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09/03/2004 Entry: "High School is soooo Tubular... like, oh my gawd!"

I have had some talks with some people, and I feel a little bit better about the new job. I mean, the people I'll be working with are my kind of people: geeks. I turns out my new boss, for instance, went to a lot of FanTek conventions as a gamer. He asked if I had heard of EveCon or Castlecon. I asked, "Did you ever go to Opening Ceremonies?" No, he said. I smiled. "Well, you should have, I was their Emcee!" Then I almost gasped, hoping he wouldn't say, "You are Punk Walrus?" I try and keep my work and fan life separate, you see. No, he just said, "Well, I was gaming!"

In other news, my son starts high school next week. Man, times sure flies. I went to his orientation, but I had already been to the "New parents of [Blahdeblah] High School," and he spent a week as "Pre-High for New Students" (we had to pay extra for that, and I wonder if it was worth it), so we just picked up his packet, wandered the halls with throngs of other students, and then left after 30 minutes. Already, CR has a gaggle of friends, all girls, who seem to love goofing around. Yeah. Like watching a re-run of my life through another's eyes. The group consists of Sarah, a girl who used to look like an awkward teen with straw for hair (who now looks a lot like my old friend Donnalee), Jennifer, a girl whose parents run the Chinese food restaurant we like so much, and an assorted rag-tag band students and "bananas."

I don't know if "bananas" is a derogatory term these days, but in high-falootin' McLean, there were two main cliques of Asian-Americans; the "in-crowd" and "bananas," so called because they were "yellow on the outside, white on the inside." The in-crowd, which seemed to be mostly overstressed kids from wealthy Korean families, hated "bananas," which were far more fun-loving, and couldn't have cared less about cliques, wealth, or fashion. They weren't "into being all Asian and junk." I loved and hung out with the "bananas," of course, because ... well, they were smart and fun to be with. I didn't think of them as "Asian," I thought of them by name, like Julie, Vince, or Gu-Yeon. "Bananas" mainly consisted of loud people who joined science clubs, were in band, and filled the gaming community, and didn't really consider the term "banana" to be an insult any more than "weird" or "nerd." So it's kind of cool to see CR has some of the same kinds of friends that I had.

After being in that high school for 30 minutes, my brain started to shift into some mode I haven't felt since the 1980s, and even days later, I am thinking and saying things like "oh, for sure!" and "tubular" and "no... way...!" Yeah, most of those terms were said by girls, but ... well, most of my friends were girls. Hell, at least half my friends now are ladies.


The Peanut Gallery responds with: 1 Comment


Bananas... I've heard of blacks and Mexican-Americans who "acted too white" referred to as Oreos and coconuts, but I hadn't heard the Asian equivalent.

Posted by Neal @ 09/04/2004 12:26 AM EST

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