LJ Idol Week 5, in which there's a brain on a mission, a geek on a soapbox, and a grade on a test
So I was a brainiac in high school. And by "brainiac", I mean "shameless, unapologetic geek." Not a whole lot has changed really, but one thing that always simultaneously intrigued, annoyed, and baffled me about the high school social pecking order was how certain individuals felt entitled to use and exploit the heck out of geeks when computer problems or algebra homework made an appearance, but treat us like roadkill Tribble meat the rest of the time - like the brain of a nerd was some sort of public resource or communal watering hole full of open-access tech help and free homework answers, but the person who actually owned the brain either didn't exist or just had no right to.
See, here's the thing. My brain is pretty friendly, but it's not a stray, flea-bitten brain that rolls over and does tricks on command for anyone who walks by. It has an owner, thankyouverymuch, and I'm quite protective of that neat little thing in my skull! It's most definitely not a communal brain, and for people who have any brains of their own, this shouldn't be too hard to understand. But apparently for some under-evolved lifeforms slithering through the primordial cesspool that is the high school social circuit, this was indeed a difficult concept. And, well, let's face it. Hell hath no fury like a scorned geeky brain on a mission, and I've always had some fairly fun ways of dealing with n00bz who felt entitled to pick its poor little tendrils.
Take, for example, the tooolbag in my 10th grade chem class - or more specifically, the toolbag in the 11th grade chem class I was taking in 10th grade. I'm sure you can see where this is going already. I didn't actually have a death wish (and even if I *had* had a death wish, "death by wedgie" is a decidedly undignified way to go), so I sat in the back of the room and tried not to draw too much attention to myself. However, after our well-meaning teacher kindly informed the class that I'd been the one who fucked up the exam curve twice in a row (THANKS, LADY!), I started catching some shit. Mainly it was all silliness I could shut down fairly quickly with a wisecrack or two about how my good grades were due to the the meth lab in my basement providing me with lots of hands-on chemistry experience, and that took care of most of it. But then there was the douchenozzle who sat next to me, and instead of hassling me like a nice normal jerk, he had to go switch it up! His game, of course, was to copy my scan-trons during quizzes and tests. What cheesed me off so badly wasn't even that he was doing it - it's that he was so completely un-subtle and so damn entitled about it! I coulda narked him out and let that be the end of it, but I really wasn't a "snitch to teacher" type, since that took all the fun out of getting to creatively solve my own problems. And truth be told, I was actually content to let it go the first time - whutevs, anyone can have a moment of panicked weakness when they forget to study for a quiz, right? But then he had the nerve to shoot me a dirty, dare I say affronted look when I had the audacity to cover my answers the second and third times he tried it. And that? That changed everything.
Ooooooh really now, I thought to myself. A'ight, bucko, *that's* how we're gonna play, is it? You think I owe you test answers? Well, who am I, a mere 10th grade female dweeb, to argue with the Royal Wishes of a JV football player!
The next time we had a quiz, I caught our hero blatantly craning his neck to look at my paper and shooting me that same offended, disdainful glare when he realized my arm was blocking his view. Game on! I met his eyes, gave him my best shy smile, and scooted my scan-tron toward him. He didn't even smile back - he just looked away from me, down at my paper, and started copying. Oh, this was going to be too damn easy. The weeks went by and this same scene repeated itself a few more times during our next few quizzes, and then before any of us knew it, the semester was winding to a close and Christmas break was on the horizon. Which, of course, meant one thing - final exams. And sure enough, our delightful jackass made no bones about plopping down in the seat right next to me on the day of the final and getting into a staring contest with my scan-tron not 10 minutes after the exam had begun. Naturally, I let him copy. After all, 'tis the season for giving! And since he clearly held me in such high regard (what was that he called me to his buddy when he thought I wasn't listening? "Spacy freak"?), I felt morally obligated to take the high road and help the less fortunate. So away I toiled, working out problems in my test booklet and copying the answers over to my scan-tron, which I made sure was in easy breezy view of Cheaty McDoucheface. Fish in a goddamn barrel, I thought, and I almost felt guilty for a moment.
Almost.
I filled out the last bubble on my scan tron, then caught his eye, gave him a reassuring smile, and set about checking my work. Predictably, Douche King got right up, went to the front of the room, handed in his scan-tron, and then came back to his seat. I was still smiling at him when he got back, but my shy, awkward smile had been replaced by a gleeful, shit-eating grin. He looked at me, utterly baffled, and I didn't break eye contact for a moment as I flipped my pencil around and proceeded to erase every single answer on my scan-tron. Realization dawned on him and I watched with growing glee as his befuddled expression gave way to shocked, wide-eyed horror. You are so fucking owned, I thought to myself. After I'd finished obliterating all 50 of the wrong answers from my scan-tron, I broke eye contact, flipped open my test booklet, calmly and nonchalantly copied the correct answers to my scan-tron, got up, and turned it in.
As I walked back to my seat (okay, I was really skipping more than walking if we're being totally honest here), Duke of Douche was staring at me with what can only be described as a look of angry, indignant disbelief. I swear he was trying to kill me with his glare alone. I grinned delightedly and flashed him my campiest, cheesiest thumbs-up, then grabbed my backpack, turned on my heels, walked back to the front of the room, asked the teacher for a library pass, and merrily strode out the door.
Christmas break came and went, and when the second semester started, I noticed my chem class was minus a certain fuckface. One of the other kids asked where he went, and before the teacher could respond, another kid helpfully volunteered the information that Brave Sir Douche-a-lot had spectacularly bombed the final and subsequently failed the semester, and as a result, he was stuck re-taking semester 1 instead of moving on to semester 2 with the rest of us.
Awww, what a shame. He seemed like such a nice guy, too! *emo tear*
See, here's the thing. My brain is pretty friendly, but it's not a stray, flea-bitten brain that rolls over and does tricks on command for anyone who walks by. It has an owner, thankyouverymuch, and I'm quite protective of that neat little thing in my skull! It's most definitely not a communal brain, and for people who have any brains of their own, this shouldn't be too hard to understand. But apparently for some under-evolved lifeforms slithering through the primordial cesspool that is the high school social circuit, this was indeed a difficult concept. And, well, let's face it. Hell hath no fury like a scorned geeky brain on a mission, and I've always had some fairly fun ways of dealing with n00bz who felt entitled to pick its poor little tendrils.
Take, for example, the tooolbag in my 10th grade chem class - or more specifically, the toolbag in the 11th grade chem class I was taking in 10th grade. I'm sure you can see where this is going already. I didn't actually have a death wish (and even if I *had* had a death wish, "death by wedgie" is a decidedly undignified way to go), so I sat in the back of the room and tried not to draw too much attention to myself. However, after our well-meaning teacher kindly informed the class that I'd been the one who fucked up the exam curve twice in a row (THANKS, LADY!), I started catching some shit. Mainly it was all silliness I could shut down fairly quickly with a wisecrack or two about how my good grades were due to the the meth lab in my basement providing me with lots of hands-on chemistry experience, and that took care of most of it. But then there was the douchenozzle who sat next to me, and instead of hassling me like a nice normal jerk, he had to go switch it up! His game, of course, was to copy my scan-trons during quizzes and tests. What cheesed me off so badly wasn't even that he was doing it - it's that he was so completely un-subtle and so damn entitled about it! I coulda narked him out and let that be the end of it, but I really wasn't a "snitch to teacher" type, since that took all the fun out of getting to creatively solve my own problems. And truth be told, I was actually content to let it go the first time - whutevs, anyone can have a moment of panicked weakness when they forget to study for a quiz, right? But then he had the nerve to shoot me a dirty, dare I say affronted look when I had the audacity to cover my answers the second and third times he tried it. And that? That changed everything.
Ooooooh really now, I thought to myself. A'ight, bucko, *that's* how we're gonna play, is it? You think I owe you test answers? Well, who am I, a mere 10th grade female dweeb, to argue with the Royal Wishes of a JV football player!
The next time we had a quiz, I caught our hero blatantly craning his neck to look at my paper and shooting me that same offended, disdainful glare when he realized my arm was blocking his view. Game on! I met his eyes, gave him my best shy smile, and scooted my scan-tron toward him. He didn't even smile back - he just looked away from me, down at my paper, and started copying. Oh, this was going to be too damn easy. The weeks went by and this same scene repeated itself a few more times during our next few quizzes, and then before any of us knew it, the semester was winding to a close and Christmas break was on the horizon. Which, of course, meant one thing - final exams. And sure enough, our delightful jackass made no bones about plopping down in the seat right next to me on the day of the final and getting into a staring contest with my scan-tron not 10 minutes after the exam had begun. Naturally, I let him copy. After all, 'tis the season for giving! And since he clearly held me in such high regard (what was that he called me to his buddy when he thought I wasn't listening? "Spacy freak"?), I felt morally obligated to take the high road and help the less fortunate. So away I toiled, working out problems in my test booklet and copying the answers over to my scan-tron, which I made sure was in easy breezy view of Cheaty McDoucheface. Fish in a goddamn barrel, I thought, and I almost felt guilty for a moment.
Almost.
I filled out the last bubble on my scan tron, then caught his eye, gave him a reassuring smile, and set about checking my work. Predictably, Douche King got right up, went to the front of the room, handed in his scan-tron, and then came back to his seat. I was still smiling at him when he got back, but my shy, awkward smile had been replaced by a gleeful, shit-eating grin. He looked at me, utterly baffled, and I didn't break eye contact for a moment as I flipped my pencil around and proceeded to erase every single answer on my scan-tron. Realization dawned on him and I watched with growing glee as his befuddled expression gave way to shocked, wide-eyed horror. You are so fucking owned, I thought to myself. After I'd finished obliterating all 50 of the wrong answers from my scan-tron, I broke eye contact, flipped open my test booklet, calmly and nonchalantly copied the correct answers to my scan-tron, got up, and turned it in.
As I walked back to my seat (okay, I was really skipping more than walking if we're being totally honest here), Duke of Douche was staring at me with what can only be described as a look of angry, indignant disbelief. I swear he was trying to kill me with his glare alone. I grinned delightedly and flashed him my campiest, cheesiest thumbs-up, then grabbed my backpack, turned on my heels, walked back to the front of the room, asked the teacher for a library pass, and merrily strode out the door.
Christmas break came and went, and when the second semester started, I noticed my chem class was minus a certain fuckface. One of the other kids asked where he went, and before the teacher could respond, another kid helpfully volunteered the information that Brave Sir Douche-a-lot had spectacularly bombed the final and subsequently failed the semester, and as a result, he was stuck re-taking semester 1 instead of moving on to semester 2 with the rest of us.
Awww, what a shame. He seemed like such a nice guy, too! *emo tear*