I've thought often of blog posts I might write, but they just haven't written themselves. Some topics I've considered and even started to write about in my head include the following:1. Michael Jackson's Death: Why (I'm Ashamed to Say) I Cried
2. Health Care Reform: Why We Need It
3. Homesteading in Wisconsin: Getting My Klemp On
Needless to say, these are very diverse topics, but I've finally decided on yet another topic for this post, with apologies for my long absence. In fairness, work has just been really busy lately, for which I am very grateful.
So, how did I come up with the topic I've finally chosen?
I've been reading a book loaned to me. It's called The Girls from Ames, and it's about women who grew up together in Ames, Iowa and maintained their friendships into adulthood. As you may know if you saw my earlier post on pigs, I grew up in Iowa, too. So, my friend correctly figured I'd like to read The Girls from Ames.
As I've been reading, though, I learned something that I'm sure my friend didn't intend: I was a nerd. I might still be one. I'm not sure.
In the book, the author talks about parties the girls went to, drinking games they played, boys they flirted with. For the most part, that pretty much went on without my knowledge. I most definitely was interested in boys--I just couldn't figure out how to talk to them, and I was convinced I was so ugly I shouldn't. I wasn't a wannabe--I truly had no clue. Really!
NOTE: WHAT I WRITE NEXT IS NOT BRAGGING. IT IS HOW IT WAS. IT'S (SLIGHTLY) TRAGIC IN A VERY COMEDIC SORT OF WAY.
I think it all started when I was a kid. I learned to read before I went to school. The first thing I read was the JCPenney sign, my parents tell me. Apparently, though they thought at first I was just recognizing the shapes, I could read it even when it looked different in different towns--different colors and so on.
I didn't intend to learn to read, but I'm sure having two reading parents and being an only child for the first almost-four years of my life had something to do with it.
Anyway, by the time I got to kindergarten, I could read fluently. They had me read a book to the first graders (nerd alert: danger already presenting itself here). In first grade, I read with the second graders. In second grade, I read with the third graders, but I soon passed them up and ended up having my own reading program. I couldn't help it. I was also a great speller (I see this as an inborn ability having to do with "seeing" words in your head, not an indicator of intelligence).
So, the kicker is this: I was in a spelling bee. I was in second grade, up reading with the third graders who knew I'd already passed them up. Even though I basically had the self-esteem of a turnip, they might have wanted to see me get something wrong just because I usually didn't. I got up to spell and, as it turns out, the word I was given to spell was NERD.
Picture me: I've never heard that word. It doesn't exist in my family! The sad thing is, I didn't know it applied to me! So I spelled it n-u-r-d, and I lost the spelling bee.
When I look back, I am amazed at how clueless I was. I honestly envied the popular kids sometimes (through high school, too), but I can just as honestly say I didn't want to be one of them. I just knew it was, well, beyond me. I mean, I also wore my mother's green pointed sneakers with a pink shirt to school as well as purple pants and red, white, and blue sneakers another time.
I think we all know that academic excellence doesn't always or often equal increased social standing. As a good friend puts it, "If being a National Merit Finalist is so important, why am I still doing my own laundry?"
That's what I've learned this week. Wonder what to do with that?
I think it was nerdy to write this.
Especially on a Friday night.
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