1. You'd rather battle an
orc than talk to a girl.
2. You'd be more excited to battle an
orc than have sex with a girl.
3. You can't stop thinking about battling an
orc long enough to realize that even your little sister can beat you up.
These three statements would apply to the majority of my fellow classmates. Not that I have a problem with nerds, or that battling an
orc wouldn't be cool, but the problem is that I am different kind of nerd. I'll provide a simple comparison that defines two general types of nerds.
Nerd Types
Preference | Classic Nerd (Me) | Techno Nerd (Them) |
Music | Classical/Classic Rock/Jazz | Heavy Metal/Video Game Music |
TV/Movies | Star Trek | Star Wars |
Recreation | Books/Chess | World of Warcraft/D&D/LAN Parties |
Language | English | C++ |
As you can see although in some ways we are similar, we are at opposite ends of the nerd spectrum, kind of like
Fascism and Communism. I don't want to say one nerd type is better than the other but when someone wears a Dragon Ball Z t-shirt and three other people ask him wear they can get one you can't help but feel certain standards of civilization have been abandoned.
I suppose I have no right to complain, I am invading their environment by taking a web development program. I'm getting by with a better than average GPA but I'm hardly skilled in my area of study. In fact, it took me nearly 30 minutes to put the above table in the proper place. So I have to respect some of the talents my classmates possess but it's also perplexing that many of them have extreme difficulty forming a single coherent E
nglish sentence, and no, they aren't from India, they're pure Canadians. Alas, I am caught between two nerd worlds,
never mind trying to be part of normal society.
The one highlight of my current semester is that one of our courses (Graphics) is being taught by a very attractive teacher (attractive women in our program are rare, Black Lotus rare...) Today we were asked to practice making a colour scheme for a potential company. Here's what I came up with:
Note the
feminine colours I chose actually reaffirm my masculinity...
In truth I admire the techno nerds in that they have focus and know generally where they are going and how to get there. I on the other hand am still struggling to find my niche in the universe. I suppose I'm looking for people with more intellectual interests. On that note, one thing most types of nerds have in common is sexual repression that twists the imagination into creating strange sex creatures.
"At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things. "
- Albert Camus
At 23 I know my palm very well so that's something.