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Speak Out With Your Geek Out

I've worn glasses since I was 4 1/2, so I've always been a bit of nerd, which led to me being okay with geeking out about things. Well, it turns out that last week was a great week to talk about all things geek. Unfortunately technically difficulties prevented me from posting this last week.

As a librarian, I get to interact with all kinds of geeks, and I have to say, it's wonderful being in a profession where I get to meet so many people who get so excited about their interests.

But I want to be selfish here and talk about the things that make me a geek. From my earliest years I could be identified as geek because of my passionate love of books and reading. Even before I could read, I loved being read to. Luckily I had parents willing to indulge (even if they were sometimes the ones to fall asleep while reading). One of my aunts is a librarian and every year for my birthday she would get me a new book and that book was always one of my favorite presents.

In high school I was the kid who looked for the long books on the required reading list to devour so that I wouldn't finish my reading requirements for the semester in the first week. Thanks to this I discovered that Anna Karenina is one of the greats of world literature, and that while Steinbeck may not be my favorite author The Grapes of Wrath is still a good book. I read Hamlet three times because I didn't get it the first time, but since the test wasn't for another 2 weeks I had time to understand it on the second read through, and love it on the third.

Given that past, it should be no surprise that I became a librarian. Now I don't read many of the weighty tomes I did when I was in high school. Instead I focus on appropriately geeky things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead, and Queen Victoria, Demon Hunter (yes, I geek zombies). But not just campy zombies, I'm also a huge fan of the Walking Dead comics (I haven't had a chance to watch the TV show yet) and I'm going to get around to reading World War Z someday.

In truth though, there are plenty of things I geek out about besides reading and zombies and in tribute to those of you who also proudly call yourselves geeks here's a random list of a few of my geek accomplishments:
  • actually met wizarding rock legends Harry and the Potters when I invited them to perform at my library for the teen summer reading program
  • attended a bachelorette party that took place in Orlando so that we could visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
  • saw all but the first and third Harry Potter movies on opening weekend
  • saw all of the Lord of the Rings films at midnight on opening night (ditto for other similarly geeky movie releases around that time - we went to the movies a lot in college)
  • was my school's Geography Bee Champion in sixth grade
  • still know all the words to the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? theme song
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