I have been watching the DVD of the (unfortunately entire) series of Freaks & Geeks. I find myself identifying strongly with both Sam (one of the geeks) and Lindsay (one of the freaks) during high school. Probably more so with Lindsay. Her entire plotline is focused on her trying to figure out where she belongs in the world of high school. She starts hanging out with the "freaks"--I believe they were called "stoners" in my high school--after her grandmother dies. Before that, she was a "Mathlete" and ran with the goody 2shoes crowd.
The "Mathlete" bit hit hard as that REALLY was me. I was in MathCounts, and I placed 2nd in the state Trig competition. Then, after I lost a dear guy friend (who I was not-so-secretly head-over-heels for) my junior year, I pretty much went a tad over the deep end without actually doing anything really bad. I was the drummer for an extremely short-lived grunge band with a bonified pothead on bass guitar. I rode around town with my friends until dawn while they smoked and I kept my window cracked open so I didn't have an allergy attack. I wrote depressing journal entries about how nobody understood me or my pain.
But I still kept straight-A's and was friends with my old friends as well. I still watched Star Trek and had afterschool snacks and was nominated and elected Beta Club treasurer without anyone remembering to tell me as I'd missed the meeting. That one was actually really funny as the Beta sponsor teacher called me into her room after the next year's elections to ask me about receipts and to get the checkbook back, and I had no idea what she was talking about. She found the checkbook in her stuff and was just like, "Well, okay, then, sorry I didn't give that to you." And of course, I wasn't too offended as I had no idea what she was talking about. Then, when I got my yearbook the next year, there I was with the Beta Club with "Treasurer" written next to my name. (My husband is probably laughing especially hard right now as he knows how horrible I am with finances.)
All that to say, I was both a freak and a geek, but after reviewing, I'm going to have to put myself in the "Geek" column with an asterik next to it stating **In times of grief, may turn to freakish behavior.
How about you?
12 September 2006
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7 comments:
And might I add that I knew quite a few of you in High School, so you can't slip one past me.
i love love love this series! It's classic!
I SO loved that show and was heartbroken when it was cancelled. I too identified with Lindsay in her quest to find out where she fit. I homeschooled, so I wasn't "cool" enough to hang with the private school kids, was too "liberal" for the homeschool kids (because I wore shorts and cut my hair and said "crap"), and the public school kids just didn't care. Not to say that I didn't have any friends...it was just tough.
It ended so abruptly. :(
My favorite line was from the final episode when Daniel is playing Dungeons & Dragons with the geeks: "All right, fine, I'll be a dwarf, but I'm naming myself Carlos."
Superchikk, my parents seriously considered pulling me out of our school in 10th grade and homeschooling me, but I think they decided against it when I was more "for it" than they thought I'd be. If I hadn't had the social interaction of H.S., I probably would have just delved into a little hole and stayed there. Ironically, I became quite the extrovert in college.
Ode to the Geek I never was:
I know that this is sort of a cliche, but I would say I was a closet geek. I always had more in common with the geeks at our school; in truth, I wanted to be on the fencing team and hang out at the public library after school and share their obsession with things like James Bond and Lord of the Rings (before it was a little more cool). These were the people that first accepted me in a new school.
But alas, I turned away from them and towards "mainstream" friends. These were smart and talented, but a whole lot more boring. Yes, I survived high school with a lot less scars that the geeks, but I wish I had been strong enough to balance between the two groups.
you were in choir.
you were a geek.
(please take note of my first comment.)
I never watched that show...so, I don't exactly know much about it. But, I'm pretty sure, I'm a geek. Drama, Choir...married a bandee.
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