Down memory lane - Part 1

For reasons obvious from my last post I spent this weekend back in Holland. By sheer chance my trip coincided with the reunion of my old high school, the Johan van Oldebarnevelt gymnasium. I didn't attend the previous reunion some years ago. It was too soon and I was far too absorbed in my life as a student to care what my former classmates were up to. However, I graduated in 1996 so it's been over 10 years by now. Enough time to start getting at least a bit curious. Since I was around any way, why not go and find out..?

Reunions are all about showing off what you have accomplished since high school (degrees, jobs, wedding rings, babies; the usual suspects). But after you have exhausted those topics, there is not much left other then repeat to each other how you all haven't changed a bit. It's actually true though, you know; that last statement. People hadn't changed a bit. Within minutes all the old cliques had regrouped and despite some changed hairdo's and a few extra kilos here and there, everybody was essentially still exactly the same as 10 years ago. Unfortunately not so many of my old classmates had shown up. Of the people in the picture (class 2C, 1991!) only 2 other people showed. There were a few more from the parallel classes but still not that many. Maybe another 10 years need to pass first before everybody else gets curious enough.

I don't recollect my high school years with any great fondness. To illustrate, not long after this picture was taken I got my first pair of glasses and I would be wearing orthodontic braces for several more years. Not a happy combination when you're 14 years old! Throughout the 6 years of high school I was cyclically and frustratingly falling in and out of love with the same poor guy (yes, he's in the picture), sometimes also with others. Teenage anxieties reigned freely. I had plenty of people I used to hang out with but considering there are only two people from all those years that I still occasionally talk to, I didn't make many friends for life there. To be honest, I much preferred my years at university. When are we having the next ACD reunion?