Why I call myself a geek

Sorry if today's post is a novel. I wanted to give you a bit of background on why I named my blog what I did.
First off, I have not always been a geek. I'm a girly girl to some degree which most geeks are not . I do enjoy some traditional womenly pursuits such as chick flicks and shopping. Which makes me a unique breed of geek .

Let me start at the beginning ! In high school, I was not particularly athletic (most people who know me now will laugh at this statement, because I'm lucky to get through the day without injuring myself). I made pretty good grades for the most part, and was in the top portion of my class (somewhere right around the top ten percent if I recall correctly). I never considered myself a geek though. I did hang around with a few friends who had some geeky habits (role playing games, playing in the SCA etc.) but none of those habits of my friends made me a geek. Nope, not this chick. I was cool! :P

Then college hit, Oh my! What a culture shock for this girl from little old Tarkington. I had a very insulated little life.
I met my future husband and some of his friends. They were definite geeks. I'm not sure how I even fit in with them to even form the friendships I did. Here I am, this spoiled,sheltered little country girl who doesn't have a clue about role playing, science fiction (with the exception of Star Trek:Next Generation (secret crush on Riker :P), the SCA,computers, video games or anything of the other things they held dear.

Long story short (opps! way too late for that) my husband (Alfred) is the master manipulator (I say that in a loving way) and somehow over the years my little spoiled pretentions fell by the wayside and I actually started wanting to see what all this was about.. Could it be some of these geeky habits held by him and his friends could be interesting, thrilling even?

However, what sealed my fate as a geek forever was my fortunate turn of employment. I had graduated from college with a degree in Accounting in 1994. However, after working for a year or so I discovered that accounting is one of the most boring professions on earth. I wanted no part of it. Dejected and feeling like a failure for not finding success in my trained profession, I turned to the local prison system for a job. This job was a low paying clerical job. Just something to pay the bills until I could decide what I wanted to do with my life. I continued looking while working this job. One of my friends who had worked with me got a job with the IT department for TDCJ. She had been there a few months when a job opened at the Help Desk doing tech support. She encouraged me to apply for it, and despite my misgivings (I really hated computers) I applied and got the job. The rest is history. I worked for nearly 5 years in a tech support capacity. Learning more and more about computers . Eventually a job opened up in the network installation group. I applied and became the first female installation specialist at TDCJ. Over the time I have a become a computer geek . I took on more and more desktop support responsibilties. Now I am responsible for the hands on desktop support for more than 13 parole offices in the Dallas/Ft Worth area , in addition to assisting with network installation for multiple prison units in the East Texas area.

During this time, my personal life took on geeky overtones as well. It started with me occasionally over the years playing with my honey and his friends when they played D&D(I was just happy they didn't laugh me out of the room) n It turned into me being a computer gamer when World of Warcraft was introduced in 2004. I took to the game like a duck to water meeting tons of people and making a few close friends I still have to this day . I still play in 2009 (although not near as hard core, I mostly dabble these days).

Alot of tranformations over the years from age 18 to 38 have turned me into the person I am today. That person is definitely a bit on the geeky side compared to most of the population. This is something I will proudly declare. Thanks to my geeky husband and all my geeky friends who got me where I am. I stand proud as a geek girl !