High school was interesting, because I went from a public school middle school to an academy where the first year we were doing Latin, chemistry, biology. I mean, I was woefully unprepared for the type of study.
What I'm really addicted to is getting people to understand that if their kids aren't competent readers coming out of middle school, it's really going to be hard for them in high school.
I've never run into a person who yearns for their middle school days.
In middle school, I started to draw, and my pencil sketches were huge. They were these 4ft by 3ft drawings, and I got a lot of attention for that, so that was very validating. But I didn't start cartooning until I was in college.
When I was in middle school, some of my so-called friends found a catalogue ad I did for Superman pajamas. They made as many copies as they could and pasted them up all over school.
I know from my own personal experience. I was bullied in middle school and high school and went through my fair share of hard times thereafter. Also, one of my really good friends committed suicide when I was in high school.
My biggest problem in middle school was catty girls, cliques, and trying to figure out if I wanted to be a part of one of those, just figuring out who I was and all that.
If you had known me in middle school, I was definitely not what someone would think of as Brad Pitt. That was not me. I was kind of a dork.
Over at the Olivia Pope & Associates set, we're like middle school children. Every time there's a cut in the action, we joke and dance around; there's show tunes and fart noises.
Nothing could be as hard as middle school.