What things make/made high school enjoyable?

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The greatest thing about high school, in my opinion, is that feeling one gets when one finally reaches the summit. It's getting an "A" on that exam that you were sure that you were going to fail. It's getting college credit in a course that happens to be your worse subject. It's finally looking back over all of the tears, all of the screams, all of the stabbed papers, the marks of self-injury, the sore hair follicles, and being able to say, "I made it."
High school is also a place of discovery. Sure, there's the obvious academic benefit of learning new material, but it is high school that taught me my undying passion and at least adequate aptitude for choir, that proved to me that I can connect with these bizarre creatures known as "humans," that some, if not many, of those creatures genuinely care and want the best for you, and that I have a greater capacity to pull through than I would have ever thought I had.
Sure, I am very deeply considering homeschooling, this school system may have contributed to some of my current psychological and I'll be extremely glad when I finally get this cacophony over with, but I can honestly say that my experience in high school has had its benefits.

What I love most about high school is the co-curricular activities. It gives me a more confidence that I can do stuff and has really helped me with aspie problems. I'm in the debating team which has helped me alot with talking off the top of my head and not being so worried about saying stupid things, these skills I've been able to translate into everyday conversations.

Because of my size, i was encouraged to join the football team team as a lineman. Though i did not have the athletic talent for it, including being too clumsy, I did give it by best effort and did gain some respect in HS and made it more bearable

Not being there. Only place worse is prison.

My one friend, also known as BF. and band

The fantasies about killing the other students. I'm not joking.

I'm with treblecake (above) on this. It was doing speech and debate that saved my sanity and probably my life in high school. We were such a tight, closed group that we knew nothing bad would happen when we went off to do something somewhere; it let me travel around the country; it got me out of classes with teachers and students I'd rather never have been around; and it actually, for the first time in my life, got people to like and respect me for something I was doing (and it's strange when you're the awkward kid who has zero experience with women and you suddenly have girls following you around to see what you're going to do in your next debate or next speech). That's about all I miss. The rest of it was basically an exercise in warehousing a bunch of incompatible kids in a building they couldn't leave in order to prevent them from running around in the street. Seriously.

arguable-high school might have been worse- but I can't say for sure, because I haven't been to prison yet.

Yup. I had a full on, nearly hospitalization requiring, nervous breakdown during high school. Meltdowns constantly aside from it. Due to the other students, it was impossible to learn, the school made it abundantly clear to me that because of my 'Behavioural' problems I wasn't capable of being in the "College track', and instead placed me in the 'Vocational track' which put me into copious amounts of technology and math classes which are, my major weakness. I had 1 A when I left highschool after 3 semesters, and that was in World History. Everything else was C's and F's. Yet the school just used that as evidence of how correct they were, instead of taking the logical conclusion that, jeeze, maybe he just isn't any good at this stuff.. and we should put him in the classes he wants to take.

The day I left.

Buying sodas and candy. Ha.

At the time, I think we were too concerned about what others thought... too pressured to get into top colleges.... too worried about classmates' opinions of us.

High school can be a relatively easy time in life. No rent, still living with parents, etc. We're too in a rush to grow up that we miss the good in that part of life.

1. High school was where I actually made my first non-childhood friend. My family moved across the country when I was 10, causing me to lose contact with the kids I hung out with since I was 3. I did not make close, long-time friends until junior year of high school. I still hang out with them regularly to this day, at age 29.

2. Teachers who were actually knowledgeable, ranging from "somewhat" to "very". At least enough to explain things and argue correct answers from their knowledge or books they read, rather than smugly using the teacher's edition of the textbook.

That's about it. High school was the pits in every other way, and yes, a lot of bullying happened. It faded out by my senior year, becoming limited to an occasional snarky comment, and even then, they didn't "penalize" me for being snarky back. What made it even worse is not having a car, so I couldn't go on dates even when a girl showed interest in me once in a blue moon. (Going across the street to a Dairy Queen was out of the question; that's where all the popular kids went, and they'd sabotage me for sure if they saw me with a girl.) The one safe place to go on a date, ironically, was in a city bus, since popular kids wouldn't be caught dead in one. But given how looked down upon public transportation is in America, that wasn't an option.

I'm in my final year at high school (and graduating very soon) and one thing I like about high school more than elementary school is that the students I meet are a lot more respectful than in elementary school. At elementary school, I've experienced a lot of teasing and alienation because of my unusual behaviour and as a result, only made one friend (and that's only because his parents were my babysitter when I was in 2nd grade).

In high school it got better as I tried harder to be normal and the students are more mature and more respectful of everybody. I didn't make any close friends but I have been able to make some acquiantances with some of my peers.

I met more people in high school. In middle school they herd you like cows, you can only interact with people in your class most of the day. Plus, there were no extracurricular activities except sports. In high school, there are extracurricular activities galore, teachers treat you more like people than just "kids", you can leave school property, dating becomes socially acceptable, you learn to drive in high school, you can take a spare period in grade 12 in my board, and most importantly, you develop your job identity.