nanowrimo_lj | a desperate plea:

Ok, I'm far along with it that I feel okay sharing and asking for help:
This year I'm trying my hand at NaNoWriMo again. At first I didn't want to tell anyone because I didn't want to have a repeat of two years ago where I got all excited about it, wrote 3,000 words and then stopped. But now, I've just broken 21,000 out of 50,000 words, so I feel attached enough to the project to see it through. (In case anyone cares and wants to see a short excerpt: Here's My Profile page.

Now for the real reason I'm blogging about this, I need your help:
One of the next setting changes will take my high school sophomore into the Alternative School system (for kids with behavior problems, or can't keep up in regular classes, etc). Now, I don't know how many of you had these schools when you were in high school, nor how many of you actually went to one at some point. For those of you that have been to one of these schools, what was it like? What kind of atmosphere was there? What other kinds of students? Who were the teachers? Were there extra-strict nazi rules?
For those of you who haven't ever been to one, but had them in your school system: What kind of reputation did the alternative schools have? Were they scholastic death camps? Or were they a little slice of slacker heaven?
I really need some help here to make the whole thing sound a little more authentic. So any anecdotes or other information would be GREATLY appreciated.
Also, if you know other people who may have some insight for me, please pass this along.
Thanks ^_^

X-posted from my own journal