I HATE THE WORD KEENER. Let’s get that out there right now… I absolutely hate the word, and I have a good reason. Keener, although people use it in the context of eager-school-beaver, seems different to me. “A little too goody-two shoes for you?” Fiona asks. “No, it sounds brown-noser suck up to me,” I reply.

Suspending belief that one actually means “eager-school-beaver keener”, what I don’t understand is this: In Post-Secondary you are PAYING for your education. Shouldn’t you want to do well? Shouldn’t you WANT to do YOUR personal best? In high school it might have been different, you were ‘forced’ to be there technically (Ideal Mini excluded). But now you are paying to be at a University or College – thousands of dollars a term! Why don’t you care?

If you have decided you have to call me something… that you must classify me because I enjoy to do well in school; I prefer the word ‘nerd’. I love to organize; I like labelling and highlighting; I adore Post-it Notes™; I like folders and fonts and notes… the list goes on. Therefore I’m a nerd, and oddly proud of it. It’s who I am, and I enjoy being prepared and organized.

P.S. I resent being called “Head Keener” because of the aforementioned reasons.