As part of an ongoing project my good friend Whitney and I are working on, I will now present you with collective blogging entry #3: The First Time I Realized I Am a Geek.

First I think we need to establish what is meant by “geek.” The general definition of a geek according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary is: “a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, gaming, etc.” And here’s something you may not know (I didn’t): the term geek used to refer to a carnival performer billed as a wild man whose act usually included biting the head off a live chicken, bat, snake or bugs.

I don’t think being a geek is bad. Being a geek myself, I suppose I am probably biased, but that’s OK. However, when I was younger – grade school age – being called a geek was horrible. The only thing worse was probably being called a nerd. There is a fine distinction between the two, I think it has a lot to do with whether or not you are capable of socializing with others. Nerdiness is definitely worse than geekiness though. It didn’t take much to get called a geek or a nerd in grade school. Kids are mean. So if you got a better grade on a test than they did, or you answered a question right in class, or if the teacher always called on you to read aloud because you wouldn’t stutter and make the four-sentence paragraph take twenty minutes to get through, there was a good chance someone was going to point at you and call you a geek at recess. And that would mean it was the end of the world.

Unfortunately for me, I always did get the highest grade in the class, and I always answered questions right when called on, and the teachers picked me a lot to read aloud. But I also played sports and was moderately funny and had the dubious distinction of being called the “prettiest girl in class” by Seamus in fifth grade. So I was not cast off as a geek for most of grade school. I think it’s because it took the other kids so long to realize my geeky nature that it took me so long to realize it myself. So it’s difficult for me to point to one particular moment in time and say that was the moment I knew I was a geek. It was more of a gradual awakening to the geekiness that is now an integral part of who I am, that I would never, ever seek to eliminate from my personality. And so now I will now attempt to chronicle the realization of the inevitable: I am a geek.

• Second grade, June: It’s the end of the year. The entire student body of St. Peter’s School and their families are gathered in the parish hall of the church to watch the principal (Sister Marita Daniel – a terrifying, old-school nun) hand out end-of-the-year academic achievement awards. The highest honor is General Excellence, which is a fancy way of saying “smartest kid in the class.” It was the last award to be given out for each grade, and when they got to the second grade awards whose name should get called out for General Excellence but mine! I went up and took my plaque from Sister and sat back down. I didn’t even really understand what the award meant. I did understand that the nasty looks I was getting from some of my classmates meant it probably wasn’t a very cool award to have won. My parents assured me it was very cool, and then my friends came over to play and I was fine.
• Fourth grade: one of my best friends is now Tommy (also my first boyfriend and second crush). Our favorite pasttime? Talking about outer space, and planning how we would both one day join NASA and be astronauts together. When we had to make model solar systems, mine was extra-accurate and detailed, as was his. We got teased a lot for our love of astronomy. I believe this was probably the first time anyone referred to me as a geek.
• Eighth grade: by this time most of the kids in my class had worked out that I was a geek. I didn’t have very many friends. Everyone hated that I was so good at school. I was starting to hate that I was so good at school, too, to be honest. But I couldn’t stop being geeky. In eighth grade my school science fair project was good enough to make it to the finals of Science Horizons, a major science competition in the area, where you got some huge prizes (I think one was a trip to space camp) if you won. When I stood on the stage at the finals, looking out at the crowd and around at the people also on stage, I realized that a) I had no friends there, and b) everyone on the stage was a certifiable geek. My project (a math-based probability project) did not win, by the way.
• Junior year of high school: I get put into the Advanced Biology class and it becomes my favorite class immediately. Not art, or study hall, or even Spanish with the most popular teacher in school. Nope, my favorite class was Advanced Biology. This confirmed my mounting suspicions that I may be a geek.
• 2004: My friend Jessica (college roommate and fellow science geek) comes to visit me from Virginia. We go to Borders and spend a good two hours wandering around, picking up books we think look interesting. Then we sit in the cafe with lattes and look through the books, choosing the ones we like enough to buy. I ultimately choose to buy The Coming Plague, by Laurie Garrett. It about four inches thick and about emerging pathogens the author believes are likely to cause major epidemics worldwide in the next decade or so. I go up to the register and hand my purchase to the teenage boy working the counter. He looks at the book. He looks at me. Then he says, “Are you buying this for school?” I tell him no. He says, “Then why are you buying it?” I tell him that I want to read it, then I pay him and hurry away. I had just confirmed that I am a huge, huge geek. But instead of being upset and feeling like my world was coming apart, I relayed the story to Jessica and had a good laugh. I had no qualms with my geekiness. I didn’t even care if the cashier-boy called me a geek, or even a dork, when I left.

I am a geek. And I like it.

If you want to read Whitney’s blog about the first time she realized she was a geek, go here!

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. First Crush Experiment
2. A Day in the Life of a Geeky Kid (and Her Mom)
3. My Most Humiliating Moment