So let me tell you about my life. I’m an Education student, majoring in English teaching and minoring in Phys Ed. I’ve never met anyone else doing these two subjects while at University; I like it that way. It puts me in a unique situation. I get to hang out with all the nerds reading Frankenstein, discussing Romantic poetry and acting out improv vignettes, while at the same time spending time with the jocks in my PE classes doing fitness tests, and digging volleyballs. I’m livin the dream. So, my career choice splinches me (think Harry Potter) between two very drastic and diabolically different stereotypes: the jocks and the nerds. So I put the two words together and what does that make me? A jerk, of course.
As I mentioned earlier, being a jerk puts me in an interesting spot. When I’m in gym I get to hear stereotypes about the nerds, and when I’m in Drama and British Lit I hear thoughtless things about jocks. The funny thing is, I can laugh with each group and find humor in their stereotype of the other, while at the same time seeing how untrue those generalizations really are. Let me tell you a story that shows an example of one of these stereotypes. I’m in my Drama class (for my English Major) and a group of kids in the class have been asked to find some people in the gym working out and then to present the skit to the class. So, the members of this group find this hilarious piece that they act out in class. A guy is preparing to lift a heavy bar and his friend is spotting him. They guy is looking at all the girls working out in the room and says to his buddy, “You know there are just so many gorgeous women working out right now. I don’t know if it’s the testosterone in me right now, but I just think I’m gonna end up cheating on my girlfriend”. He continues to look at all the girls walking around him. End of scene. I thought this was pretty funny (and outrageous) when my classmates performed it in class, but then my teacher kills himself laughing and says, “Ah, the classic jock who just goes to the gym to look at how big his muscles are and to look at other people’s nice bodies”. Awesome. While this scene actually did happen, I can’t say I’ve done that too many times. Actually, never. Sure, you could say there are people passionate about sports that you might want to call conceited. But hey, so are English nerds using incomprehensible words to explain something to you just so you know that they’re smart.
Actually, as opposite as nerdy nerds and jocky jocks (not sure that jocky is an adjective, but whatevs) are made out to be, I find that they (and a lot of people, in general) are actually eerily similar. I’ll tell you why next month, cause that’s opening up a whole new can of worms there.
Sterotypes are funny though, aren’t they? I have a good friend that shared a Ted Video with me recently. The TED TALK is by a Nigerian author named Chimamanda Adichie. She talks about the danger of stereotypes, or in her own words, “the danger of a single story”, and how we really get into trouble when we superimpose stereotypes onto a group of people. One of the best quotes in her speech is when she declares, "It's not that stereotypes are untrue, but [that] they are incomplete" Yep, couldn’t put it any simpler. So the next time you think of yourself stereotyping someone, think this little jerk (remember, nerd+jock=jerk) being equally amused and amazed by a Romantic poem by Sir William Blake (check out “The Tyger”!) as a crazy back row smash by a BYU volleyball player.
