Hardcore Schoolgirl

Now that the mornings are cool and the leaves are starting to turn golden my inner schoolgirl is coming out full force. She’s always there in my core, but now that I have my new pack of yellow number two pencils and a stack of textbooks out to review I realize I am just one hundred percent nerdy and I don’t even care. Bring on the grammar because I want it.

As I take my daughters to school every morning in their uniforms and then wave goodbye to them as they run off to the playground, Madeline always pops into my mind.

In an old house in Paris

that was covered in vines

lived twelve little girls

in two straight lines…

All the yellow chapeaus are my favorite but so is Miss Clavel. I even got my closest chance to play her yesterday when I taught religion class at a private school. Aside from finding out my dress was short I did have a good day being the tall éducatrice like my nun model. Although I didn’t get to say Miss Clavel’s famous line, “Something is not right!” or run fast and then faster, I was grateful no appendixes burst and that I got to go home at the end of the day instead of working twenty-four seven in a house full of students…

While what nerdy exactly is is up to debate, according to Webster’s Dictionary a nerd is someone “slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits”. For me it’s nice to know that in the year 2008 the other part of the definition need not apply, although I happen to love it when it does. All nerds are not socially inept, unattractive or unfashionable. Some of my bibliophile friends have cool tattoos, nose rings, and femme fatale red heels. I may not have one collared shirt left in my closet, but nerdy or not, tweed is hot and so is the right pair of glasses. I know. It’s about the books and not the fashion, but it does feel better being slavishly devoted to intellectual pursuits when your jeans feel right.

For me, the classes I’m taking this semester are not exactly heavy on the performance of the pencil – Wines of the World and Flamenco. However, it’s not only my palate and body that are slavishly dedicated to learning this fall. No. My books are out all over my bed. I open up my Diccionario de términos literarios and then Fonética y fonología españolas and couldn’t be happier to be a hardcore schoolgirl this September.