Nerd

People use the word "nerd" a lot these days. And they're using it in a good way, a compliment almost. On facebook, a "friend" (ie, somebody I know from high school who added me) recently posted an album called "Forensic Nerds Night" and its pictures of her and a bunch of her friends predrinking, then out at a bar. I'm not sure why this bothers me so much. I think its because I spent many many years of my youth coming to terms with that word. Accepting and finally embracing that really, when you get down to it, I'm not that cool. I am a nerd. Actually, I should probably say "I was a nerd" because now that I have an actual social life, I don't really qualify- no though, I do feel qualified because once a nerd always a nerd.

In grades 5-8 I was in "the gifted class". This, in Ontario (and more specifically, in my particular school board, which I guess had the finances to really get going on this program) means that all the grade fours who, through psychiatric assessment, have a high enough IQ to get be "identified exceptional: gifted" leave their home schools and go to this one school to be in a class together and be "taught differently" or challenged or something. It starts in grade 3- all third graders take a big huge test and if you score high enough on that, then in grade 4 you leave your classroom twice a week to go to "the challenge program" where you do logic puzzles and extra projects. Anyway though, the "gifted school" happened to be housed at my home school. So whereas in grade five everybody else in my class was new (they'd come from 10 or so schools nearby), I still had old friends in the "regular program". It really isn't a smart idea to label 25 kids as gifted and expect the rest of the school to be okay with that. So from grades 5-8 life was, um, yup pretty much terrible. The "regulars" called us "the gifties" and made fun of everything from our hair cuts to our running shoes to the whiteness of our teeth. It was worse for the girls, I think. Giftie guys and Regular guys just didn't interact, but Regular girls would hunt down the Giftie girls to tease them in the washrooms, hallways, recess fields, etc. I usually played soccer with the boys during recess, so I feel I lucked out and didn't have to face as much as my female peers. Every month or so though, we'd have "Integration" (seriously, it was called integration) where they'd give us some stupid task like "make a roller coaster for a marble with this half-pipe tubing" or "create a new country- create a flag, an anthem, and what laws you think they country should follow" and put us into groups of 3-4. However, since there was only 1 gifted class and 3 regular classes, the groups ended up being one gifted kid and 3 regulars. The regulars would team up and say "okay giftie, you're the smart one, you do it all". And we would. We would do the entire task. We never really stood up for ourselves, and I'm not sure why. Never mind that any idiot could complete the project. It was just silly. We got pushed around so badly. They called us nerds, brainers, geek, dorks, etc etc etc. Life was less than amazing.

I went to an all girls high school. Catholic. Uniforms. Nun's convent next door. You name it. The school had a really strong emphasis on academics. I have to pay for my own university so I worked at a toy store every Friday night (4-9:30) and Saturday (1-6:30). I usually ended up babysitting some family or another Saturday nights. You could say I didn't go out much, and you'd be accurate. I studied a lot. I had plenty of friends- but we'd all just study all the time. Luckily, somehow along the way, I garnered a tonne of self confidence and this bunch of studyholics was kind of (I'm obviously biased) but kind of the cool group. There were a couple non-rigidly formed cliques at school- the stupid but known partiers, the stupid "nobody knows your name" partier verging on sluts, the more academically focused partiers, the smart "involved in school" girls, the smart "nobody knows your name" girls, the stupid "nobody knows your name" girls, the teacher crushers (like, they have a crush on their teachers), the wanna be involved girls (who tried but never got elected for student council), etc. I'd call my group the smart "involved in school" girls though I crossed the bridge and hung out with the academically focused partiers every so often. And the smart "nobody knows your name" girls when I wanted to do particularly well on a group lab. [Actually, by grade 12, all the algebra/physics/calc takers knew each other really well, and cool and uncool alike were friends].

So this "friend" on facebook was one of the stupid "nobody knows your name" sluts. Nobody liked these guys, not even the other stupid girls. And again, they'd call us nerds. And it'd be like, "whatev" because I guess we were mature enough at this point to realize that those girls will not meet with success. Oh right, but now its suddenly cool to want to make it somewhere in life. It's suddenly okay to be driven. It's suddenly in to be a nerd. Whatever, forensic girl. Thats an easy program to get into, anyway, at your school. You don't even need grade 12 calc. You've never been smart, you're not smart now, and you are not a nerd. You can't just start using terms once they become cool!

This post become much longer and more bitter than I intended. I guess I have a lot to say on the subject.