Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Intro to geek world

Today, more than ever, geeks and nerds are becoming the cool kids! They are becoming the ones that everyone wants to be like and more importantly, the geeks and nerds who had to hide parts of who they were are now expressing themselves more due to the fact that its becoming mainstream. Geeks are now allowed to be geeks and they are actually cool for it! Magic is amazing, super heroes are the thing and owning your Harry Potter world or SyFy world is now considered to be pretty awesome. So with all the geeky things around us, I thought I would share my geek side, how I became more of a geek and how I married a geek who has taught me so much that I actually own the fact that I have a little geekyness to me.

Growing up I had a gameboy. I liked it and had three games I played...yes, only three. Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers and Tetris. I beat Tetris and loved it, I got to like level 5 of Donkey Kong and quit because I couldn't get past it and I never fully beat Super Mario Bros. This was the extent of my geek side and gaming. But then years later, I met this really cool, geeky guy who would later become my husband. I have to admit, that I wasn't sure about everything he loved at first, but I came around to some of it. Lets start with D&D. I had to ask what that meant. He had a couple friends that he would play with periodically when we met. I had to ask and get some explanation about this game. I didn't get it. But....I would try it. So we got together, me and him and a couple friends and I gave my whirl at it. That wasn't really for me. I guess I figured I was more of a visual person and imagining in my head was not fun. But he appreciated me trying and I had fun the one time.

Then a few months later, I realized that he really did love playing video games. I thought, he really loves this and if I am going to get to spend as much time as I want with him, it might be a good idea for me to learn how to play and then maybe I could play with him. I wasn't even sure that he would like this idea. I kind of thought, that he either wouldn't want a teammate or that girls weren't allowed to play. Thats what I thought at that time...that girls weren't really supposed to be super into the shooting games, so I didn't even know how to approach this subject. Then one day we were at lunch and I just asked. "Hey, so I was thinking, could you teach me how to play video games?" At first, there was silence. I thought, this was a bad idea...RETREAT! RETREAT! But before I back peddled out of it, his silence became an enthusiastic hell yeah! And I all of the sudden became super cool. His silence was from shock. He never thought that would be my thing. So began our love for co op games. I started on Halo and I was bad! I was terrible. I couldn't walk and turn at the same time. I never shot anything and I died a lot! I mean A LOT! I started by hiding while he shot everything and then when there was one guy left, I would go out and kill. That was fun!

Then, we started Halo 2. I got better. Halo 3 was much of an improvement and then came Halo ODST. And I had kind of figured out my mojo at that point. I didn't like doing missions. I didn't like finding the object or doing the objective, I just liked to shoot things. By the end of Halo ODST, I had unexpectedly and not intentionally, out ranked my husband (we were married at this point). Another side note, his grooms cake was an xbox with the game Gears of War on top. That was the game that I truly loved. In the middle of playing through the Halo series, we started Gears of War. I was Dom, he was Marcus. I loved it. I still do. We played Gears of War 2 and then Gears of War 3. Just in case this post inspires any of you to go play these games, I won't spill the beans on why I quit after Gears of War 3...but needless to say, that game has run its course with me. We've played Rainbow Six Vegas which I love and also out ranked him at one point. And then we began Borderlands and Borderlands 2. By far, these are my favorite! And the best part is, I was able to be a girl character!! Gaming has become a part of us and something that we do now for fun. Its a great stress reliever and I love that it really bonds us. We have to play as a team and coordinate and have each others backs. I love that the most about playing with him. He even bought me my very own controller. Its the Gears of War Xbox controller. I love it!!

Moving on to movies. I'll only go into Harry Potter. "Harry Potter? Never seen it"....that was my response in the beginning. He was like, "You have to watch it!" Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix was about to come out and I hadn't seen any of them. He of course had read all the books up to this point. The seventh book had not been released yet. So on my time off from work I watched the first four. They were ok, but I really didn't get the hype. I went and saw the fifth movie and then the sixth and then the seventh. But then he asked me to read the books. I remember when the last book came out. He got it at midnight and stayed up all night and the next day reading it. I didn't understand that craziness. After I had my first kid and he started taking some long naps, and I started having more down time, I finally picked up book one. And loved it! So I read the rest one after another and I loved them! After each book, I watched the movie that went with that book and thus began my love affair for the series. I have now reread the books several times and any time Harry Potter is on TV, we stop and let it play. My kids at 3 and 1 1/2 actually can tell you who Harry Potter is if he's on TV.

And since we are talking about TV, lets talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Another show, I didn't watch and wasn't all that into. You mean vampires? Really? Thats not really my thing. Oh how wrong I was. Spike is so my thing! I watched every season with my husband and loved it! I have even watched them over and over again. I have not seen Angel...but its on the list. I did watch Firefly, not really my thing, but I get its cool. We've watched Freaks and Geeks and love the awesomeness of it. We are huge Big Bang Theory fans (which who isn't these days) and I love Grimm which is a kind of fantasy show.

All in all, I found a part of me that I didn't know existed. A part of me that is totally geeky but that I am proud to know. I love that I met a man who wasn't afraid to be a nerd and now owns more nerdy t-shirts than anyone I know. I am thankful for someone who said, "I'll teach you to play video games! This is awesome!" Who had patience with me when he had to save me in the games more than he actually got to play and for someone who encouraged me to read more and find different genres that might be fun. I am outing myself as a semi, self-proclaimed nerd. I pride myself on the fact that I can call myself a gamer chick. I love that I have my own controller and I have gotten a flawless, up strum only performance on the bass guitar on Rock Band. (another side note, we have also done the 50 song consecutive set....yes we totally stayed up all night long to do it. This was before we had kids....ahh the days back then). Anywho...I love that I am a Harry Potter fan and that I was able to fall in love with the series. I am also having fun with my son these days and his super heroes. I like that I know the characters now (after getting a crash course from husband one night after my son went to bed because I couldn't name half of the heroes in the coloring book...but thats beside the point). I am proud to be married to a geek and I am proud to be one myself. And more importantly, I am proud, that I get to raise my kids to know that whomever they want to be...cool, geeky, nerdy, athletic, the jock, the cheerleader, dancer, princess....whatever, that they can be a combination of everything or only one thing and still be true to who they are. They can own it and we will support it and make sure that they are proud to be who they are. 

Own your geek side, because its a pretty cool thing! 

And here's the grooms cake at our wedding: