirconia which audibly clinked together as she drummed her fingers angrily on the cash register and grudgingly allowed you to buy a shirt that didn’t make you look like a male stripper.

We arrived in the morning, clustering together, a gigantic throng of mock bravado and fearful fake laughter. Many a lad sat despondent on his own, not a familiar face in sight, luckily I was there with Ferris, who had spent Grade 7 there, and thus was by our standards an old hand. At exactly 8.15 a bell was rung, and it became apparent that some kind of assembly would now be held as the boys who had spent Year 7 there tramped confidently over to the what was known as the TC.

Inside was a somewhat harrowing experience for us all. We were dwarfed by a hall built to hold ten times as many people as us, apart from the new kids, the only other people present were a few Seniors and a large portion of the staff, who stood around the periphery of the hall, as though they were waiting for the first boy to lose his nerve and make a break for the door. I sat there, looking I imagine like wildlife caught in the headlights of a truck, and wondering why on earth they made these shorts so damn uncomfortable. We all craned our necks, as a man, who appeared to be the one in charge ascended onto the stage in front of us and took his place in front of the lectern. It was the Deputy Headmaster ‘Tricky Dicky’ as we called him since his name was Richard. He not a tall man, nor was he exceptionally short, his face was somewhat contradictory, with slightly chubby cheeks and receding hairline he had long abandoned the notion of disguising clashing with the piercing stern blue eyes which blazed out from under his eyebrows, scrutinising it seemed each and every one of us at once. Clearly, this was the man in charge, and he was here to tell the new inmates what’s what. He spoke with an American accent, in clear, sharp and severe tones.

The one thing I recall from his address was this: “In this school, the Seniors are the student leaders, you will listen to them, you will respect them and you damn well better obey them. If a senior tells you to jump, you ask ‘How high?’ on the way up, if a Senior tells you to jump in the pool, you can come and complain to me, but you damn well better be dripping wet when you get to my office!”

The whole assembly was a nice mix of introduction and intimidation, ensuring that everyone was informed of the rules and any would be rebels were well aware of the consequences of their actions.

“Any boy who fails to follow the rules here will be dealt with accordingly” Tricky said, we all knew what that meant: The Cane.

Indeed, we were in the school that time forgot, where institutions such as the cane, which have since been branded barbaric and unproductive still existed. It wasn’t so bad, but then again I was never subjected to the cane myself, though I did have a few close calls. In fact, in a way, the boys respected the Cane, and since we were the only school to have it, we liked to brag about it to kids from other schools. ‘Yeah, it’s all good and well for you to throw rocks, but where I’m from mate, you’d get caned for that.’ One would remark, sticking your thumbs in your belt and leaning back on your heels with smug satisfaction at the incredulous stares of the rock throwing delinquent in question. The Cane was the administrations greatest instrument of terror, until it was grudgingly phased out midway through Grade 11, when the tides of changes reached even our little island of anachronisms. For the first three years of school though, we all lived under the ever present spectre of the thin yellow bamboo or wooden rod in the office of the Year Masters and Deputy Head. Bazza the crazy maths teacher had one too, it was named Milo, but it had long since been retired and was only for show and making loud noises with, but I digress.

After been thoroughly terrified by the disciplinarian speech of Dicky, we were then taken on a tour by a senior, I remember that during this tour, I found out nothing about where anything was, and the only thing I realised was that I was going to be lost within two seconds of actual classes the following day. Needless to say, had I been witty enough to think it up, I would have remarked that Orientation Day had thus far succeeded only in disorienting me, but since my repertoire or pithy remarks extended little beyond ‘I know you are but what am I?’ I didn’t utter a word.

Then we were assigned to our Form teachers. Our Form teachers would be the ones who conducted Form Class, which was the first period of everyday, where notices were read out, newsletters were distributed and other miscellaneous items of business were seen to. I found myself in 8E, with Ando the Oldboy (alumni in Seppo-speak) who had been a rugby star for the school in the late 80’s and had returned to teach Chemistry. He was a new staff member, having begun on the very same day as us. He was a thickset man, whose meaty trunk narrowed only slightly at the neck upon which was perched his squarish head. He read to us the rules contained in the front of out Yearbooks, a sort of diary in which homework and messages were recorded, a deadly poker face settled over his heavy set jaw. His appearance later earned him the nickname ‘Bulldog’, though I suspect this was also his name when he was at school ten years earlier. It was an interesting scene, the new staff member with the new students and a tense silent sense of dread permeating the air as each of us managed to suppress the myriad of fears and questions we were already faced with.

After Form Class, were sent to the Open Air Theatre for warcry practice. I shall discuss the spectacle that is warcry practice in a later story.

At 12 O’clock, the students were technically allowed to leave, go home and have a milkshake to calm their jangled nerves and dread the following day when actual school began. However, all those intending to try out for cricket teams were to remain behind for trials on No. 4 oval. I arrived, dressed in what I hoped would pass for cricket whites, though my shirt was actually just a white polo shirt from Best and Less. The cricket nets were a hive of activity, with boys bowling, batting, striding around with pads on their legs and throwing boxes (generally worn to protect the groin from injury) at each other. The man in charge was Mr. B, or as he would later be known Billy B. Mr. B was the morbidly obese ‘Personal Development Officer’ who also coached the 13A cricket team. I approached him as he rummaged through a kit for something, a giant triangular sweat stain extending down his back, his horribly obese frame quivering with every movement.

‘Excuse me sir’ I enquired, ‘but where are the bats?’

He grunted something unintelligible and threw his hand towards something in a gesture which was aborted quickly as he brought his thick hairy red arm back under him to prevent himself from toppling forward. I couldn’t see any cricket bats in the direction he had seemed to point.

‘Are there any pads left?’ I asked timidly.

With surprisingly speed he rounded on me, his huge face crimson with anger, a thin sheen of sweat gleaming on his huge rosy jowls.

‘JESUS BLOODY CHRIST BOY DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE THE BLOODY TOILET PAPER IS TOO!’ he bawled, pausing only because he had run out of breath. He produced a filthy towel from his pocket and wiped the shiny coating of sweat from his face, as his bulging eyes continued to shout at me I saw beads of sweat already forming all over his fat pudgy face. Even on the double chin which rolled out over the top of his collar, as though he was perpetually being strangled by his tie was sweaty and a brilliant shade of beetroot. I decided it was best to simply locate these items on their own, but from the very first day of my high school years I disliked Mr. B. I disliked him then, I really disliked him when he pretended to be everyone’s friend, and I outright despised years later as I finished when he was convicted of molesting a boy in the year above me and sent to jail for some time. Vindication.

I finally went home at around 2.30pm, exhausted, confused and on the verge of giving away this high school gig all together.

taliendo

This is absolutely a grand beginning. I am very intrigued and interested in your continuing of this tale.

__________________
-LIFE IS ABSURD-

castex

I knew Neighbours was a lie, and you've confirmed this handsomely. Great stuff, Kostya; I could feel those teachers dragging me up by the short and curlies as I read

Kostya

The wacky world of the all boys private school is a very difficult one for outsiders to appreciate. Like any institution, our school had its own set of quirky traditions and cultural values, the fact that the student body was entirely male certainly ensured that school held very little resemblance to actual society.

I was glad to discover that there was no ‘most popular boy’ or any kind of ultra elitist ‘cool group’ which lorded over the school with their illusion of power. There were those who were loved by all, and those who were loved by few, and it basically depended on what kind of person you were. A boy who was a stellar athlete who acted like a thug wasn’t respected or particularly liked for long. On the other hand the boy with poor motor skills and no athletic ability who was good natured and witty was far more likely to get along with almost everyone. Of course, in the early years the ‘cool’ people tended to hang out together, but there was none of the sickening entourages of sycophants following the best rugby players around the halls. Of course, the issue of status became largely irrelevant by midway through Year 10, and after the entire grade got along without the currency of popularity. There was however the overarching issue of popularity within the entire school community, how popular were you with the entire student body, it was good to be liked, but not essential, and in the privacy of a senior classroom, the most loved and respected 1st XV Rugby player could be playing noughts and crosses with a nerdy chess team boy.

If I were to meet the boys who were Seniors at my school in my first year there, I am sure they would seem like average normal guy just like me, but in my memory they remain giants. As the lowest of the low, we grade 8’s lived in awe of the Senior body, idolised them, in fact deified them, they were literally demigods to us. When Woomba and Gumby got into a fight with a rival school’s mascot and were suspended after a teacher found them pummelling a polar bear like Jay and Silent Bob, there was nothing cooler than that for us, and we would forever reminisce about it, even into our own Senior year. ‘Remember when Woomba and Gumby beat up the mascot?’ ‘Yeah that was fuckin brilliant’.

In our school it helped to be endowed with sporting prowess, unusual toughness and a spirit of rebellion, but in order to be truly beloved by your peers the most important thing to be was funny. Wit was the premium prerequisite to popularity with both students and teachers, and those who possessed the magical ability to make others laugh were the most universally loved. Of course at thirteen, wit for us consisted of placing ‘Kick me’ signs on teachers backs and making ‘Your Mum’ jokes. Few fist fights broke out while I was in school, and generally more disputes were settled with an unofficial duel of tongues, may the most caustic and quick prevail. A half gibberish dialect known only to the students which was basically using the insurance value of euphemism to say what one needed to say. There were however many social concepts which I do not believe existed anywhere else which also applied to verbal sparring. In the traditional manner, one could be ‘burnt’ by his opponent, and until Grade 10 this meant a ‘ride on the bone train’, or if you were less decisively defeated your attempts to ‘make a comeback’ would be drowned out by a cacophony of ‘Merrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr’ or ‘Merski’ or ‘Mer ya bourkit, boned ouuuuuuut!’ To anyone else this ritual must have seemed somewhat insane, but I would content that lewd and puerile content aside it was an intricate dance of linguistic warriors facing off in a duel to the ‘bone out’. There was a very specific and sophisticated set of laws surrounding the entire process, and anyone who attempted something unacceptable was instantly subject to disqualification as specified in the Giant Book of Unwritten Payout Laws. Using one call repeatedly in a certain way was Ok, but in a different context it was seen as poor form. Also the use of ‘Janzies’ (named after an Australian TV chef: ‘Here’s one I prepared earlier’), was looked down upon, and generally attempts to make such prepared gags look natural were shot down by the audience who were exceptionally good at spotting a fake. A call coming from the mouth of a seasoned veteran who was renowned for cutting and witty remarks was met with approval in the form of cheering of the veteran and jeering of his opponent, but the same call made by somebody known to be unimaginative and slow was spotted as a premeditated call and met with derision and dismissal. It was Ok to make a call like: ‘Oi Johnno, tell your mum I want my jocks back ya gigantic wanker’, if you were not Johnno’s mortal enemy, and Johnno would take it as a joke and not be insulted in the least by this slight against his mother, and the jester would not be credited with any kudos for such an uninspired and formulaic joke anyway. However if during the course of an argument Johnno were to say ‘What do you think you’re doing’ and the jokster replied off the cuff ‘Ya mum!’, then he may in fact illicit a few laughs from the crowd, though it wasn’t a very inspired insult, then Johnno would be insulted not about his mother’s honour, but by the fact that points were scored against him, and would have to rise to the occasion. In this case it was always best to attack a boy’s sexuality, since in a conservative, all boys school full of hormonal emotional mutants, homophobia was rampant. Also, since the call made against him was not very imaginative, Johnno is under no obligation to come up with something stellar himself and could in fact use a well known gag like ‘Least I got a mum and not two dads ya poofta!’ and then the onus would be on the originator to come up with something better and so on. As the years went on, and we grew out of adolescence, ‘Ya mum’ jokes and attacks on a boy’s sexual orientation came to be looked down upon as juvenile, and were in any case largely ineffectual since by now we had actual self esteem. Hopefully this has given you some kind of understanding of how every boy depended on the speed and sharpness of his wit to live in a world of cutthroat insults. Even now, three years later, I am amazed that when I trip on a step people offer me empathy and help me up or ask if I am OK instead of a callous choir rising as one with harmonic backing with the single word ‘Taxiiiiiiiiiiiiii!’

Related by entirely different to this was the ability to make jokes, as opposed to payouts. A payout was a direct insult against another boy, delivered one’s acidic tongue planted firmly in one’s cheek. A joke was a remark or action that was not insulting any of your peers, but instead simply entertained the entire audience present. This of course did not mean you were not allow to belittle the teachers or students passing by out of earshot. The most highly regarded were those who would martyr themselves on the Alter of Laughter for the sake of a gag. One of the most bold examples of this senseless heroism was in Grade 9 on the first day. I was not there to see it but I was told what happened by eye witnesses. We had a new member of staff who unfortunately for her was an attractive young lady, teaching in a school packed to the gills with frustrated socially maladjusted boys. One the very first day of classes, this new teacher was setting out the rules of her classroom to 9B, the worst of all Grade 9 classes, and at the end having finished she asked ‘Does anyone have any questions?’ A solitary hand waved in the air in mock urgency, it belonged to Squeaky, an attention-craving troublemaker who did little more than say the wrong thing to everyone for his five-year tenure there. ‘Yes’ said the teacher. ‘Miss,’ Squeaky replied in a calm deadpan voice ‘you do know G-strings are prohibited by the School dress code don’t you?’ Why on earth the woman had actually chosen such an ill advised undergarment to teach physics at an all boys school is a mystery. Nevertheless, Squeaky was put through the meat grinder by the administration, emerging with 6 strokes of the cane on his behind and a gigantic smile on his face. His audacity and genuine kamikaze attitude were admired by all for weeks, and his story went down as one of many days of infamy in the history of the B class.

Until my final year, the school was run by an ancient Ukrainian man, who had been on the staff for almost 5 decades and wanted everything to remain as they did when he arrived. We were quite literally ‘Oldschool’. There was an interesting cohabitation of authority. There was the School’s Code, and there was the ‘Boy’s Code’. The two seemed to work alongside one another, overlapping often, despite the massive contradiction in values. The easiest way to divide where the imperium of the administration applied and where the organic unwritten code of students applied is this: Inside school grounds, where there was no public eye to worry about, our code held sway, it was important to be boisterous, garrulous, loud and bawdy, and though general rules applied, the administration’s code of restraint and maturity was only important outside where the public could see us. Both sets of values shared essential foundations, but many ideas, especially abstract values like honour, which was most important to both systems suffered from a giant difference in conceptualisation. Honour to the administration meant being loyal to the school, the institution and its public image. To us it meant solidarity between the students. The chasm of understanding that divided us was most apparent when somebody was falsely accused of a crime and knew who was in fact responsible. To the administration the boy had a clear cut duty to reveal the actual culprit or face harsh punishment himself: ‘For God’s sake boy, we know it wasn’t you, so tell us who the real perpetrator is and we’ll make sure it won’t come back on you.’ Of course, to the kid standing on the plush red carpet on the other side of the very intimidating desk, with the pale white cane gazing down on him menacingly from the shelf it was a clear cut case of not ratting anyone out. So, many a boy came down with selective amnesia and suffered the wrath of the administration, but received the unreserved respect and gratitude of the boys. Generally the actual culprit was a close friend of the accused, and so it went down as a favour between friends, but when a boy took a fall for a stranger or somebody indifferent to him, it was customary for him to receive more acclaim and for the culprit to give him some token of gratitude. However, if it became apparent that a boy was going to be punished exceedingly harshly, such as expulsion or a ban from competing in sport, then the guilty party was expected to turn himself in and vindicate the accused. It was a peculiar dichotomy of ideas, and many a boy took six or twelve of the best for somebody else’s crime, but in the end it generally evened out. Those who were known to have informed were not ostracised completely, but their status as a dependable companion was forever lost. There were also those that informed willingly, though their identities were never known, everyone knew that some boys went to the administration willingly to inform them of major events. Little went down in the student body that nobody knew about, almost all breaches of school policy were done in groups, pairs or en masse, and once the secrets came down the least trustworthy end of the grapevine, the informers obviously told the administration heavies the fragments that had survived long enough to reach them, and this was how they got their leads, and worked their way back to the usual suspects. It was all very thrilling at times, especially when a giant event such as the food fight of 99’ was pulled off without so much as a inkling filtering through to The Man.

Averett

You really are a great storyteller. I hope you have more for us!

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Absence is to love what wind is to fire. It extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.

taliendo

This is remarkable - humorous, insightful, simply beautiful writing. I wonder if you have ever read Orwell's essays? He has a particularly good set about his days in a private school.

__________________
-LIFE IS ABSURD-

Kostya

We are all sent to school to learn. The thing is, there are two curricula, the official one, taught in classrooms with the aid of blackboards and textbooks, and the myriad of skills you pick up in the corridors and football fields. Some of these skills serve us well for the rest of our adult lives, such as the ability to lie, a talent we all honed during our adolescence and continue to utilise for the rest of our adult lives. There are some skills we learn however, that quickly become redundant once we step outside the cloistered corridors of our beloved learning institutions.

Place enough adolescent boys in a confined environment for more than four minutes, and one will find that almost without fail, their hormones will get the better of them, and testifying (edit: Mild Freudian slip there, my bad) to their primate background, the desire to prove their strength and toughness will override all else. Apparently the best way to do this is to hit each other, but not seriously injure each other.

Over many years, this primal urge was refined, honed and structured into a highly technical and stylised martial art: School Fu. The Masters of School Fu were the Senior Boarders, who passed down the secrets to their young apprentices, who in turn put their knowledge into practice on the newly arrived Grade 8 boys, and in this way, all boys learnt the secret art of School Fu.

School Fu, as far as I know was only seriously practiced in all boys schools, where the high concentrations of testosterone and low concentration of maturity made it an essential element of self defence.

Of course, this probably conjures up images of bullying for everyone reading this, I can see everyone imagining a gigantic boy with no neck karate chopping a bespectacled computer club member in the larynx. School Fu was practiced by all boys, the nerds did it to the Rugby stars, the potheads attacked the fundamentalist Christians, and vice versa. The nature of School Fu, negated the size and strength of any opponent, for School Fu rests upon the twin pillars of surprise and speed.

Surprise: Almost all School Fu moves are executed on unwitting opponents, from behind.

Speed: Immediately after any attack, one must make a rapid retreat.

School Fu is a form of combat which focuses primarily upon pressure points, tripping moves and inflicting pain without leaving marks. It seems like a joke, but I assure you that the highly technical nature of School Fu is akin to any martial art. Consider the seemingly basic operation of the ‘Chicken Wing’.

The Chicken Wing

The Chicken Wing involves striking an opponent mid way up the forearm, causing them to involuntarily retract their arm into a pose resembling funnily enough a chicken wing.

1. Who is the opponent?

One must ask oneself, how fast can this guy run? Will I be able to escape into the safety of the Library in time, perhaps if I go through the fire exit I will be able to lose him. How tough is this person? Will they take a long time to recover their wits, or will they immediately give me a Dead Arm as a counter attack? Is he expecting this attack? Do I really want to have to spend the rest of the day in constant vigilance to defend against reprisals?

2. Fist shape.

The Chicken Wing is generally thrown in a downward swinging motion, the way a Yo-yo is thrown, maximising the whiplash effect on impact. When throwing a Chicken Wing in this way, one uses a normal fist shape. However, if one was attempting to Chicken Wing a raised defensive forearm, or attacking from a crouched position, it is better to use the Crow Peck formation of the fist. The Crow Peck fist is simply a normal fist, except with the second joint (not the knuckle) of the middle finger protruding from the front of your fist, generally supported by locking the index finger underneath it. The Crow Peck fist is used in jabbing motion, so that the impact of the fist is transferred into a very small surface area, allowing for more accurate blows to nerve centres, joints and bones.

3. Placement of blow

Generally, the Chicken Wing is delivered to the gap between the sinewy muscles on the top of the forearm. Rest assured, this is quite painful. It is however possible for the more skilled student of School Fu to strike in the crook of the elbow, an even more debilitating, but difficult target.

4. Strength of Blow

Closely related to the placement of a Chicken Wing, is how hard one delivers it. If it is essential to be successful in your Chicken Wing, then it is best to sacrifice force for accuracy, for the harder and faster a novice attempts to do so, the more chance there is of the blow landing inaccurately and being ineffective. If the aim is simply to get attention, a light blow which causes a sensation somewhat akin to a mild bump on the funny bone is best. If under attack with no retreat, it is best to strike, hard, strike fast, and hope that you find your mark, for a successful Chicken Wing of that magnitude is sure to give one time to escape.

If you were to walk the corridors of my old school today, you could watch boys engaged in this delicate operation of Chicken Winging their peers. What seems to be a random act of boisterous comradery is in fact a highly premeditated and sophisticated operation.

Of course, simple hand to hand combat was only one form of School Fu. There was also a variety of weapons available to the School Fu warrior. Weapons were more popular in classrooms, as they tended to be more silent, and allowed one to attack and defend against opponents at opposite ends of the classroom. Probably the most popular of all weapons was the lethal 'Paper Wasp'.

‘The Paper Wasp’

The etemology of The Paper Wasp is interesting. Some say it is derived from the actual insect of the same name with a bad temper and a worse sting. Other say it is simply because it is made of paper. Paper Wasps are simple and quick to make, and if made well are a potent addition to any School Fu arsenal.

Instructions:

1. Take a strip of paper roughly the size of a bookmark.
2. Fold the paper across the width so that a strip of approximately 1cm is at the top.
3. Continue to fold this over and over itself until the entire piece of paper used up
4. You should now have a thick wad, the length of which was formerly the width of the bookmark
5. Fold this piece of paper in half across the width.
6. You paper should be like a thick A, this is a Paper Wasp.

Once the Paper Wasp was made, after some practice in a very short time, it is then loaded into a rubber band. To do this simply place the rubber band between your thumb and forefinger to create a sling shot of sorts. Then hook the Paper Wasp over the rubber band so that the point of the A is facing outward, and the rubber band is hooked in behind the point. Then firmly grasp the two ends of youre A, draw the Paper Wasp back, aim and fire.

A well made Paper Wasp, fired from 5 or 6 metres with a decent rubber band leaves welts and occasionally surface bruising. In Summer, when everyone wears shorts, the back of the knee is easiest and most effective place to hit somebody. In Winter, everybody is wearing long pants, jumpers (sweaters in America) or blazers (a thick suit jacket in the school colours, practically Kevlar to Paper Wasps), so one needs to be more accurate, aiming for the backs of hands, through the thin cotton of a shirt into the belly or chest and if you fancy yourself a sharp shooter, the exposed nape of the neck. Of course you could also make armour piercing Paper Wasps, which means you simply fold a giant paper clip or bent wire into your Paper Wasp, though these were considered dangerous weapons by teachers, and therefore risky.

I recall, for research only creating the most aerodynamic and powerful Paper Wasp ever seen. Basically it was a fence link, a U shaped piece of aluminium wire perhaps three or four millimetres in diameter, fired from four rubber bands ties together and suspended between either both hands and drawn back with my teeth, or between my feet sitting down. As demonstration I pierces a rubbish bin, shot clean through a large apple and hit a board across the road from my house with enough speed to chip it. Of course, it was potentially lethal, so I abandoned the research after I almost accidentally broke Catchy’s finger.

Other weapons include, slightly modified rulers, potractors, set squares, food, pebbles, seed pods, thin supple sticks from trees, keys, rubber bands, towels, pens and pencils, rubbers (erasers in the US), shoeslaces, shoes, paper clips and books.

I was never a true master of School Fu, failing to truly progress beyond defensive moves and singular counter attacks. Although I did develop a high tolerance to pain, since I was a smartarse and was constantly being bombarded with blows, I think the point of my right shoulder became immune to pain for a few years there. Those with natural talent would disable a person three times their size with a rapid combo, and be chatting to a teacher in total safety in 30 seconds.

Of course, in the real world, School Fu is practically useless. You can’t use it to defeat muggers, oppressive government agents or feature it in movies with bad dubbing. You can use it to annoy your friends, force your little brother to surrender the remote and the feeble attacks of your female friends are laughably ineffective against a nervous system dulled by years of abuse. Apart from that though, it is a dead art. To an outsider it must seem even more insane than it does to me in retrospect, but I guess to even come close to understanding it, you had to attend a school where for the first three years the traditional greeting was an unceremonious punch in the shoulder. ‘Oi Simmy’ THUMP, ‘Kostyaaaaaaa’ THUMP ‘what have you got first period bro?’

Nevertheless I carry to this day the secrets of School Fu student of a dead art. Such as the fact that at a certain point in a person’s stride, a well timed tap to the back of the knee will bring them crashing to the ground. Simple attacks such as ‘Dead Arm’, ‘Sternum Rub’ and the classic ‘Kappa’, as well as those more elabourate and sinister sounding moves I mastered in my later years such as the difficult ‘Weak Knees’ and ‘Kneecap’. I know what kind of Paper Wasp to make to maximise distance or impact. I know that extremely sensitive pressure points can be found around the base of the neck, behind the jaw, between ribs, in the wrist and on the shoulders. For a while I was able to consistently hit the funny bone with a Crow Peck, but alas my skills have become rusty, and now I’m lucky if I hit it at all.

Every limb in my body is a slightly irritating weapon!

J.R.V.A.

Every limb in my body is a slightly irritating weapon!
This is really good, and to have this part end with this line was pretty funny. Please post more, Thanks

__________________
And as she plays,
her sweet song of laughter
floats through the air
and warms my heart

Kostya

Well I totally neglected this thread (one of about three I have started EVER) for a while, so here's the nascent beginnings of a new School tale, I'll probably edit it a bit later.

Martyr to a Perverted Cause

Attending an all boys school will do strange things to a boy. Day in, day out, a social environment dominated almost entirely by males will lead to some very strange behaviour. Now, living, as the boarders did, at an all boys school, day and night can seriously warp people’s minds. We were all social mutants to some degree, and there was no other thing on the planet which exposed this than women. Take a thousand adolescent boys and coop them up in one place, and you will witness the terrible symptoms of testosterone fever, and in no place was this affliction more acute than in the boarding towers. A lot of guys did a lot of mad things in those years for any number of reasons, but the one caper that really stands out was the greatest case of testosterone madness I ever did hear.
The boarding towers reached out of the school ground like twin citadels, about a hundred metres apart from each other, separated by a football field. The architecture was undeniably military, each cylindrical tower was accessible at only one place, across a narrow bridge, and was surrounded by a two story drop on all sides. The windows on the bottom floors were barred with sturdy steel grating, and the innards were labyrinthine, asymmetric and brutally minimalist. There was a reason that the first few floors of the boarding towers were barred, and it was not to keep intruders out. Not that it did a bit of good, and over the years, successive criminal masterminds devised ever more fiendish escape plans. The boarders, hundreds of them, lived inside, a few to a room, and we knew that they were quite literally stewing in their hormones up there, like some terrible princess in a tower myth gone all feral. There were a good number of students at my school who were, for lack of a better word, mental, and most of them disappeared over the years, expelled or sent away due to standard run of the mill ignominious breaches of conduct, but one boy distinguished himself in his expulsion as one of the most tragic heroes for the cause of depraved teenage horniness than any before or since.
He was a boarder from Papua New Guinea, a fine rugby player and a capital fellow by all accounts. He was of average height, but for his size and build exceedingly strong and while his face had an impish playfulness, he was also tough as nails. He was a troublemaker in a boarding community presided over by Mr. Jones, the most feared man to wield a cane in the history of capital punishment, and to be that, you had to have buttocks of adamantine and balls of steel.
Now, it so happened, that our school had an Olympic sized pool, and being one of the few in town, it was not uncommon for people outside the school to use its facilities. Once every year, the all girls school from across town would hold their annual swimming carnival at our pool. You can imagine of course, the panic and insanity that this event would inspire in the rank and file of the student body and staff members made a special effort to chase boys from every conceivable vantage point overlooking the pool in the surrounding buildings, of course this only made boys more determined to thwart their prudish overseers. All this defies logic of course, and there was nothing to be seen on that day that couldn’t be seen any day of the year at the beach, but logic wasn’t exactly the prime mover in your average schoolboy’s daily life. Aside from this gigantic yearly invasion of our fortress of testosterone, on regular afternoons, women came to use the pool. The day boys had all gone home by this point, and the boarders were supposed to stay well clear.
Well of course they were supposed to stay well clear, but where’s there’s a will, there’s a way. One thing I can say for libido is that it’s a great motivating force, driving some of the most ingenious creations and solutions human beings have devised. It was the primary moving force that led our hero to embark on one of the most perilous and cunning plans that was ever staged in our little community.
The changing rooms were attached to the gym, on the left were the changing rooms reserved for the private pool users, and on the right was a far more military, dingy affair which was where the boys had to change if the pool was in use if they wanted to play basketball in the gym. Now what the school authorities didn’t realize, and what the boarders knew through the lore which had been handed down over the generations, was that there was a way to access the space above the ceiling from inside the boys’ changing room, and this space led to the space above the ceiling in the women’s changing room, which was peppered with ventilation vents…
A great many legends already surrounded that passage, some said it didn’t exist, others claimed they had exploited it to invade the privacy of unwitting female users of the pool already. As you can see, living at an all boys school will do strange things to a man.
But that passageway did exist. And one day, when a group of young women came to use the pool, our hero (if he can be called that) sidled into the boys changing rooms, deftly scaled the wall and clambered into the roof. Of course, it was dark inside the cramped little space, and he was forced to crouch as he edged along, making sure to place his feet only on the solid rafters that crisscrossed the ceiling. Between the rafters were square tiles of chipboard, that aside from their dubious weight bearing capacity, were liable to make a racket if disturbed. And so, our intrepid, perverted protagonist crept slowly along the rafters, inside the roof of the gym, on a secret pilgrimage to voyeurism and teenage angst.
Meanwhile…
One of the staff members had noticed the absence of our friend, and they went to look for him in the changing rooms. But our man was nowhere to be found, and the teacher, a formidable man, balding but athletic returned to the short corridor from which the changing rooms branched off, and was on his way back outside, his suspicion increasing.
Now, crouched as he was, in the roof above the female change rooms, presumably preoccupied with the cornucopia of feminine nudity going on below, our hero suddenly realised that he was being searched for, and that in a matter of time the game was up. So he leapt up, and rushed back along the corridor above the ceiling, bent double, deftly dancing upon the beams, and way halfway back when his foot slipped off the beam, onto the chipboard square of the ceiling, and he fell half through the roof, his leg protruding into the corridor separating the changing rooms. Needless to say, our hero was caught, made to stand tall before the man and was unceremoniously expelled that very day.
Of course, returning a boy to Papua New Guinea on short notice is not exactly an easy thing to do, and so it was that he was forced to remain on campus, living in the boarding tower for two more days until he disappeared from our lives forever. And this is the reason that I am telling you this story now, for me and a few others ran into him at lunch the following day, dejected and out of uniform, near the gym where his spectacular downfall had gone down only hours earlier, and he told us the tale as I am telling it to you now.
It was madness. It was a desperate act of a crazed youth, whose brain, if it even existed was so pickled in hormones and fantasy that it seemed like a good idea. He was a martyr to a perverted cause, a peeping tom and not a successful one at that. But we had to give it to him, he had balls, well that he had balls was clear enough, they seemed to be the cause of the whole trouble in the first place, but he did something so nuts, so insane, that we weren’t sure if it was madness or courage. There were a lot of people who went down in those years, but nobody came close to the operatic dimensions of his exit from the stage, falling from grace, through the roof.

Cylvre

1.) Thats hilarious!
2.) I'm jealous, my physics teacher was a nearly ancient old man. A great teacher, but still... who woulden't love to have an attractive young female for a teacher. Like my Spanish teacher...

Ah yes, I was a master wasp maker. I rarely ever shot them, but friends would often come to me if they wanted a particularily high quality wasp.

Exellent stories one and all, I hope more will find their way to the board.