I have come to learn that NCSSM is a place where things occur at a different speed. Time actually flies. I mean there are times when class gets boring or there’s a night when there is nothing to do. For most of the time, though, time moves at a warp speed. I believe it is because each and every day is a new day. There are different activities (food runs, hall meetings, sporting events, club meetings, discussions, MLK activities, sustainable events, etc.) each day and your schedule varies each day of the week. It is very different from my life back home where everything was constant. In addition to all of that, relationships also move very fast. People who haven’t known each other for very long begin to date, best friends are made in the matter of a few hours, and these relationships can fall apart just as fast as they formed. This is because all the students live together; people are always surrounded by each other and it is hard to get a break from your peers. Students have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with each other and then can easily get fed up with each other. Everyday at smath is a totally new experience and you never know what you are in for. I can’t believe that half my smath career is already over and sooner than I want, smath will no longer be my home.
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A NCSSM Journey 
Thank you for sharing an important insight. You have made explicit what many of us understand implicitly. The faster speed of relationship formation and dissolution undoubtedly arises, not just because of the residential atmosphere, but also largely because of the much higher average IQ among the NCSSM population versus that at a normal high school. Since IQ offers an indication of mental processing speed, it should come as no surprise that life happens at a much faster pace at NCSSM than elsewhere.
I had a disagreement with a fellow NCSSM graduate regarding “job training” of a normal school versus “life training” at NCSSM. My source of disagreement centered on how closely NCSSM actually resembles normal adult life. In my view, NCSSM and normal adult life bear little resemblance to each other. As you noted, NCSSM students get very little breathing room from each other’s company and this condition lends credence to the school’s nickname as “The Bubble.” Normal day jobs with commutes offer much more breathing room and “down time” to reflect and ponder and recover while away from home or work relationships. The only exceptions that come immediately to mind are submarines, space stations, boot camps, and … prisons. This intense living condition explains why one parent on College Confidential concluded that two years of NCSSM can lead graduates to carry lifelong emotional baggage. I agree with that parent’s assessment.
The day after posting my prior comment here, I took an all day class based on the Susan Cain book QUIET: THE POWER OF INTROVERTS IN A WORLD THAT CAN’T STOP TALKING. Given the propensity now for NCSSM instructors to employ “pods” as a teaching method, I hope this book makes them re-think their approach. Chapter 3, “When Collaboration Kills Creativity: The Rise of the New Groupthink and the Power of Working Alone,” observes:
“Indeed, excessive stimulation seems to impede learning: a recent study found that people learn better after a quiet stroll through the woods than after a noisy walk down a city street . Another study, of 38,000 knowledge workers across different sectors, found that the simple act of being interrupted is one of the biggest barriers to productivity. Even multitasking, that prized feat of modern-day office warriors, turns out to be a myth. Scientists now know that the brain is incapable of paying attention to two things at the same time. What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.”
Cain, Susan (2012-01-24). Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (p. 85). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The NCSSM environment offers many multitasking stimuli that can impede productivity but I hope readers here will at least consider reading and studying Cain as food for thought.