A vaguely serious note....
I spent last week at Debate camp and by some twist of fortune, I ended up being one of the oldest ones there; a large majority of the Brainerd troupe were freshman (five of the eight) and so I spent a great deal of time with them, and while I was there, one subject came up during a walk with Jenna, Sara, Steph and I: cliques.Let's not deny that we have them, because we do. You can walk do the halls of any high school anywhere and pick out the cliques; sure some people cross over between cliques, and sometimes we even have whole groups of people that somehow transcend this clique mentality, but there aren't many. And in Brainerd we have something slightly unique, we have cliques within our cliques.
Speaking from experience, I can say that I exist in one larger clique, the sixty to seventy of us partaking in Advanced Placement classes, and probably in a smaller clique within for the band misfits/drama kids (strangely enough, I am neither of those things), or maybe they are two separate cliques, I'm not sure. Despite this, I have the general impression that our class is more diverse in its cliques than many of the younger grades.
Jenna pointed out that she knows fifty people very well because she's had every class with these people every year since sixth grade, and I agree, when I entered the high school, I felt like I knew about 100 people, mainly due to my involvement in band, out of my class of just over 500. Of those 20, I would consider as people I could hold a decent conversation with, and of those 20, I counted probably three as true friends.
Now, entering my senior year, I would say I probably only know 20-30 more kids from my class, but there is a wonderful aspect of high school that I think middle school lacks, the ability to co-mingle with the other classes. In seventh and eighth grade, I found it hard to spend time with younger or older students just because as a general rule, the people we spend the most time with are those we have classes with. This also holds true in high school, but it's not a fact, Crystal and I had one class in common for exactly one month last year, and that was when we weren't actually connected at the hip; if you connect with someone, you'll make time for them, but I never would have met Crystal if we hadn't been in AP Calc together the year before and been younger than everyone else in the class.
Anyway there is a point to this, Jenna is a freshman this year, so is my sister. My sister and Jenna (along with everyone else at Debate camp) work in very different circles; Debate kids in my old position of the Honors Program kids, and my sister in the art/band/border-line goth group, but here's something interesting to note. Jenna expressed an interest in spending time with people outside of her core group, not that she didn't think that in the end they would be the ones that she spent the most time with just because they don't have the most in common, but my sister was relatively hostile about her opinion of them; she gave no indication that she would like to know any of them at all, and I thought that was strange since I thought that Jenna and my sister would get along quite well.
I guess what I'm curious about is what is it about this clique that my sister finds so undesirable? Are they stuck up because they've been in Honors since forever ago? Do the other students perceive them that way just because of this? Really, there isn't that big of a difference between the homework load for Honors students and regular students at this stage, nor is the curriculum all that different either, so I don't quite understand this.
Granted, I was certainly not the best of friends with anyone outside of the Honors Program during my stint in it. I do remember a certain amount of resentment from a couple people I know, but that more due to certain people's attitude towards them and not about the group as a whole.
So, what was I trying to say, I'm not actually sure, my brain is slightly fuzzy right now, but I guess I'm wondering why cliques exist? And do they have to? I wouldn't mind getting to know other people in my class I never spend time with because we don't have classes together, but I just don't understand how that would happen, and maybe that's why cliques exist, to keep the groups that do spend all their time together, together.
A side note; my sister's best friend is also someone she has not been placed in the same team with since seventh/sixth(?) grade, but they have managed to remain very good friends throughout it all despite band being their only common class, but they're also scarily similar at times, with their music, their likes, their dyed hair... I'm not saying that it's impossible to be friends with people outside of those you see every day; I'm just say it's harder.
There really was no point to this, I'm just spewing, feel free to ignore.
posted by Kara @ 11:14 PM
3 Comments:
I liked this post. I know that in 6th and 7th grade I made some select friends in the honors classes, but I still had a lot of friends outside of it too, mainly because I was friends with Kelsey (she hadn't gone off her rocker yet). In 8th grade, I started to realize that I wasn't really like the "Kelsey Group" but I didn't want to lose these friends. It was most definitely my hardest year with friends. I didn't really belong anywhere. I wanted to be these girl's friends, but I didn't want to do the things that they were starting to do like drink, ect. When 9th grade came around, I became best friends with Kaila and Katie. Kaila was friends with some of those other girls, but she was in all honors, and Katie was already best friends with Kaila and taking honors math. It was really nice, and I did everything with them. We made our own clique essentially and we could slide from clique to clique. I could still get along with those other girls and guys, but I could also get along with everyone in my classes. High School was a pretty huge change. At this point I knew that I was much different than those girls and guys and I basically started this long journey to slowly cutting them off. Katie and I still remained best friends, but Kaila changed some. She just had some of her own problems that we couldn't help her with. But anyway, Katie and I had a pretty good year, but something was happening... She was still best friends with Ali Clough and friends, and I wasn't. She also didn't take school quite as seriously as me, and one more thing, when she likes a guy, she falls in love instantly. Not that this is bad... or maybe it is, but I get shunned a little bit. This is what happened this past year in November. I don't know if Micah was a good or bad thing, but it basically destroyed our friendship. I was left alone for a month. That is when I decided to take a chance and start talking to new people because... I was lonely. My economics class helped quite a bit along with my ap study hall 4th hour. In econ tim lange talked to me and I ended up going to the ugly sweater party with him and also to mike gary's new year party. The people there, simply put, were more fun than any other group of people I'd ever been with. (It's also where I met John). Since then, I've had more fun with this clique than I ever have had before.
Ok, I don't really know how I even got talking about all of this. It's not really on topic. Sorry.
There were other things also that helped me find the group that I am with now... but, eh, whatever. I'm happy.
This year I will have to open myself again though because they are all leaving me! Haha.
I'm also not going to reread my post so it probably majorly sucks and doesn't make any sense.
I know the feeling; it kind of mirrors how I went through middle school into high school. Not a bad response, mine will be rambly for your benefit.
6th grade Katie and I were pretty close, along with plenty of people that have moved, the Kelsey group you could call it, but I was closer with Katie C. and I always felt like she could be taken into the whirlwind so much easier than I could; 7th grade I made two friends that I figured I could have forever (ah... how things go) Sara and Sarah K. Well, Sara moved on in eighth grade to Mississippi and Sarah K. moved to another school for most of eighth grade year. Ninth grade, I would say, would have been the best year(outside of last) for me, I had a best friend who I could pretty much slide into any group with because we got along with everyone, and it stayed that way through the first half of tenth grade, and then Sarah got sick and started missing school and then went PSEO for last and this year. That probably left me pretty adrift for most of the second half sophomore year; the bright spot was the month of May and Crystal... however, the chance to exchange phone numbers never really came up, and so we lost touch over the summer. Then junior year was great, really thanks to Crystal (who I should have realized was going to be my best friend when we missed the informational session because we sat and talked with Blong); really it was, I reconnected with Sara, and then had the nice chance of being thrown into the group of us for Calc BC where we muddled along in confusion and pretty much barely survived but had a blast, this turned Crystal from a good friend into my best friend, and then there was Sarah and Rianna, and they were great for the last four months of school and this summer.
But I'm glad that there is someone else that's going to feel really adrift without last year's seniors there because I have "friends" in my grade but no one I can really talk to outside of Sara.
Okay, done... Long and rambly; but finished.
Cliques. They are what makes us comfortable. We form into groups with people who are most like us, who agree with us the most and share the same interests because it is comfortable. We can intermix cliques because we can also share a little bit in common with other cliques. The reason why we never hang out full time with the "other" cliques is because we have the most in common with the ones we do spend the most time with. It makes perfect sense (to me at least). As long as you're open to spending time with new people...then it's not bad. In college cliques tend to be more based on your hometown (at least your freshman year of college). Seriously...go and sit with new ppl at highschool. Just sit down and talk. See how it goes.
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