Nerd Collection

I love Nerds.

For the purposes of this blog I'm using a much broader but still clear definition of Nerd.  It's someone whose passion for a subject or activity leads them to a detailed knowledge of and significant time spent on this subject or activity.  Passion is the key, but true passion will reveal itself in dedication.

Thus under this definition, most of the people I know are Nerds of some flavor.  The passion which leads to Nerd-dom is an intriguing and entertaining attribute.  My mother is fast becoming a bird-watching Nerd and my father has long been a coin-collecting Nerd.  She can easily identify local birds by their calls and gets quite excited upon the sighting of a new species.  He can regale you with the half-an-hour long story of how the existance of an extremely rare nickle was a successful hoax.  And even though I don't normally have a special interest in coins or wild birds, their passion gets me listening and asking questions.

This week, I asked my Opthamologist which line of the eye chart represented 20/20 vision.  She took the time to explain about that, and what the optomap of my eye signified.  She is my new favorite Eye Doctor.

Most of the time, people seem to like it when you ask them these sorts of questions.  Given that I habitually interrogate the Nerds in my life, I've recently become a little worried that my interest will be mistaken for pretend knowledge, and about being thought of as a Fake Nerd or an Idiot Nerd Girl. Fortunately, sister thinks that the Idiot Nerd Girl doesn't really exist (and when she was in high school she could beat all the boys at Smash Brothers, so she should know).

Can I qualify as a Nerd?  Possibly?  Unlike some of my friends, I don't have a PhD in STEM, or a large closet dedicated to board games, Star Wars, Legos or Transformers.  I've never been to a comic book convention or played WOW or DND, or built a computer.  So probably not your more traditional Nerd.

But, I do have a pretty traditionally nerdy Halloween costume lined up for this year (it's a surprise - no spoilers!).  I did well in math class; I'm an honest-to-goodness "Avatar: The Last Airbender" fangirl (please don't watch the live action movie). And I regularly listen to a few science/history/political podcasts.  Spouting off random trivia at Ladies Night Out that is often met with awkward silence is pretty darn nerdy of me, right?

In conclusion, many of you are Nerds in the best possible way, and I love it.  Thanks for caring about stuff!  Passion is a great power, and may you use it well :)