Mind Wandering?

I used to fall asleep in my high school writing class. My favorite class, and my body made me SLEEP through it!! My teacher, Will Liegel (who could survive on less than 4 hourse of sleep a night), would glance at me, I'd look up drowsily, he'd nod imperceptibly, and my head would fall into my arms. What an angel he was! 'Course, I was acing the class, but still... all that rigamorole about class participation... And what's the deal about that: "class participation"? In college, I came to a sort of "arrangement" with most of my professors that I could miss class if someone took notes for me, and I showed up for tests. I ended up dropping out the next semester, partly because of a misunderstanding about regular class requirements vs. my interpretation of our "arrangement"... One particularly particular professor said I failed in class participation. Ok, uh, wait, uh, wasn't our arrangement that I could miss class (and hence "participation" in said class...). {frustrated noise} Then I have this question about "participation" itself. I'll try to say this without sounding pretentious, but I was always a superb student. Straight A's in grade school and most of high-school. But I always got comments about my lack of "participation". It frustrated me that most teachers calculated participation according to the same criteria for every student. I was a shy student. I didn't volunteer much information... that was the teacher's job, wasn't it? I didn't raise my hand, because I had no questions! I was quiet; helpful and obedient when chosen to perform a task. I answered questions asked of me, promptly and usually correctly. I was a teacher's dream student, compared to the guys who were throwing spit-balls, paper airplanes, and whispered imprecations at the teacher's back. So, the socially adept students got the points for participating. I was a "socially under-adept" (i.e. nerd) Suffice to say, school was an often-unpleasant challenge for me, and I was actually kind of relieved to be too tired to go anymore. I miss having a diploma and an alma mater. But I educate myself now, on my own time, using my own personally chosen curriculum. I always get an A in participation. And I can skip class any time I want!