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emmanation

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Archive for the ‘girl geek’ Category

wrong wrong wrong

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

Yesterday.

Am I right?

Seriously. Not only did I write a poorly thought out blog post (I had a point but forgot it on the drive to school and typed something while in class just so I could hit publish), I also got a perfectly nice TA at Purdue in trouble for doing me a favor (not on purpose!) and made a pathetic showing of solving a problem on the board in Linear Vector Spaces. Like, my professor crossed it out and wrote ‘the works of Satan’ next to what I wrote down.*

Sometimes I do or say things and afterwards I think, man, if I had only thought about that before opening my mouth or taking that step, I would have seen the error of my ways. Then I mentally yell at myself – THINK, Emma, THINK.

There are days, though, that even if I had thought about it I would have done it anyway. The perfectly nice TA got in trouble for giving me permissions that only his prof should have been able to grant. The professor was going to give them to me, but the TA beat him to it – and I didn’t know that it was an issue, so I mentioned it to the prof. In retrospect, the best I could have done was talked less – I couldn’t have realized I shouldn’t say that specific thing. I certainly couldn’t have performed better at the board unless I’d gone back in time to the night before and studied matrix inversions – but I chatted to the class while I made my attempt and in retrospect that probably makes my failure more memorable.

Hmm. Maybe talking less overall is a good idea.

I should look into that.

* That is not a joke. He really really loves Dana Carvey’s Church Lady.

Magic n stuff

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Why yes, I did read the Alyssa Bereznak Gawker article about her date with a geek.

Did you? If you didn’t read it when it was published, you’ve missed a little. It’s been edited a bit and there’s now an apology at the beginning. However, the point is the same. Alyssa went on a date with someone she met online and that someone turned out to be a geek.

Like, quite a geek.

Like, he has his own Magic: The Gathering Pro Player card.

Apparently he’s a world champion. There’s a whole battle. Reddit is PISSED. How dare a girl blogger on a nerdy site say she didn’t want to go out with someone who played Magic? I came away from the original article thinking that the author was overplaying her hand. She went on a date with a nice guy who had a hobby that she found… what, distasteful? embarrassing? something. She tried to turn it into an online dating horror story, but she failed. Forbes called it ‘geek baiting’, and that may have been what Gawker was going for when the posted the article. Why else would a site aimed at geeks publish an article that was so openly disdainful? Even non-redditors are mad. Geek mom warns mamas not to let their babies grow up to date Alyssa.

I get why people are a little mad. She got kind of judgey.

The response she actually got, though, is absolutely insane.

Her article made her sound a little shallow and like she had nothing better to talk about.

It made Jon (the geek in question) sound like someone who likes games and, more interestingly, is super plus good at them.

She didn’t actually accuse him of anything he wasn’t proud of.

What the hell is everyone so pissed about?

P.S. If she was going to take issue with something about their date, how about the fact that he took her to a one man show based on the life of Jeffry Dahmer? Did he even ask first? What if she’s sensitive to cannibalism, dude?

friends

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Yesterday was a long, long day, but not a terrible one. I had classes and meetings and then more classes and then more meetings and then a departmental orientation, followed by a pizza party.

I attended everything but the pizza party. When the pizza boxes opened and the other students descended on them with such rapidity that I’m pretty sure several of them accidentally ate parts of the cardboard boxes, I snuck out the back.

Yesterday, while sitting in my first class, I tweeted

@dollemma Guys, I found all the girls at my school! Turns out they were hiding in statistics courses.

My first class had 13 people in it, and 9 of them were women.

More than a few of them were women who had worked for awhile and then come back to school.

It’s basically like someone custom designed some friends for me and then shoved us all into a room together. “Here. You’re all 28 (cough*giveortake*cough) and you all like math and you are all going to be sitting here, three times a week, learning the same things. You’re welcome.”

Some of them already knew each other, and one was acting as social director for those who didn’t…

and I totally ignored them.

I was trying to explain why to Crockett, but I really have nothing. It may have been shyness, honestly, or it may just have been that I had other stuff to worry about on that first day of school.

Or, it may have been that I’m damn stingy with my time and have enough friends already, thankyouverymuch.

I could have had pizza with them. But I came home and had pizza with Crockett and my girls instead.

Antisocial for the win.

this

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

Scene – last night, chatting idly about what we learned over the course of the day.

Me: Oh, did you hear that men who say they’re bisexual have not, in fact, been lying all this time?
Crockett: Did someone think they were?
Me: Apparently the scientists at Northwestern University were unsure.
Crockett: After they finished that study, did they turn their research towards bears and their woodland defecation?

Ahahahahaha.

I love having a smart man.

capabilities

Monday, August 1st, 2011

You know how it’s an easy joke to talk about how old people don’t understand computers?

Har de har har, it’s HILARIOUS that a technology that we grew up with is tough for people who grew up with typewriters and books.

Crockett works for himself, and therefore has an office in our house. I (sort of) have an office too, but it’s in the guest room in the basement and there are spiders and no sunshine down there, so while Crockett is gone I’m working in his office. He has all sorts of neat toys.

This is an IM conversation we’re currently having.

Me: hi
Me: I know you told me last night, but how do I make the wireless keyboard and mouse work?
Crockett: turn on bluetooth on your laptop: Is there a weird-looking ‘B’ up in the menu?
Me: yesshhhh
Crockett: Or just go to ‘Bluetooth’ in system Preferences
Me: I found it
Me: is it automatic?
Crockett: no
Me: ok
Me: it’s on
Crockett: Choose “Set up bluetooth device…”
Me: ooooh I see
Me: this is magical
Crockett: (and make sure the keyboard and mouse are turned on)
Crockett: yes
Me: there are on buttons?
Me: I see no buttons
Me: well, aside from the obvious buttons

I’m not going to share the rest of the conversation with you, because there’s a part where I start banging on the mouse like a technically inept monkey. There are also several jokes about dongles that are only funny if you’re us (or 12 years old).

Let’s just say I see how it’s easy to lose track of new technologies*.

And that I hope any kids I might have are technically savvy. And patient.

* Yes, I KNOW bluetooth isn’t new technology. Shut up. No, seriously. Shut up.