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Wednesday 16 February 2011

In which I am odd

As a child I was always considered odd. This was the kind of odd that most parents smile and nod about but behind your back say such things as:

"Boy, your kid has quite the imagination there." Random visitor
"She sure does. The other day she came tearing through the house screaming about evil knights who were after the kingdom before diving out that open window there and rolling down the hill." Proud (hopefully) mum. *

"Does your daughter know that it isn't appropriate to hold seances in the school library?" Concerned parent.
"She's an imaginative girl, we don't want to stifle her creativity." Confused but proud father. **

"Why did your daughter go to a cemetery on her birthday?" Confused parent.
"She likes to pay respects to the living by remembering the dead." Possible equally confused mum. *** Oh, and I have to apologise to the poor girl that I may have possibly scared by sneaking up behind them in said cemetery. She was a friend - well until I realised that she was standing on an unmarked grave. I honestly didn't mean to scare her that much.

To many my parents were often considered too lenient on my...uh...different behaviours. To say I wasn't like the others in my peer group growing up could be an understatement. But I don't think I ever saw the world in quite the way that others did. Cemeteries were never scary places whereas clowns were, and are, the minions of the devil. Yes I am scared of clowns. The feeling is mutual I like to think. Or maybe it's just because I lash out at clowns who enter my personal space bubble.

All through primary school I was do my own thing but often drag a lot of the others into my hi jinks. I guess it was a good thing that the school I attended was a small rural school. Can you imagine the kind of trouble I've gotten into if I was living in a city. I mean, convincing others that the library was haunted. Telling ghost stories to scare the younger kids. Alternatively, I was earning science badges left, right and centre and writing up projects on Marie Curie and Dr Jack Horner while causing a fuss to the Bibles in Schools programme that was forced on us. It wasn't my fault that I was upset when the teacher, who shall remain nameless because I've forgotten the name, told the entire class of 5 year olds that Santa wasn't real and that they should give their presents to the church. Or when another one tried to tell us that dinosaurs and man walked around at the same time. I think it was around that time (when I was about 10 or 11) that my parents removed me from that particular lesson.

Anyway, my antics carried on to high school where people would often ask me why I was so weird and I honestly didn't have an answer. I didn't really think I was weird I just worried that everyone else was far too normal plus I hated high school - or the deepest level of hell as I affectionately recall it being. The teasing was manageable, the bullying less so but the lack of interesting topics made me feel absolutely and totally bored. I mean, how many ways can you read Romeo and Juliet without wanting to scream about the stupidity of both the story and the teachers interpretation of it. Seriously, it is not a romantic story. We must remember that Romeo was only 16 and Juliet was barely into her teens. They died because they weren't honest. And let's face it, Romeo was a total playa (yeah I used the word playa. Whatcha gonna do?). I mean, one minute it was all about Rosalind and the next thing he's all "Juliet, sun, moon, stars, dead." That's not healthy. (Especially the dead part.)

Even now many people think my habits are odd or my ideas are somewhat strange. Fortunately, though, many of the people who know me well understand that it's my quirks that make me who I am. You know, the geeky obsessions, the love of quotes, dinosaurs, BSG, odd socks, fantasy, horror, adventure and the list goes on.

Oh well - at least this is a somewhat better blog compared to the last two. "May the force be with you."

Peace and pancakes


*Well, in my imagination there were fifty black knights who were trying to overthrow the kingdom and I couldn't let that happen could I?
**I was utterly convinced that my primary school library was haunted when I was younger. I decided to prove this theory by any means necessary. Needless to say, some of the other parents were not as understanding as my own.
*** I find cemeteries interesting. All these headstones as a reminder of those who once walked around with the living.

2 comments:

  1. Oh my God! I totally blame inept teachers for my deep and abiding hatred and loathing of R&J. I. Cannot. Stand. It. Still. Macbeth was way cooler.

    Still think it was awesome to have you at high school. Nice to know I'm not the only one with the imagination and intelligence to challenge and question everything like you did. But thank everything that High School is over and far, far away...

    Just remember, you're still cool. And there are many of us out there.

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  2. Yay - though just had an image of an army of geeks chanting 'one of us' over and over again.

    R&J was the bane of high school and it was also very awesome to have you at the same school. At least we could talk about different texts heh heh.

    Am currently watching The Big Bang Theory and partaking in a small amount of chocolate after a really bad evening.

    Thanks for the mini pep talk.

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