I thought everyone knew. On the off-chance that you've missed this pretty big part of my character, let me clarify. My childhood's lifeblood was Lord of the Rings, J.R. Tolkien's Hobbit, Doctor Who, and other Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I breathed that stuff. I couldn't have cared less that we watched Star Trek and Indiana Jones and old cowboy movies - I was too busy arguing over the potential theories as to what had happened and what would happen.
When others were playing tennis and football, I was making the space under my bed into a den so that I'd have somewhere to hide if aliens should take over the planet. It was stocked with various essentials such as chewing gum, chocolate bars, a torch, pillows, and hidden away was my prize means of defending it: a catapult my brother had got as a freebie from a Dennis the Menace magazine.
Of course, mum usually discovered these strongholds within hours of me making them, and made me clean them out and put the pillows back on the bed. Try as I might, she didn't seem to feel that even the prospect of alien invasion would ever warrant the storage of nice clean pillows in that dusty cave.
She was right. While I've moved on from pretending I was Captain Janeway or making dens, I'm still one at heart. I have watched the Lord of the Rings films so many times I can quote chunks of it. I have read so much Shakespeare and obscure literature that I will quote in normal conversation and only the Initiated understand me. I was introduced to awesome TV shows like Life on Mars, and seriously enjoyed it. Pan's Labyrinth is my all-time favourite film (tied with Shawshank Redemption, but that one isn't nerdy - it's just about the best film ever, is Shawshank). I argued Sherlock theories as soon as this series ended, and I'm waiting for the next series of DW so that I can see if I was right.
So yup, to answer her question - I am indeed a nerd! And PROUD OF IT!
Much love and laughter,
I think we need to specify the various levels of nerdage.... I think you're pretty low level really Rach. All that stuff sounds pretty normal to me. I still have to fight the urge to stock-pile food and other essentials encase of nuclear war. Doesn't everyone? Tools.... I'm sure we'd need tools...
ReplyDeleteTerminology is all important - check before branding ones self... http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2012/1/20/geek-vs-nerd-which-are-you.html
ReplyDeleteJust thought I'd clear up my 'terminology' - even after checking it out, alas, I'm still a nerd. Or more a nerd than a geek. Or a strange mixture of the two. Fave movies: LOtR, Matrix, Pi, Star Trek etc (CHECK). 'You know you're talking to a nerd when they insert obscure references into a sentence'. Definitely me. And last but not least, I am as far from owning flashy tech or macs or iPads as going to the moon (but seeing as I'm listed under potential jobs as a rocket scientist, maybe that's not so out of this world.)
ReplyDelete...That is all.