Not a Choice; Operating as Designed

I was giving the twins a bath and as they splashed around, I filled up a cup with the water and said “Look the cup is full”, then I dumped the water out and said “Now the cup is..”, nope, I did not say empty, I said “Null”. Ok, crazy, right? It didn’t faze the babies, so I kept it to myself and continued with bath duty. Another day, I told my oldest, in order to watch TV he had to clean his room, finish his homework and take the garbage out. When I saw him kicked back watching TV, I proceeded to ask him if he had done all 3 things. He said he did not take the garbage out. I then broke it down in an “If-Then” statement. “If your room is clean AND your homework is done AND the garbage is taken out, THEN you can watch TV”. I then yelled “this was not an OR Statement, it is an AND all arguments must be true!!”. My poor son looked at me completely bewildered and quickly took the garbage out. I thought, oh no I am doing it out loud “Geek Speak!” I often think in that way, but have enough common sense to filter before speaking; however, kids will do things to your brain you cannot explain.

For years, I knew. I knew deep in my soul when my dad bought me my first computer, a Commodore Pet 2001 with a cassette player (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET ) , when in high school everyone would come to me to create banners for their parties, since I had coded a computer program in BASIC to create them, when in undergrad I decided, with the help of my Prof. Dad, to switch majors from Dance to Computer Science , when in Graduate school my thesis included an Avatar as part of an online training programming (http://www.lcfinalproject.com/) I knew that I was a nerd/computer geek/geek, whatever you want to call it. For years, I convinced myself I did not meet the stereotype of a nerd; I’m female, African-American, a wife, a mother, part time dance instructor, somewhat fashionable and very social, none of which equates to a geek, in my mind. Yet, as one grows older you realize you cannot suppress what is innately part of you.

It is no surprise that I am a technical trainer and get to talk “geek speak” to others that speak the same language and many that are far more fluent than I. However, some of my students are not as technically savvy and in order to be effective I have to find a way to get across very technical abstract concepts in a way that is digestible to them, which is one of my greatest abilities. For example, I use the analogy of Human as a Class and each of us as an Object from the Human class, when I teach the concepts of Classes and Objects in my Intro to OOPs (Object Oriented Programming) class; or when I talk about efficiently managing memory when coding, I refer to it as the “Green” way of coding, using only that which you need. Unlike others, I seek to see how technology mirrors real life. I try to eliminate the separation between virtual and real world and identify how they operate under the same universal laws for the most part. I see it that way because that is the way I am wired, I suppose.

For awhile I thought I was a little “different”, but I have accepted that I’m operating as designed. This blog is my journey to embracing my inner geek outwardly by sharing thoughts that may have been spurred on from a conversation with a student, something I read or just came into my mind 5 am as they often to do. I also hope to dispel the stereotypes of geeks because we come in all shapes, sizes, colors, who knows you maybe one too and begin to chant “Say it Loud, I’m a Geek and I’m proud” Happy reading.