Are you considered weird?

Recently, a friend of mine posted on his facebook page about being called weird, but that he was just not their definition of normal.  He took it all in good stride and felt it was just his friend being good natured.  Its been a few days since he posted it, but I'm still bothered by it somehow.  Maybe its pregnancy hormones flaring up.  However, I find the word "weird" to be rather an insult instead of a good joke.  Now I don't mind the words such as crazy, nut, and unique.  They don't push the envelope for me somehow.  Weird though I don't see as a compliment or mildly entertaining.

Maybe its because the town I grew up in had a very structured way of doing things and if you were not in the "IN" crowd then you were definitely weird or strange.  I met my husband and moved away almost 19 years ago and I don't regret it at all.  He really did expand my views of the world and introduced me to things I had never heard of.  Now now now stop thinking dirty thoughts if you are.  That is NOT what I meant.  

I found myself these past few days listening to the theme song of Fushigi Yuugi and playing it for the baby.  Yes, I was so fascinated with Japanese Anime at one time.  I never knew it existed till I moved away.  We didn't have Netflix and you could only find it in limited areas, but I managed to locate a comic store that carried the DVDs of this one storyline.  It is a story about two young girls who travel back in time and they become separated.  One is blessed with an easy going travel while the other is faced with much hardship.  If you have not seen the series, I will leave it at that.  However, I was fascinated and watched hours of this anime in subtitles.  

Now my hometown, I am pretty sure would have considered this weird.  They would not have understood why I wasn't watch Buck Roger movies or something similar.  Now I do love my hometown, don't get me wrong.  I just think they would not be into something quite so international.  Maybe my kids will be international, who knows.  I listened to a lot of French music with my daughter and now am listening to Japanese music with this one.  I am interested in developing their language skills at a young age which is something I never had the opportunity to do.  I really wish I was fluent in another language.  A second language is definitely not considered weird in this day and age.  Yes, we single language people secretly envy you two language speakers.  If you speak more than two than you are just way beyond cool. 

An interesting article about second languages and Alzheimer's.  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/01/10/169066535/speaking-more-than-one-language-could-prevent-alzheimers