I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, but you've been reading the blog of someone who actually likes Star Trek. But we come in peace. We call ourselves trekkers.
Before you hastily close this window, I said, "trekker," not "trekkie." If this distinction escapes you, then yes, maybe you should just come back next week....
Or if you're feeling curious, just read on. Trekkies are basically just groupies obsessed with Star Trek, and they are in fact TOTALLY NUTSO. They spend thousands of dollars on conventions every year, and yes, they wear uniforms and pointy ears while attending seminars!
I, on the other hand, have only aspired to attend a convention, and I have never ever worn space-related uniforms of any nature nor any prosthetic ears of any sort! (Although I'm not saying I wouldn't try them on for a few minutes if someone were to hand me a pointy pair of Vulcan beauties....)
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| Who Can Resist? |
Some people are born into royalty or life in the mob. I was born into Star Trek. By that I mean I was forced into it by Big Brother (the same guy who got me into all that trouble with Doritos). I guess if you sit on a bean bag long enough in the family room without moving, this kind of thing happens before you know any better.
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| Ensign Little Brother and I Really Never Had a Chance: BEFORE... |
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| ... AND AFTER |
Big Brother was born into the Star Wars generation. In 1977, shortly after we moved from Taiwan to America, my dad had heard much hullabaloo about this Star Wars thing and decided to take us so we could have this important American experience. Never mind that none of us really spoke a word of English at that time. In fact, in 1977, I was just a baby and likely not saying much at all.
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| "Blah blah booobie...?" (tr. "What the...?") |
By the time Empire Strikes Back came out, Big Brother had learned enough English in school, but I was still only four years old. What English I did know was acquired completely from Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood of Make-Believe, however, did not include any stormtroopers or AT-ATs, so naturally I cried every time these interstellar bad guys appeared onscreen. Consequently, most of my American Star Wars experience was marked by general hysteria.
While I was shrieking my head off, Big Brother was having a deep spiritual experience. And like many of his generation, he has never been quite the same ever since.
After being properly primed for all things spacey, somewhere along the way, Big Brother also fell in love with Star Trek. And because for most of the first decade of a little sister's life, she is little more than a shadow to a Big Brother, naturally I fell into that hole right after him. By the time he had found Star Trek, I had scraped enough English to make sense of what I was seeing on TV. It might have been Big Brother brainwashing that had started it all, but Star Trek was colorful, funny, and had catchy theme songs. Before I knew what was happening, I kind of liked it.
If the Force was strong in Darth Vader, Luke, and Leia, Star Trek was just as strong in Big Brother, Little Brother, and me. Little Brother and I were unknowing heirs to Big Brother's bathroom collection of Star Trek novels. (It was many hours with these books that I gained the scholarly knowledge that made me the trekker I am today.) From a very early age, Little Brother could draw just about anything, and soon his bedroom was cluttered with self-created ship schematics. Every night before bed, the nacelle engines of his plastic model U.S.S. Enterprise would glow under his bedspread, fueled only by AA batteries and a powerful imagination. (And occasionally, the muffled sounds of photon torpedoes.)
As for me, in middle school, I decided I would teach myself to raise an eyebrow à la Spock, and to this day, this isolated muscle remains extremely well-developed, as true and sure as anything in my life. Shunning the social habits of my peers, I practiced my Vulcan moves at night, arching my eyebrow in the mirror and longing for the ability to execute an immobilizing nerve pinch. I started writing my own Star Trek novel based on a new character that I hoped would eventually make it onto the TV series -- a half-Orion, half-Vulcan female Starfleet officer -- basically a smart but sexy Vulcan lady the color of Incredible Hulk. (Had I gotten further than Chapter 3, she would have been bad-ass and broken a lot of hearts.)
I won't go so far as to say that but for the brotherly brainwashing, I would not have possessed any of the habits of the nerdy, geeky, or dorky all on my own. But on good weather days, I might have passed as almost normal.
That was then, and this is now. Today, my trekker instincts are second-nature, particularly irrepressible if I've sniffed out a fellow-trekker at a cocktail party. (And yes, this does not often happen.) If you are otherwise a normal human, I will play along for now, but know that deep down inside, this Vulcan is just dying to pinch you.
If the Force was strong in Darth Vader, Luke, and Leia, Star Trek was just as strong in Big Brother, Little Brother, and me. Little Brother and I were unknowing heirs to Big Brother's bathroom collection of Star Trek novels. (It was many hours with these books that I gained the scholarly knowledge that made me the trekker I am today.) From a very early age, Little Brother could draw just about anything, and soon his bedroom was cluttered with self-created ship schematics. Every night before bed, the nacelle engines of his plastic model U.S.S. Enterprise would glow under his bedspread, fueled only by AA batteries and a powerful imagination. (And occasionally, the muffled sounds of photon torpedoes.)
As for me, in middle school, I decided I would teach myself to raise an eyebrow à la Spock, and to this day, this isolated muscle remains extremely well-developed, as true and sure as anything in my life. Shunning the social habits of my peers, I practiced my Vulcan moves at night, arching my eyebrow in the mirror and longing for the ability to execute an immobilizing nerve pinch. I started writing my own Star Trek novel based on a new character that I hoped would eventually make it onto the TV series -- a half-Orion, half-Vulcan female Starfleet officer -- basically a smart but sexy Vulcan lady the color of Incredible Hulk. (Had I gotten further than Chapter 3, she would have been bad-ass and broken a lot of hearts.)
I won't go so far as to say that but for the brotherly brainwashing, I would not have possessed any of the habits of the nerdy, geeky, or dorky all on my own. But on good weather days, I might have passed as almost normal.
That was then, and this is now. Today, my trekker instincts are second-nature, particularly irrepressible if I've sniffed out a fellow-trekker at a cocktail party. (And yes, this does not often happen.) If you are otherwise a normal human, I will play along for now, but know that deep down inside, this Vulcan is just dying to pinch you.
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| Live Long and Prosper |
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