I don't want to sound arrogant, here, but I remember a bully at school, who used to put me down and say that anything he did was better than anything I did. But I want to compare talks we gave. We had to give morning presentations or mini-lectures, on topics of interest, and he gave a speech on baseball and I on Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith. He stood up in front of the class and said, "This is your mitt. You have to oil your mitt. This is the ball. Here's a thing, and it tells you which team's playing which team. The game starts at this time. You have to warm up before the game." The teacher said, "I would call that a lecture-ette-ette." The following week, a girl gave a talk on netball. The teacher then stood up and said, "We've had a 20 second mini-lecture! And a 10 second mini-lecture! I don't want to hear any more of this Tommy Rot. A minute and a half." I stood up and gave a carefully prepared mini-lecture on the life of Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and all the flights he made. I had pictures of the Southern Cross arriving at Croydon, England, and others. The teacher said it was good. What that demonstrated is that the bully didn't put much effort into his speech, while I did.

After finishing school, I became quite angry about having been bullied and developed PTSD. I went on to university, but I say that university was where I should have been. These other bullies didn't go to university. It doesn't make me smarter than them, just more committed to intellectual pursuits.

I remember another bully who told me I was dumb. I beat him in the math test, but he, instead of coming across to me and saying, "I'm sorry, I was wrong about you, well done," walked over to my desk and said, "Peter got the top mark," before leaning over my desk and roaring like a constipated lion. I didn't respond, and I thought that that demonstrated his immaturity.