{"id":389,"date":"2011-10-09T22:43:23","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T20:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=389"},"modified":"2015-10-13T13:04:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T11:04:29","slug":"born-again-nerd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=389","title":{"rendered":"Born Again Nerd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"::there<\/a>The alarm goes off at 7 a.m. and I pray for death. I let out a manly groan (sob) as I unfold myself out of bed and peer out the window. It\u2019s a blustery day; windy and wet. A darkness that hints at winter lingers in the air. It\u2019s a perfect Saturday morning to spend in bed, reading and eating cereal shaped like Dracula. Instead, I look forward to seven hours of classes.<\/p>\n

After a six-minute shower filled with tears and violent epithets that are better left unpublished, I boil a Moka pot of espresso with the strength, taste, properties and effects of jet fuel. I sip at it and slip on my shoes. Adding insult to injury, the cat is sleeping in my still-warm ass groove. Nothing evokes more envy than a sleeping cat.<\/p>\n

This is my penance, for today I am a student.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To say that I was a bad student in college is like saying Hitler caused a little trouble in Europe. I was the worst student who ever lived. I went crazy with my freedom. I didn\u2019t go to class. I didn\u2019t buy books for class. The teacher saw me on the first day and on test day. Pubs were accessible on a daily basis and the choice between a pub and homework was like choosing between kissing Roseanne Barr and anyone else on Earth.<\/p>\n

I graduated with one of the lowest GPAs in the history of the University of Pittsburgh. When I received my diploma, I breathed a sigh of relief so deep that I almost fainted.<\/p>\n

But this has a bright side. My history as a deplorable student is why I am such a good student now. I actually do the work and complete assignments well before their due date. I am, in fact, a born again nerd. A pair of floods away from being telekinetically beat up by some born again jocks.<\/p>\n

This is for two reasons. The first is that I learned my lesson. I no longer wanted to be the lost student in a class. The second reason is that after all this time I found genuine interest in a subject.
\nPlus, now I can do my homework at the pub.<\/p>\n

Now, I grumble about school and love the misery. I complain about the hours, the work, the reading, the researching and I drink it in with stressed and joyous understanding.<\/p>\n

This Saturday it\u2019s sociolinguistics, U.S. foreign policy and Anglophone Indian politics. Three lessons that sound like anti-Viagra and yet I revel in the knowledge. Having been given a second chance in the world of education I refuse to blow the opportunity for the second time.<\/p>\n

I am a neo-nerd, hear me cogitate.<\/p>\n

Question for the day: If you could go back to school now and study anything you want, what would you choose to study?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The alarm goes off at 7 a.m. and I pray for death. I let out a manly groan (sob) as I unfold myself out of bed and peer out the window. It\u2019s a blustery day; windy and wet. A darkness that hints at winter lingers in the air. It\u2019s a perfect Saturday morning to spend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-6h","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2896,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/2896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}