Hiya, good to see you!

At least from my personal experience (as a kinda socially awkward nerd), my tips for high school would be "don't be afraid of talking to different people and making friends" "if your friends suck and start treating each other badly, don't be afraid to leave them" and "if you do leave a group of friends, don't be scared to try and find a new group".

I say this because I left a friend group who were treating each other badly, but I didn't make new friends until I moved schools and spent two years being sad and lonely. To be fair, making friends was kinda difficult, but there were people I probably could have befriended if I hadn't been so apprehensive about it.

Also: try not to get too caught up in people's drama, it never really turns out well. Teenagers can have drama over a lot of stupid things.

On the academic side, pay attention in class and try and keep on top of assignments and things, but it's ok if you don't put 100% of your effort into your schoolwork - good grades in high school can be helpful but they really don't make or break that much of your future. I did not take this advice (or at least I understood it conceptually but could not bring myself to do it) and I was very stressed in my last few years.

I have a friend who is a teacher, nowadays in Texas. I just can’t wrap my head around the way she repeatedly mentions having been in lockdown and of days when she’s debating whether she should send farewell messages to her own children. Several times a year. Being a teacher is not supposed to be a high risk job! How can it possibly be that things are that bad?

We had a school shooting in Finlad just recently, a 12-year old shot one classmate dead and two others were seriously injured. But this was the first incident in over 15 years. In the US there were 207 school shoorings in 2010-2019. Since 2020 to date it’s at 193 (source Wikipedia). Are we quite sure the end of the world has not already happened?

That is indeed terrible. I'm sorry for all concerned. And how are we getting 14 year olds into such a state? (And I wonder whether they could have stopped the child without shooting him. News stories don't seem to be addressing that, at least so far.)

The insanity keeps coming closer. Today the 14 year old granddaughter of friends of mine from our reenactor club was in lockdown for over 6 hours today after another 14 year old student tried to enter their school with a rifle in Mt Horeb Wi. He was shot dead by police.

Somewhat belatedly, but it's still going on: to all those celebrating, have a good Passover!