2003-12-31 - 1:22 p.m.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

We all do it, and I don't want to come off as complaining, but people make assumptions about me based on what I look like and how I dress all the time. One of the last things they assume I am is an engineer.

I remember when Minmei once took some nude bondage photos of me for one of her art college classes. After showing the nude photos of me to her class she over heard one of her fellow students talking about how boring engineers are. She leaned over and told the girl that the naked guy chained up was an environmental engineer!

But the stereotypes exist for a reason. For the large part they are true.

I'd be shocked if any of my co-workers did anything like the things I do. I'm sure one or two might, but for the most part, they are a bunch of play it safe people. Some of them nice, others not. But I'm not about to fault somebody for making a judgement based on experience.

Today at lunch the girl at the sandwich shop asked me about my baseball cap. It reads ":wumpscut:". I told her it was a band, and she then asked, "Is it your band?" Flattering, sure, but I never thought I looked like a musician. I told her they are from Germany, so she asked, "Are they on the radio?"

Wow, insightful question. I told her that his band was only on college radio and then told her where she could here the show.

She then asked, "Are you from Germany?"

Apparently, not only do I look like a musician, but I look like one girl's vision of a German musician. The funny thing is that although I'm about 1/2 Polish (and maybe Slovakian, as the family is from the border mountains), I look more like my Welsh blood. This might not be a good thing, but who cares? The point is that I'm not mistaken for being English, Scanadavian, French, Dutch, Danish, etc. But plenty of people, not just this one girl, seem to place me as being Deutsch.

I think it has more to do with genetics. I think there is something about how I present myself that falls into your standard German stereotype. Not German-American, but newly arrived German.

So when I told her that I was Polish-American, she asked, "So you go to Sac State?"

Right, I'm a music student from German who decided to come to Sacramento. ;) Actually I think I just look young. But the truth is my kid brother and sister look young too. It is something we inherited from our father. It was annoying as a kid, because even in high school I was lucky if somebody thought I was in junior high. But now that I�m a 30-something, people charging me less because they think I'm not even 21, well that is a stereotype I'm not going to discourage.

n.p. david bowie :: changes bowie

-=-

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