'Oregon Trail' Gen X Nerd

Ben Solo Lives (at my house): A Journey of Acceptance by Jen Davies, nerd May 13, 2026 My blog is late this week because it's been a heck of a busy week! And it started with a jump scare by Ben, my houseguest since mid-March when I brought him home from Toronto Comicon. As you can imagine, my spouse was a little concerned to have a lifesize cutout of an artistic rendition of Ben Solo / Adam Driver around the house. He is confident in his masculinity so I don't think it was that he felt like the piece of art was a threat. It's just... it looks like a person! And it's flat but the base is large enough that it doesn't fit conveniently in a closet, so Ben has been floating around the house for a while. The jump scares started with me, setting it up in places I thought spouse might find. I was a bad guesser, it would be days and days before spouse found him. But recently, spouse has deigned to touch the Ben Solo cutout, and now Ben surprises me all over the place. And I ...

Displaying my fandoms by Jen Davies, nerd May 6, 2026 Happy May the Fourth (belated)! I've worked in roles where displaying my nerd side hasn't always been possible. For instance, my primary profession is counsellor, which means that as a rule I don't share a lot about myself at all! Until recently I worked as a middle-manager in colleges and universities which also meant that a significant amount of "professionalism" (suit jackets, meetings with agendas, and staying on track) were required for relationship maintenance both inside and outside the institution. And more recently as a professor I can be a little free-er, but I also have to stay on-topic in class and as such there isn't always room for nerdiness (though I do my best to bring it in once or twice each term). But my car is my own, and while I used to eschew bumper stickers, I decided when I got a new (to me) vehicle last year that I would decorate the heck out of the rear end. Nobody can ...

  Managing wild thoughts: "I'll deal with it" by Jen Davies, nerd April 29, 2026 I'm waiting for my family doctor's office to open while I write this blog post today. I have a minor issue and I wasn't able to deal with it independently, so now I have to get a prescription. Blah. I have nothing against health care practitioners, I just despise the hurry-up-and-wait that goes on when it comes to getting help. In my last blog I talked about how I make myself busy, and sitting in waiting rooms is not conducive to being busy (but I will be able to embrace boredom for a while). While waiting on hold to get some interim medical advice (wait for family doctor's office, or go to emergency service), my imagination ran a little wild through all the symptoms and what they could possibly mean. As I passed through more unlikely but scarier possibilities (never Google your symptoms - it always ends with cancer), and my thoughts went a little "wild",...

  Image from https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/may/03/why-its-good-to-be-bored Doing too many things and creativity by Jen Davies, nerd April 22, 2026 One of the challenges of having a head that just won't stop thinking is that I end up doing too many things. I have a role as a professor for a small Canadian university (which is a LOT on its own, including developing and teaching 1-2 classes per term as well as moving forward a research agenda); I work a few hours every week as a psychotherapist and career counsellor to keep my skills sharp; and I try to have some fun including singing in a local choir and engaging with the people at savebensolo.com . This is one of the reasons that I started this blog! I had been thinking about it for some time before I decided to launch it. I used to blog about career development (ie, work), but I'd been feeling like I wanted an outlet for all the other things I was thinking about. And here we are. Coming back to doing too many things....

  There is no try: On being the better person by Jen Davies, nerd April 15, 2026 Growing up a Star Wars kid, I learned a lot from Master Yoda. What I always took away from the famous "Do or do not - there is no try" lesson was that if I really want whatever I'm doing to succeed I should focus and commit to it fully. Half-hearted investments of effort are not going to get the desired results. It can be really hard to commit to being the better person. In this description I include behaviour and attitudes like: choosing to believe that other people are doing their current best, whatever they're doing. Helping people to improve what they're doing, so next time their best is even better, even when I don't feel like helping. Choosing to offer kindness and grace even in situations where someone has clearly effed something up. What makes it hard to be the better person is that there are other people who seem to choose to be the worst  person, and do the opposite: ass...

Photo from a recent Talent Show I attended, hosted by the local Pride committee. Grateful for Hail Mary: On choosing to be visible by Jen Davies, nerd A lot about identity is visible, for example in skintone or in religious symbols we might wear. Two identities I hold, asexuality and nerd, are only visible when I choose to share them, which is a real privilege for me. I can decide when and where to bring them into the space I'm in. And I've decided over the last year or two that I wanted to make them more visible. I only realized a few years ago that I was ace. I grew up in places and at a time when that identity wasn't recognized as part of the spectrum of sexual identity, though in hindsight it sure explains a lot about why I preferred to hang around young men who were gay! Low risk of being hit on. For the record, I have probably ended up demisexual because I have been in a happily committed relationship with my spouse for 20+ years. And this is another privi...