Was My High School a Freak?

Something has been really standing out to me in my reading and it's probably one of the dumbest things to notice too because it's so irrelevant to the plot at hand. Class schedules. And I'm not talking about an individual character's class schedule but just the schedule in general. Namely the number of classes per day, usually 8 or 9.

This was not my high school experience. I haven't had this many classes a day since I was in middle school. As an incoming freshman, that was the first year (1997, hi and welcome to me dating myself) my school system starting using block scheduling, aka torture if you despise the class. The board's theory was that it was a means to get students used to the longer classes one would see in college (irrespective of the fact that not everyone was college-bound). So instead

of 8 classes a day at 45 minutes (or so) each, I had 4 classes a day at 84 minutes each. Do you have ANY idea what chemistry was like for me??? The days were then split between A days and B days with rotating lunch schedules and what not. So while I didn't have to deal with hated classes on a daily basis, I had to sit through nearly an hour and a half of them EACH when they did come up. Like I said, torture.

So back to class schedules, this leaves me wondering if this is something that never picked up on a greater school scale. The block scheduling was something that lasted throughout my high school years. Whether they're still going with it I have no idea. I'm assuming so. But considering I keep coming across books where students have the typical 8 class days, I'm starting to think my high school experience in that realm was atypical. And I didn't go to a special school or anything. Regular public school for me.

Yeah, totally asinine I know but it's been niggling. Has anyone else known the joys of block scheduling in high school or am I the loner at the lunch table?