Tuesday, 16 December 2014

I Am [Somehow Like] Spock

I didn't become a trekkerie (that's what I call myself, since I'm a trekker and a trekkie. Deal with it) when I was a toddler, but once I started watching Star Trek, it took me two episodes to fall in love with everything in it.
I was am quite fond of Spock [Note to the world: the first to mention the pseudo-reboot gets introduced to my knee from up close], and it's rather recently that I understood why: I am Spock.
Well, I'm not a half-Vulcan man or a science genius, but my parents are as different as Sarek and Amanda Grayson.

My relatives treat me like a cultural mistake.
The Anglo-Italian side has been mostly ignoring me since long before my birth (there's a Sybok in my life, too).
The Franco-German side has always viewed me as a kind of useless addition to their prestigious lot (allow me to laugh at their stupidity and arrogance).

It took me a long time to build myself since I wasn't sure of anything about my roots (it's tough to build something when you don't have the blueprint or the background, and no one gives you the feeling that you belong), but I did it.
In the end, I got a little revenge: the two grandmothers, both matriarchs (in the ethnological sense, coz I had to be born into two pockets of true matriarchy in Europe), both ended up with only me as their only option to claim an heiress to both their lines...
What's that thing about karma and a beach? Something about 'and then you fry'?...
Cherry on my cake, I could have picked either of their surnames, but I decided to choose my own. It's healthier for me to have created something that has no link with either witch, and none of my relatives can say anything about me, because they don't know my new surname.

Strangely, the odd behaviour because I'm a "happy mix" (using "happy" loosely here) doesn't stop with my relatives. Some of the people with whom I work are treating me differently because they think I'm not the real McCoy (Look! Back to Star Trek!! Awful pun. Sorry!). We're all teaching languages, but they're using one language amongst themselves, and they switch to another one when I'm around. I understand both languages, but they sound as if I'm not worthy of being addressed in the other language - how delightful, guys (Oh! The Sarc font is on, methinks). That's grating on my nerves a bit, but I'm beginning to realize that they were probably raised in barns.
I think I'm going to start using another language to chat with them and wait and see how long it takes the penny to drop...
... I'm suddenly wondering if that plan makes me more "Romulan" than "human" (then again, it's not bad if I'm Saavik: she's the one who got Spock in the end).*insert impudent grin here* 
Cheerio!

2 comments:

Ruan Peat said...

Above my childhood bed was a 5 foot by 4 foot poster of spocks face! My mam is a fab blue collar family came over on the boat in the potato famine and no better than they should be, my dad came from Paris during the WWII from a well to do landed family! Now picture the family do's! :-) Grandma was a snob, Granny was a washer woman, one uncle was a bobby while another a PHD :-) oh yes I know the feeling of who on earth am I. Thankfully my parents could not care less and loved me and my brother completely and gave us the best start they could (at the cost of a childhood but that's another story)Welcome fellow trekkie to the spock adoration spot.

Lanor said...

Oh, Merlin! A part of my family ended up in London (to begin with) in 1942!
And "YAY!" for your Spock poster. ^_^
I'll have to show you my bedroom ceiling soon.
Mixed families can be fascinating. Alas, mine, on both sides, think they're "important" (another reason for my being the Empress of Mars). They're sooo silly.

I'm plotting a post about my Trek addiction (I wouldn't be who I am today if it were not for Gene Roddenberry (and for my crush on Leonard Nimoy *cough*).