For example in my school normal is perceived as being really common getting into fights and speaking with a clearly exaggerated Dublin Accent. They exaggerate the accent because they think it makes them seem tough. There was a incident before where our form teacher was late so one of the “mad lads” decided that we would hide in the room and not go to class. Now I’ll admit I did that last year but that was fourth year and there was nothing important to care about missing in class. But this year IS important as we are preparing to sit the state exams next year.

When the bell went most people stayed sitting intending to hide in the room, however some of the more sensible class-men including myself got up and to go to class, this was an important year and we didn’t want to waste time hiding in the classroom. As we went to leave the other class-men called us nerds and weird because we wouldn’t hide.

Now in that situation the other class-men viewed us as being weird and abnormal for not wanting to hide. But to us it wasn’t weird, is it weird to want to learn and get good grades and do well in life? But to us they were weird for not caring about their future. Fair enough I know some of them wont make it to college and they are perfectly entitled to waste away their lives hiding in classrooms but to try and keep others there is just plain weird.