Day 30: More Thoughts on those High School Days

[anarchist_nomad]

Coincidentally, just days after my high school blast from the past, cassiopia was showing me some of her high school yearbooks today. I was struck by what a normal and pleasant experience she had had: Clubs and plays and a boyfriend. It all seemed so normal. Quite the contrast from the hell that high school was for me, what with running away from home (twice) and being kicked out of the house (many times!) and having my mother call the police on me and punching a hole in my bedroom wall and being almost continuously depressed and lonely... y'know, things like that.

I was undoubtedly the most colourful character in my high school, but I was certainly not very happy back then. I don't regret it per se, as those experiences shaped me into who I am now. Not in some abstract way, either, but in very direct ways that are obvious to me. Nonetheless, when I was a depressed teenager, I heard many people tell me to cheer up because those were going to be "the best days of my life." What a thing to tell a depressed person! Luckily, I had not believed them -- if I had, I probably would have truly been suicidal with nothing better to look forward to! However, my conversation with cassiopia made me wonder about other people's high school experiences. Which leads to my first LJ poll:

[Poll #591991]

I'll be curious to see the results on this. I have a prediction already (which I won't reveal, to keep the analysis somewhat unbiased) and I am curious to see how closely it resembles the truth.

Comments

[anarchist-nomad.livejournal.com]

polymorphism was complaining about my choices last night, too. I basically see them as a one-to-five scale with an extra "N/A" option added. Still, the poll permits choosing more than one answer, so if you like, you could pick the two answers that bridge your choice...

[contrarywise]

I considered that since I noticed you had check boxes as opposed to radio buttons in your poll, but concluded that option doesn't reflect what I mean. Choosing any two of these answers means you agree with *both*, not that your answer lies somewhere between them. And that doesn't make sense logically because each point on a scale is exclusive of all other points. Your scale is not fine enough, IMO. Once again, I fall between the cracks...

[anarchist-nomad.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. Statistically speaking, I see checking both as your best option, because it will register in both scales when I look at the final histogram. If I binned more finely (as you and polymorphism both suggested), I would likely split the limited statistics that I have in terms of number of people answering... which is why I only chose five bins (plus an N/A).

[contrarywise]

Well, you know my thoughts on the matter, so essentially you have my answer to your question. I'm not gonna click any clickies myself, so you may place my response(s) where you will or ignore my comments when you compile your data--it's your poll, after all. I don't understand your objections to a more accurate scale, but I also don't have the time or energy to spend on niggling statistics.