Hello, My Name is Esther, and I Am a Dork

For some strange reason, I've been pondering the source of my dorkiness the past week. Perhaps this was due to a class meeting where my students happened to ask me what I do when people call me a nerd. I said, I agree with them, that yes, I am a nerd, and I am proud of it. Perhaps "nerd" and "dork" are synonomous in my vocabulary, and thus, I pondered the source of my dorkiness. And, I came to a conclusion. I blame my parents. Actually, I suppose I can't blame my parents for all of my dorkiness. Sure, I personify numbers when I teach math, which I blame solely on my dad. And maybe I spend hours wandering around an office supply store for fun, which can lead back to my mother. And perhaps I have a "dorky" vocabulary where I use words like perplexed, couth, and verbose. Again, I blame my father for that one. But, there are other points of my dorkiness that I just can't seem to pin on the two of them.

Perhaps my fear of escalators is merely my own expression of dorkiness. Or the fact that my stuffed monkey has three names, a Harley Davidson jacket, a monkey sound in his arm, and a growling sound in his leg is a facet of my dorkiness that is all my own fault. In pondering all of this over the last few days, I realized that dorkiness is truley a multi-faceted characteristic that develops and grows throughout our lives. My dorkiness has grown and become more complex as I've gotten older.

For example, when I was younger, my dorkiness centered around a bad hairdo and a lack of fashion sense. But now, my dorkiness stems from a variety of little quirks I have that one would look at and say, "you are such a dork!" I have multiple little baskets in my desk drawer at school where everything has it's place. I can't ever manage to make a simple Excel spreadsheet. I always have to make it "super cool" somehow, whether that is through color-coding the cells, alphabatizing the data, figuring out how to use a new formula to calculate something for me, or making the colums and rows stay in one place while you scroll through the rest of the data. Sometimes I miss the days where I got to write HTML code. I say I don't have the patience to scrapbook, but I can spend hours working on some type of media presentation on my comptuer. Speaking of media presentations, I find that to be one of the most relaxing things to do. I rarely ask for help on computer programs because I'm the type to simply push buttons just to see what will happen. (I suppose I do that with people sometimes, too!)

My idea of "fun" shopping is to go to one of several favorite shopping websites and browse for things I'll never need online. I subscribe to a Mac computer magazine. I compare multiplying decimals to Jell-O and my older brothers flying down the stairs 5 or 6 steps at a time. At a single word or phrase, I frequently come up with a song for the occasion and proceed to serenade anyone within hearing distance.

My train of thought frequently goes into areas where no one else even casually passes on a regular basis. For example, last week in Sunday school, we were talking about "Beware of Pride" and I thought of lions. After all, a group of lions is a "pride" and I would beware of that kind of pride, too! So, I now think "Beware of pride(s)" when that comes up in my studies! Another example is when someone says, "guess what?" or "guess why?" I think of chickens. And any discussion of rattle snakes or hockey pucks leads to a thought on monkeys.

When I left on my mission, my room was so well organized, that even after not being in the room for several weeks, I could write a letter home and tell my mother exactly where to find something. I organize my CD's and movies in alphabetical order. My label maker has been one of my best purchases in the last few years because it allowed me to label all of my drawers and cupboards at school. My play lists on my ipod are named in relation to food. I listen to Gregorian Chant to relax. I have a countdown clock on my computer that is currently counting down to the last day of school . . . . right down to the seconds to the final bell on June 5th. I make lists so I can have the pleasure of checking things off. I have an alarm on my cell phone set to go off at 4:00 p.m. on school days, just to let me know it's 4:00 p.m.

I am sure there are many, many more facets of my dorkiness that will come up as I ponder this topic more, but it has been an enlightening experience. And so, I challenge each of you to ponder your own dorkiness, and perhaps understand yourself a little better when you are done.