Nerdy Girl and the rules

I've said this before(on my other blog) and I'll probably say it again: I am a rule follower. Probably more so than most folks. Oh sure I drive above the speed limit and sometimes(ok most of the time) I've been known to do a California roll, but I always wear my seatbelt and I always signal. In most other areas of my life I have a possibly(in other people's opinions) less than healthy passion for rule following. Rules exist for a reason and, usually, I agree with the reasoning. Yes, sometimes it is irritating to follow the rules but, if I know and respect the reasoning, then I am more than happy to follow said rule.

The nurse that administers my allergy shots was very profuse in her thanks today when I simply complied with the rule that says I have to read and answer several questions before each shot to ensure that I don't die from anaphylactic shock or something instead of huffing and throwing a fit.

Seems like a good rule to me...keep me from dying? Sure, I'll play along.




On a side note....the spell check is telling me I spelled anaphylactic incorrectly, but I looked it up on dictionary.com and that is how it is spelled. Is it weird that that is driving me batty?

Nerdy Girl is starting to miss school

When I graduated from grad school, I had been to the edge of crazy land and decided I needed a break. For the first time in my life I was tired of school. I felt like I had had my fill. I was afraid I would never get back the love I once felt. That master's degree was very tough on me.

But, I am glad to say that I am starting to get a yen to take a class just for fun again. I don't have any particular classes in mind, but I can feel the desire to learn! Part of it is a reaction to the extreme stupidity that I am surrounded with at school all day. Don't get all alarmed that I am being insensitive to the kids, I am talking about the teachers.

Remember the teacher I talked about yesterday? Well the school I work in now has more than a few of people like him. There are teachers that don't even follow the dress code that the students are supposed to follow. Do you know how hard it is to enforce the dress code when the students can say, "well ms. So-and-so is wearing flip flops"? There are teachers that will look at me blankly when I try to explain something so simple that the kids behind them all get it.

I just don't get it. It's so frustrating it makes me wonder if I really want to become a teacher. Do I really want to join the ranks of a group of people that has the administration tearing its hair out? Nerdy Girl is having a crisis of ... er... nerdiness I guess.

Even Nerdy Girls dislike their teachers sometimes

It's been about 11 years since I graduated from high school and at least 4 since I graduated from grad school. All in all I was in school for 20 years when you include kindergarten. In all that time there were bound to be a few teachers that I didn't mesh well with. My family and I were reminiscing over the trials and tribulations of one teacher in particular recently. He was a strange man from his hair, to his build, to his attitudes. He was very strict and stuck to his rules, which in hindsight I respect to a point. He had a weird mullet thing going on with a weird tuft of bangs in only a one inch section on his forehead. He also had a pot belly that made him lean forward in a strange way and waddle when he walked.

He spent the entire first semester telling us about the weird and annoying things that his soon to be ex-wife was doing. Being a nerdy girl, you know one who actually likes to learn, I was always weirded out by these sidebars. Then, in the beginning of the second semester, I had to miss a day of school to get x-rays to see if I could have my cast removed. During that day my teacher showed the first half of a film that he was going to give a test on. When I returned, he wouldn't let me arrange to see the first half and he wouldn't excuse me from the test.

That was the final straw for me and my parents. We pulled me from the class even though it meant that I would have to be moved down to a regular history class instead of an honors class. Sometimes even teachers lack a sense of fair play. It was a hard lesson for me to learn. Until that point I had always seen teachers as the upright holders of knowledge. All that is right in the world.

Sometimes Nerdy Girls lose a little innocence.

Nerdy Girl lines up a gig!

Ok, so as you might recall if you've read any of my other blogs, or even my intro, I am a nerdy girl. I like spelling and grammar. I am not perfect, but I do have quite the penchant for catching errors, especially in signs, pamphlets, presentations and other professional materials. Well, during my conference/training, I made a few edits for the trainers' materials. I also let them know that I would definitely be amenable to providing future edits for any and all material on a freelance sort of basis. One of them seemed particularly interested and said he would definitely be interested in paying me for such a thing.

Yay! It would be so cool to get paid to fix things! I already do it anyway simply because I need to for my own sense of rightness with the world. What can I say? I am definitely a nerd.

Nerdy Girl's favorite shows

Yeah. So, for the most part, I like my television to have a little bit of intellect. "How does a television show have intellect," you may ask. Well, it's in the dialogue. I'd like a show to tease me, maybe educate me, and definitely amuse me mostly by using strong dialogue. Oh sure I like a little visual humor also, but usually I get that from facial expressions.

Given this info, you shouldn't be surprised to discover that my current favorite show is The Big Bang Theory. What? You are surprised? OH, cause you've never heard of the show. I get it. Well it is on CBS, if it is coming back, that is. It stars four male nerds and a social chick. The best thing about her? She's definitely not dumb, even though the guys might think so at times. So, while she's schooling them on social etiquette from time to time, she's not doing it as a dumb blond playboy bunny. She's realistic and down to earth.

Anywhozle, the point was that the humor of this show is mostly in the interplay between the characters. They use big words, discuss physics theorems, and play high-tech video games in a way that keeps me rolling. It's a feast for the mind!

I also love the following: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly(all three of those were created by the genius: Joss Whedon), Friends, Psych, Gilmore Girls, and Freaks and Geeks.

There are other shows that I enjoy off and on...but they never have staying power, mostly because they end up dragging out the drama and ticking me off.

But the ones I love are definitely shows I'll watch again and again. I own some of them on DVD and fully intend to get the rest!

Nerdy Girl goes to a Conference

So, two days in to the school year and I get to go off site for a conference. I was a little bit excited about it and also a little bit apprehensive. Turns out there was no need for either. It's all been pretty much basic info. The only helpful stuff was the info on gangs and gang paraphernalia and I had to miss half of it to go get my twice weekly allergy shot.

Anywhozle, the thing is, I get completely distracted by spelling and grammar errors in any sort of professional context. It is my opinion that anytime you are trying to present a professional image(whatever profession it is) you should take the time to have somebody proofread that image for you. I'm not saying that everyone has to have perfect spelling and grammar, hell I don't always myself, but there are proofreaders in the world.

At this conference, the first packet they handed us was so rife with errors that I simply had to take my pen to it and make corrections. I couldn't help it. However, I do try to ask if I can offer the corrections instead of just telling the person what needs to be corrected. Luckily, this time they were happy to get them.

I'm not saying I am perfect or anything, but if I was creating a sign, an advertisement, or presentation materials, I would make darn sure to get them proofread before I published them. Why doesn't everyone do that?

Nerdy Girl and the Crushes

I wouldn't exactly say that I am the boy crazy type...but I have had my fair share of crushes and amusing boy stories. I have a tendency to develop an intellectual crush on a guy and then sticking with it until it has become beyond pathetic. By "intellectual crush" I mean that I kind of decided I liked them based on certain criteria. It usually had no basis in a chemistry/passion sort of thing. I was a naive young thing and didn't know much about sex and attraction at all. Oh sure, I thought they were good looking, cute if you will, but it was more about the whole package.

Even the name was important. The name had to have a certain type of image to go along with the smarts, the good looks, whether they were nice or not, etc. I mean, when I had a crush on a cute, all-american type boy, his name was Brad. How perfect a name is that? And oh how well it fit with his last name too...and don't think I'm sharing that you stalker! Just kidding, I love you!

The main high school crush? That lasted all four years, even through the minor crushes on other boys through the years. I was dedicated. Of course I was the only one to see the real him and understand. Of course he never really saw me as anything but a classmate. Mostly because, as it turns out, he was gay. I guess I didn't really see the real him, huh?

I repeated the whole crazy thing in college too...Luckily that crush was only three years long. For a little while there I thought I was doomed to always fall for a closeted gay man. But, it seems my luck has changed. I'm pretty certain...I think...

Some evidence for existence of bad luck

So, as a school district employee, I have a login and password to use the computer and check email and such. Last year, about halfway through the semester, the district realized that I had stopped working for them about three years prior and cut off my access without realizing that I had started working there again. So, I had to find the IT guy, get him to figure out what had happened, and get him to fix it. Then, a few days later I realized I wasn't getting as many emails as usual(try almost none actually) and I had to contact him again. Seems I had also been removed from the mass email lists for the school.

Well, sometime during the summer the district disabled me again. We don't know why this time, they just did. So, I had to find him again and get him to fix it again. I also have to get him to fix the email problem again. This was yesterday.

Today we discovered that, according to the district, I do not work on Fridays. Which is news to every one of us. I was ok with that of course, as long as my paycheck doesn't get screwed up...but of course the school wants to make sure that little glitch gets fixed.

Also, I woke up about 40 minutes later than I intended to today because I assumed my alarm was set since I had set it for the day before and I had forgotten how my phone alarm works. Luckily, I still managed to leave about five minutes early for work. Unluckily the traffic in front of the high school that I have to pass to get to my high school caused me to be ten minutes late. Why in the world should it take 15 minutes to drive a mile just because of student drop offs? Plain ridiculous.

Enough evidence? I happen to think so...Just another day in the life of a nerdy girl.

An introduction to Ms. Nerd

I am a self-titled "nerdy girl." I freely admit to all my strange quirks, idiosyncrasies, klutziness, and crazy behavior. In fact, I subscribe to three different grammar blogs for my own personal amusement. As if one wasn't enough, right?

I am currently twenty-nine years old, and though that may seem like a drop in the bucket to most people, it makes me cringe each time I say it, or think it even. I'll be thirty in precisely 6 months and I haven't accomplished any of the things I thought I would as a young idealistic high schooler. I had a veritable card catalog in my head of different fantasy lives that I would some day live out.

Of course I thought it would be uber exciting to be a secret agent with the FBI like Dana Scully, or vastly rewarding to be a kindergarten teacher with long flowing skirts and a delicate floral scent wafting around me as I reached each and every student, or super cool in a nerdish kind of way to be a famous architect with black rimmed glasses, or totally glamorous to be a best-selling romance novelist, or any number of other careers that seemed completely achievable at the time.

My mind was, and always has been, my biggest source of pride and self-esteem. Oh sure, I do love the fact that I am always there to lift people up and make them feel better about themselves, but that's a harder horn to toot for oneself. In every single class, I was that student with the perpetually raised hand. You know how, in movies, the nerd is always a little bit ashamed of their smartness and aware that he/she is always on the verge of a huge humiliation? I was actually proud of how smart I was and felt I could be even smarter, definitely work a lot harder, and maybe focus a bit more. I was actually confused by other students' dogged determination to avoid learning at all costs. I pitied them even. How could they not know how important all this information was?

I shake my head at myself now. So idealistic, so naive, so self-conscious about everything but learning. But, where was I? Oh yeah, twenty-nine with a master's degree and working as a high school narc. Welcome to my world. I hope you get some laughs!