Nerd.

If you know me in real life, you know I'm pretty much a closet nerd. I read for (gasp!) fun. And not just your typical run of the mill chick lit. I also enjoy educational books, books on behavior interventions, and books on how to improve teaching. Everyone I work with knows this. In fact, I often get volunteered to read books that my principal is thinking about for book studies because she knows I will a) read them and b) devour it quickly and probably talk about it for hours. I also get volunteered for many other things because people know I will do them and do them well.

I've now added to my nerd credentials because I was super excited that my school district was paying for me to attend the NCTM conference in Baltimore. NCTM is the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics, in case you were wondering. When asked what I was doing for the professional development day this week, I happily replied, "I get to go to the national math conference!" I was met with some eye rolls because they knew I was going to come back with lots of staff development for them. I can't help it, teaching math just really excites me.

As I was digging through my purse today, I realized how big of a nerd I really am. Not only did my purse contain a pencil, pen, highlighter, and post-it notes (seriously, those have come in handy SO many times.. I often thank God for that invention) but it also contained my math conference stuff, a book on Higher Order Thinking, a book on assessment in the primary grades, and it also contained "Breaking Dawn", which is the last book in the Twilight series. Because I often freak out about emergencies (you know, like making sure I have on clean underwear in case I get in a car accident and have to be rushed to the hospital in just my undies...) I began to wonder what the emergency personnel would think if they rummaged through my purse to find identification. I assumed the conversation would be something like this...

"Dude, look at what she has in her purse!" "What's that?" "Three books and a math conference badge." "What a nerd. I beat up kids like her in high school"

I may be a nerd, but I'm an educated nerd. Oh, and I'm prepared. Post it notes and all.