The Nerds Win

Some people say that their high school experiences were some of the best of their lives. Others have contempt for their lives throughout high school that carries well into their 40's if they let it. Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle.

See, I grew up in a town about fifteen miles from Iowa City. West Liberty has a healthy and prominent Mexican population in a town of about 3,500. In other words, I had the small-town experience with very little of the small-town bigotr that goes with it.

This translated into my own experience being quite interesting. When I was young, I was far from the cutting edge of hip. I wore ridiculous outfits, never said the right thing, was a big introvert, and had a tendency to talk to myself a lot. You can imagine that I wasn't at the top of the invite list to the first boy-girl party. At the time I craved acceptance from everyone, but it just wasn't going to happen. I did, however, save myself a lot of potential beatings by somehow (to this day I'm not sure why they liked me) making friends with the kids at West Liberty who got into trouble a lot for fighting. No one screwed with me even though some of them wanted to because they would have to worry about repercussions.

Still, a big part of my personality is to want to show people how incredibly entertaining having me around can be. Once high school rolled around (and I started showering regularly), people began talking to me and being nice without there being any sort of cruel, sarcastic connotation behind it. I was starting to be known for playing tuba. In a town of only 3,500, I was the only one who could really play the tuba with any kind of ability, and for some reason I got to be a small celebrity for it. After a while, the inevitable gloriously occurred: I was invited to the cool kids' party. The best part was, no one really seemed to think anything of my presence. Even a kid who tormented me all throughout junior high even spent sometime talking to me because he found out I was a sports idiot savant, something that is still true even now.

So my first boy-girl party with the cool kids didn't really happen until I was 16. I was okay with it then, and I'm okay with it now. I had found my niche at Wet Lib: not really giving a shit. This became apparent one day in Psychology class when our teacher asked the class if there was anyone in the class they felt was self-actualized. A girl raised her hand and said "Marc." The class vocalized their unanimous consent.

Some of you may think I'm full of shit when I tell that story. I'm not lying to you. Rather, I'm trying to tell all of you of past experiences that have become a big part of the kind of person I am even now. I'm okay with tooting my own horn every once in a while because damn it all if no one else will. And that's fine, it's not their job to do so. I also make an effort to be as intuitive as I can with my friends because I appreciate the company of every single one of them.

All of this because of my tuba-playing, and my propensity to not give a shit.