Part 1: The Early Years
Once upon a time, there was an incredibly precocious little girl who grew up to be a teacher, wife, blogger, and lover of science fiction and fantasy. That girl is me. Welcome to my story.
The earliest nerdy thing I can ever remember was at the age of three telling my neighbors that raccoons were nocturnal. The mom didn’t believe I knew that word, so when questioned, I proceeded to tell her that it meant an animal that slept during the day and was awake at night. My parents should’ve seen it coming!
I got to spend every Saturday morning at the public library picking out books that my mom or dad lovingly read with me whenever I asked, which was ALWAYS! I apparently quick to pick up reading and would read the back of the newspaper aloud while my dad was trying to read the front side.
Fast forward a few years to when I was in second and third grade. I would come home from school, sit down to play some Reader Rabbit 1 or The Oregon Trail on our old IMB on the 5 ¼” floppy discs that booted in DOS. Once I was done with that, I’d either take a book out to the back yard or play “school” with my stuffed animals, depending on the weather. Yeah, I was a total dork!
I got involved with Odyssey of the Mind and Future Problem Solving through the gifted program at my school and continued to participate in those from about fourth grade through seventh or eighth grade. Though a lot of my friends participated, too, I was an adolescent who was becoming woefully socially aware. I knew that these pastimes would not garner me the popularity I so hoped for nor the cute, athletic, “popular” boys that most thirteen-year-old girls go after.
I began to suppress my inner geek at this time. I was a mathlete, yes, but outside of a very small circle of friends, no one knew. It’s not like I announced it, but the yearbook decided to for me. I was involved in a Prodigy (yeah, remember that ISP?) BB group that wrote Newsies fanfic, too. Wow, I’m lame.
Also, during this time, I was a bit obsessed with becoming a marine biologist. Where that came from, growing up in landlocked Tennessee, I’ll never know. It was then that I discovered and (secretly) fell in love with the Roy Scheider-helmed underwater sci-fi series SeaQuest. Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty horrible in retrospect, but, man, I loved that show. Not that I’d have been caught dead watching Star Trek, though! At least SeaQuest had a talking dolphin and Jonathan Brandis.
To be continued...
5 comments:
I've also been a geek ever since I was a little girl! And I also often went outside, but not to read... I always went out to do something science-y, like examining dirt. No, seriously!
And I also taught my stuffed animals! :P
High five for Geeks since childhood!
Hahaha. I had a computer like that. I played Duke Nukem and some Mickey Mouse party game.
I had a computer like that and STILL play Oregon Trail! Now there's one where you are the leader and even with the cheat guide I have NEVER gotten to Oregon. I always end up in Sacramento or LA
OMG your childhood sounds similar to mine - Saturdays my dad would often take me to the public library and I'd spend a good hour or so looking up books, finding ones I liked and then reading them during the week - my parents always read with before bed (I remember working through the Narnia books with my mom).
And I played school with my stuffed animals too - I'd take a good hour or so getting all set up, even organizing a plan for the week and spend afternoon's "teaching" my stuffed animals with my little dual chalk board (it was an easel one side, a chalkboard on the other).
AND OMG you were on Prodigy too?!?!
I remember being on Prodigy in the late 80s, visiting the Sesame Street and Babysitters Club pages and playing the games they offered, and then playing Mad Maze (LOVED that game!). When I got into 5th grade I spent my time on the X-Files BB and reading and writing some fanfic's on there and then RPing with others (my character was JJ Walker, Scully's niece who was partnered with the HOT Alex Krycek), and then I eventually migrated to one of the Music BBs, where I had a group that I regularly chated with on there until they closed down the service (met my first boyfriend on there too, hehe).
Oh how I miss Prodigy... sooooo many fun memories! I think I need to make a blog post about it now! lol...
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