Do you stay in touch with your high school friends?

[Guest clubchicky]

hahaha...yeah, I suppose all big cities are the same. There are more people....which means there is bound to be someone more screwed up then the next guy. I do love big cities...but I know the feeling of being lonely admist the sea of millions....it is hard to find a good group of people....but the few that you do find...I think it doesn't really matter what the rest of the wackos are doing around you haha....

But to tell you the truth..small towns suck even more...cause if you don't fit in with the small crowd that is there you are basically screwed! Atleast in a big city there is more of a chance to find people with the same interests as you!

[Guest coach]

Hey! Other people who think the same about small towns as me!

[Guest pod]

This is true. It is funny, I saw a lot of this when I came down here to go to school. A lot of the people who went to UM were the big football stars, or the prom queen, that sort of thing. They went to UM as at the time (1997 when I got here), Miami was at the tail end of the first wave of fame. Madonna, Stallone, Chris Paciello, etc. They all came here for sun and fun, and looked at it as an extended vacation.

What they couldn't cope with was at the University, and in the city, they were reduced to comparative nobodies. "I was the captain of the football team", "I was class valedictorian". The University and the city's response was one of "Sure, whatever, get in line". Thus, there was a high attrition rate amongst the student body and general newbie population. They couldn't deal with not being the king shit anymore, and thus they fell back to areas where they could be. Me? It was perfect. My various personal quirks and idiosyncrasies, like you said, were nothing compared to the guy with the dead fish, or that weirdo who walked everywhere barefoot, including to classes.

Then when I got to clubland, forget about it. Being in an environment with drug addicts, thieves, and outright murderers, it made my life so much easier. Being crazy enough to go out and document it, well, that got me a lot of points towards my chutzpah badge.

[Guest coach]

Damn, that's a really good summary, Pod. You know, whenever people from my past, or faraway family ask me why I like Miami, I tell them that one of the reasons is because it is a "hard" city. If they pressed me on what that means, I had a tough time defining it precisely, but I know that it fits. Your description is about perfect.

[Guest clubchicky]

I just feel in a bigger city there is more culture...whether it be good or bad...like you said murderers and thieves hehe....it is not all good all the time, but atleast you are able to grow and meet new people and see new things and you are not locked in some bubble somewhere.....the prom queens and football stars did have a hard time adjusting I'm sure...hahaha...sorry no one really gives a shit if you were homecoming queen four years in a row...or who gives a damn if in the year book you were labeled best-looking....PULease!

I am so glad high school is over...I would never go back....I had such a hard time finding people with the same interests as me...it was really frustrating...I thought I was weird back then...NOW I see so much shit...makes me look normal, I love it

[Guest pod]

True enough. It's not a picnic down here. Sometimes I wonder where I'm gonna dig up money to cover the rent. I'm really not that financially irresponsible, but sometimes it's like "uh oh", ya know?

Miami's expensive, hot, semi-dangerous (though not nearly as so as during the Cocaine Cowboys days), and can be confusing, especially to someone who has grown accustomed to a cyclic lifestyle. But, that's what makes it fun. They posted a thread about me having churrasco in Hialeah. It was fun. That's what I like about Miami, one minute I'm in one of the world's top dance music clubs, drinking my ass off and talking shit with people, and then I'm being carted across the county in a Honda to get some food at the home of someone I just recently met. Within an hour I met the family, her friends, and the fat chihuahua. Also, I had to speak Spanish. Amazingly, half-drunk and waiting for the food, I managed to pull it off. I said ¡coño!, a lot. Managed to get me through the afternoon.

[Guest clubchicky]

True enough. It's not a picnic down here. Sometimes I wonder where I'm gonna dig up money to cover the rent. I'm really not that financially irresponsible, but sometimes it's like "uh oh", ya know?

Miami's expensive, hot, semi-dangerous (though not nearly as so as during the Cocaine Cowboys days), and can be confusing, especially to someone who has grown accustomed to a cyclic lifestyle. But, that's what makes it fun. They posted a thread about me having churrasco in Hialeah. It was fun. That's what I like about Miami, one minute I'm in one of the world's top dance music clubs, drinking my ass off and talking shit with people, and then I'm being carted across the county in a Honda to get some food at the home of someone I just recently met. Within an hour I met the family, her friends, and the fat chihuahua. Also, I had to speak Spanish. Amazingly, half-drunk and waiting for the food, I managed to pull it off. I said ¡coño!, a lot. Managed to get me through the afternoon.

hahaha...fun...yeah...I still get confused down there...I am one of the only one of my friends that will drive...everyone else freaks out and get us completely lost haha....I guess I am used to it...I actually drove in Manhattan for a time....a very short time LOL....It is quite fun driving down here until you realize that you are almost out of gas and you are in the middle of the guetto somewhere!!

As far as rent goes....I definitely know how that goes...I know Miami is expensive and so is damn Palm Beach County...but I wouldn't give up living down here for anything...I don't care if my place has to be a bit smaller...I am hardly ever home anyway

[Guest pod]

That's one thing about this county though. Except for Hialeah, the Beach, and Coral Gables, the streets all line up and make sense. You could drop me in the middle of Kendall, and I'll make it home without a GPS or a map, just by following the streets.

[Guest Clubhopper11]

For whatever is worth, I barely keep in touch with any of my old high school friends. The only ones I keep in touch with our my cousins with whom I graduated with.

Then again, high school was just so traumatic; especially when my parents and I moved down from New Jersey just before the start of senior year. That was awful and it took me awhile to get over it. That move ruined my high school "experience".

[Guest pod]

I would have considered that a blessing. By junior year I just wanted to be done with the whole damn thing. Senior year was just going through the motions and getting ready to leave. I was half tempted to drop out and take the GED. Thing is, people see GED and assume you're a dolt. They don't look at it as "oh, he took the GED when he was 16".

The problem with the current method of running things is that the public school system has strayed from the honorable and respectable mission of educating our nation's young, to a self-perpetuating and self-protecting unionized bureaucracy. It's little wonder most people who are good educators run for the private system these days.

[Guest Cosmigonon]

I hated high school too with a vengeance. Well not all of it, but part of it, and i defintely would not go back. 10 year reunion (2001) i was probably the only one that didn't go.

Funny thing is, whenever i run into my old school classmates, they're all bald, fat, etc, and they're always amazed that i look so much younger than them, as if time is running backwards with me.

Same thing about small city, big city. I was always some sort of misfit in Panamá, but here in Miami I feel right at home...