At the start of my time at the Academy, I was the same as everyone else - floundering. Nobody really makes any lasting friendships at that time, or at least they didn't in my school. For the bit in the middle I was one of the 'in with the out crowd' people. I got called a mosher a lot. I frightened the rich boys. Much fun was had. In my last year I more or less lost the place and stopped talking to everyone except my beau and a few girls I'd known for years.

I left to go to community college for a year before university, and all of the kids I used to hang out with called me a dropout. The teachers called me a dropout. I had to keep reminding them that we don't 'graduate', our system is fluid and better, and that what I was doing would result in more qualifications than if I stayed at their Advanced Higher free Academy. And then we all got to university and I'd had a year of practice writing academic essays, creating arguments, honing critical thinking. They were utterly unprepared. And they still call me a dropout.