A True Nerd

Well, I finally made it down to scan in all my pictures. And this time I remembered the pictures. Okay, before I post any of the pictures, here's what I'm going to tell you about class last night: I gave my presentation. It went well. We had a good discussion afterwards. I'm now coasting in that class as well. And, to make up for my morning class running late, we got out of class last night early. And we had a thunderstorm here last night. Very rainy with lots of thunder and lightning. Of course, this brought the temperature drop. We spent the last couple of days hanging out in the high 70s and low 80s. Actually nice weather. This morning it was back in the 30s. We have unpredictable weather here :). And also, since I promised I'd post the original Strive For Five picture of all three of us on the scale when I got it, here it is (please note our weight is clearly displayed -- well, in case you can't click the picture, it says 432.8):And now for the moment for which you've all been waiting, it's the pictures I've been talking about for weeks!:

(see, I was cute once :))

And now for the ultimate icky photo. This one was actually taken when I was 12 (not 10 as I previously stated). I was a true nerd. I was in the Talented and Gifted program (TAG) in elementary school, because my grades were good and I excelled, and so I was able to be pulled out of class once a week to do other projects. One year I, along with several others, put on a play about nature (until recently (actually, I may only think it's recent, but I'm sitting here thinking it might have been back in 1998, when we moved to Dothan), I still had the shirt my mom made for it with raindrops and a sun -- too bad I didn't keep that). Another year, I had a massive project in which I researched and reported on the endangered mammals of Panama. I still have this project; in fact, I came across it in that box of memorabilia through which I looked the other week. I had to make transparencies and stuff on a copy machine. That was cutting-edge technology at the time ;). I was in 5th grade, so that would have been around 1991. Anyway, I was originally only going to present that thing to my class, and maybe the other 5th grade class. But, by the end of the whole thing, I think I had presented to most of the classes at Los Rios Elementary, as well having to present to a group of people at the annual Science Fair at the elementary school. Perhaps this is why I have no problem getting up in front of people to speak... I have seriously been doing it, through church, school, and other things, for many many years. Anyway, the other project was the Campbell Soup labels (which is why I'm holding those up in this lovely picture). We sent notes home with each child at the school to have parents send any Campbell Soup labels in, and when we reached a certain number, the school could turn them in for some neat piece of equipment. I'm not entirely sure what our school ended up getting, but I know we reached our goal. Part of my job was to go around from classroom to classroom and collect the labels. Then I had to count them. Oh, also in other nerdy elementary school news... I was also in Math Olympiads, and I won a trophy the year this photo was taken. I was not expecting it. Apparently a kid named Derek (I think I mentioned him before, because I had a serious crush on him that year) and I scored the highest overall in Math Olympiads.

Okay, I know this post has gotten way out of hand (seriously, this one was supposed to be short because I had 'nothing' to say). But this just has been floating around in my mind since I told you about the endangered animals of Panama presentations. That year (5th grade), I dressed up in skirts and stuff (and leggings, for all you 80s lovers out there) every day because I had this huge crush on this boy named Romel. And for some reason, even at the age of 10 or 11, I figured the best thing to do was to wear dressy clothes and always have my hair done up with some cutsie hair thing (usually compliments of my grandparents in Washington). Okay, so there's no real point to this story (I've been told in the past -- as in 9th grade -- that my stories never have a point), but I just vividly remember wearing dresses and skirts (and, eek, the most hideously-colored leggings of all time) to school every day for the sole purpose of impressing Romel. Yeesh, some things are just better forgotten. Too bad I have that freakish memory, right Juliebean?

Okay, so, picture:
And for the record, I'm still a nerd. This is what I was pondering last night in class, mostly because the topic of computerized library catalogs was brought up in one of the presentations: my children will not know how to locate a book the old-timey way, because by the time I have kids, there probably won't be many (if any) standing card catalogs left. Don't you remember going to those little drawers and pulling them out and flipping through index cards to find your book? Don't you remember having to learn that there are three different sections of those cards: author, title, and subject? What a tragedy that my children won't understand that... Won't know that. Okay, well, it's tragic for me. So, here's my plan: (obviously this will wait until after I am out of school and have more free time... Also until all my books are unpacked, which ain't happenin' anytime soon). I'm going to create a card catalog system for my own personal library. Yep, that's right. And one day, I'll be able to show my kids how it used to be done. I told you, I'm a total nerd.