Something I don’t understand and I find fairly offensive? Young women baby talking and acting completely ditzy when speaking to a young man. There’s a girl in the lab with me at the moment doing just that and I want to slap her. It’s far too easy to sell ourselves so very short to be doing it deliberately. Ok, so he’s cute, but why on earth would anyone want someone that wants a stupid girl?

I know I’m a 30 year old woman sitting in a room filled with people barely into their 20s, if that. I know that I’ve paid my dues as a stupid girl, pretending to be remarkably stupid to get the guy. I know the thought process that’s involved when you’ve been turned down a few times because the guy you like is intimidated by you.

It’s still selling yourself short. I mean, I’m in a lab in the Science Building on the WLU campus. This is not exactly the land of the idiots. (Contrary to what uwaterloo people have the bad habit of saying… bastards. ;) ) *sighs*

Things I never realized I knew until I was surrounded by people that haven’t figured this all out yet. Well, that’s not exactly true. I never really had a clear, simple childhood. I’ve always functioned older and more mature than my age would imply. And yes, in many ways I was remarkably stupid in my early 20s.

Sometimes I sit in my classes, in the labs before classes and there’s this mild feeling of regret. I wish I had done this at the “right” age. I understand that at any age people feel out of place and nervous, but I just keep realizing how different my world view is from my peers. The very concept of getting trashed out of my head until I puke… Oi. Or skipping classes. Hell, no, I better be on my fucking death bed before I miss a class.

I’m incredibly driven when it comes to school right now. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep it up over the years, but for now it’s there, baby. I want the best goddamned marks possible. I want to see my name on the Dean’s list. I want my professors to know me by name as well as face and expect good work from me. The deck was so very stacked against me in High School. I want to take this chance and prove myself capable of being a kickass student.

And I want to prove it to nobody other than myself. It’s always been something missing from my life, this core deep confidence in my abilities. Not that excelling at university will give it to me, necessarily, but it’s another level. The quiet knowledge that I looked at my desire to make soap and from there created a decently successful business all. on. my. own. is pure gold for confidence building.

Gah, I can’t access any of my slides from previous lectures. I’m so bored. *laughs*