I was in 7th grade, at public school for the first time ever. As if junior high weren’t bad enough already, I switched schools (that should tell you how bad my old school was) into a school where most of the kids had been classmates or neighbors since kindergarten.  Book smarts came naturally to me, but social smarts, maybe not as easily. My home was a 30 minute walk from school.  Most days, I would walk to a friend’s home …