about mii

Who is Laurie?  Or, what has Laurie become?

Laurie is a perfectionist, but she didn’t used to be.  At one point in time, she was sort of a lovable mess of clumsiness, forgetfulness, and thoughtlessness.  It’s a good thing she is decently smart so that she could compensate in school, and was contagiously happy so that she could be forgiven by her peers.  Even though she was a young child of divorce and life was schnarky at times (she also likes to make up words), she didn’t seem to notice too much.

She doesn’t really know when this change happened, from perfect mess to tamer of messes.  It might have been in college, when she went to a school with a whole bunch of upper middle class kids that made her feel slightly inadequate and moderately bitter.  Although her high school was filled with the same sort of kids, so maybe it just took a while to register?  At any rate, it seemed to really set in when Laurie got her first job in The Real World (the real one, not the show), just after her dad passed away suddenly.  This was when she began to understand real loss and real responsibility.  Now that she really thinks about it, it must have been adulthood that did this to her, sad, sorry adulthood.

She became a perfectionist out of necessity.  See, that happy careless klutz could not be trusted to take care of a classroom full of middle schoolers, to be prepared with a lesson each day, to grade endless papers, to respond to parents appropriately, to learn how to dress professionally or to set aside grief as the adult in charge.  If she exerted tremendous self-discipline, she could do these things, and so that’s what she learned to do.  You must understand that this was a massive achievement for her.  In high school she would write her homework on her palm, sweat it off, and have to call a friend to get the assignment which she wouldn’t start until after an excessively long nap and which she would then complete while watching The Tonight Show and hoping that she didn’t sleep through her alarm the next morning.  Massive achievement or not, learning self-discipline can suck joy out of day to day life and you can start to believe that if you just control every variable that you can have some semblance of peace.  This she soon learned was very untrue, which made her a little bit on edge, which made her work more stressful than joyful and so after five years, she decided she needed a break.

Maybe this realization came because she had recently gotten married and she was happier than she had ever been, but something just didn’t seem right.  Who was she to be teaching kids?  What did she know?  Was this going to be her life forever?  Maybe there was something better?  Maybe she could go back to school?  So, she and her husband decided that now was the time for a little adventure, pre-kids and all.  Now she’s in her second of three years of a PhD program in Educational Technology and she loves it and she’s feeling a little less perfectionist these days.  Don’t jump to any conclusions though, the first two years of this kind of study was hard, stressful, emotional and, in many ways, it broke her down.  But, in the past few months, she has been able to see more clearly what this experience has enabled her to do.  She’s been able to take a break, to push herself to her limits, to think, to grow, to read, to write, to love writing, to see the big picture, to live joyfully again, but this time consciously, purposefully.

So, who is Laurie right now?  Laurie is a writer.  Laurie is a thinker, a dreamer, an impatient terror, a philosopher, a nature lover, a partner, an overly sensitive child, a serious woman, a sharp-tongued tyrant, an art-loving philistine, a sad sap, a happy fool, an idealist, a realist, an optimist, a wannabe mom, an amateur academic, a teacher, a professional student, a passionate lark.  She rarely takes anyone’s word for it.  She tries to take care of herself, but she tries even harder to love herself.

(What follows is my first about mii page… written sometime in 2008)

I’m Laurie.  I started this site when I got a new life and moved to Columbus to start a PhD in Educational Technology.  Before that I was a sixth grade science teacher.  Before that I was a student and before that I grew up in Canton, Ohio and went to Catholic school.  Somewhere between Catholic school and the PhD program, I got married to a nice guy named Dan.  He’s a tech geek, which is extra nice because he offers free 24-7 tech support  (for things like this blog) and all I have to do is the laundry.  Aside from my hubby, I have a hilarious, crazy and wonderful family that you will see featured from time to time in my posts.  I am also a somewhat new (and still enthusiastic) distance runner.  I have run a few marathons and am still chasing after qualifying for Boston.  Somewhere along the line (after I became a runner), I decided to also become a vegetarian.  I like to think of myself as a decently healthy person that binges occasionally (sometimes more than occasionally) on large quantities of ice cream and Doritos (not at the same time).  I can be a bit neurotic and anal, but I try really hard to enjoy life.  I love to travel, I love to play vicious games of Scattergories, I love to make terrible jokes and I love when I get the chance (and can remember) to not take myself too seriously.

Why’s my site called bugsii and why is that little penguin my logo?

Bugsy is a nickname I got from my dad.  Apparently, I used to watch Bugs Bunny a lot and at some point, it turned from Bugs into Bugsy.  He called me Bugsy so often that I didn’t even notice that he would do it in front of my friends who were always left confused and asking me about it afterward.  I’d like the story to be that I was so tough that I got a gangster nickname, but no, just Bugs Bunny (He is funny though isn’t he? Especially when he cross-dressed.  Loved it!).  I guess I should also mention that I lost my dad on July 23, 2003, so it makes this name extra special to me.  Of course, when I went to get a domain name for this site, bugsy.com was taken, so I had to get creative (or rip off Nintendo).  I sort of like it though, it’s growing on me.

Now the penguin, officially named “Pengii” (with a hard G) deserves it’s own post, which I intend to do soon.  Until then though, I’ll give you the brief version.  This was the stuffed animal I slept with from the time I got it at age 3 until I got married at 26 (that is the Truth).  My mom used to sell Avon and it was supposed to be a soft bath toy, but the only time I took it into the bathtub with me, I was left crying all night because I couldn’t take it to bed.  Now, sadly, pengii sleeps in the cedar chest at the end of our bed along with my “special blanket,” which I will save entirely for another time (and which now smells of old people).