Slowly, I began to unearth memories that I had been avoiding since graduation: the petty fights, the back-stabbing and the perpetual gossip. Needless to say, my last year of high shool was not one I will cherish, but, looking back, what hurt me most was what ensued.

I went off to CEGEP (college in Québec--grade 12 and 13) ecstatic to make new friends and break out of the sheltered community that I grown up in. I had bid my high school friends a hearty good riddance. But they did not share my desire for closure. For two years, I was called a "bitch" as I walked through the halls, bad-mouthed to everyone I knew (including my new friends), and the subject of a lot of nasty gossip.

Being the pacifist that I am, I resisted lashing back, but, every time I saw them, I was torn up inside. In fact, I still get upset when I think of all the times people came up to me and said, "Hey, ---- was talking about you the other day. She told me you're a real bitch."

Fast forward to April 20, 1999. Images of teenagers running out of their school, with their hands on their heads, completely petrified, are inescapable. But, what happened at Columbine High did not surprise me.

The two gunmen were taunted, left out and bad-mouthed to the point of rage. Combine that with accessible guns and violence in the media, and, BOOM, fifteen dead people in a suburban high school. What to do? I am not American, and, therefore, I think that I will leave the gun-control laws for the American people and their politicians to take care of. Violence in the media ? I don' think that will ever go away: blood and guts sell.

So, I've decided to stop gossiping. I believe that, deep down, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were just two sensitive kids who were rejected too many times. High school is a really cruel place, and some people cannot deal with it.

While friends may change and hair colours might go back to their natural hues, gossip, that paramount pillar of teenage culture, sticks. But what I have learned from my high school friends and from the kids at Columbine is that it's just not worth it.