3.14159 Reasons to Embrace Your Nerdiness

I received a letter from a JAK reader yesterday that I would like to address. Please read the following:

Dear Just Above Kansas,

My name is Arthur. I’ve been reading your blog since the story about the stolen R2D2’s. I looked back on some of your previous entries and I noticed that you like to poke fun at nerds. Who the hell you think you are? As a nerd, I need to set you straight.

Contrary to popular belief, one doesn’t choose to be a nerd. They’re born that way. My parents found out that I am a nerd at a very young age when they caught me trying on scientific laboratory apparel in the basement. Imagine how disappointed my football-star father and cheerleader mother were when they discovered me in a white lab coat, protective eyewear, stonewashed jeans (elastic waistband), and a NASA t-shirt. Of course, it also didn’t help that I was in the process of determining the mineral content of our tap water.


Initially my parents tried to hide the fact that I was a nerd. They thought that it was just a phase that I was going through and that I could be changed. They’d set up play dates with “cool” kids, buy me roller blades, starter jackets, and Crave (you know the candy in plastic tubes that turns your tongue crazy colors). I just gave the candy to other kids and kept the little plastic test-tubes for my chemistry experiments. Starter jackets meant I had glorious pocket space to store specimen for my bug collection that I discovered on my walk to and from school. I do admit though, the roller blades were bitchin'. They even made me quit science class and attend an extra session P.E. What they didn’t realize is that you can take the nerd out of science, but you can’t take the science out of the nerd! You also can’t divide by 0. Don’t even try. It will #$@% up your universe.


So then, ma and pa had to accept me for the nerd that I was. Things were looking up as I entered high school (at the age of 13). I was deeply motivated by a 675 page Mr. Wizard autobiography that I read (in 24 minutes) and decided to be openly nerdy. But just because I was free to solve differential equations in the safety of my own home didn’t mean society as a whole approved of my nerdy ways. It was quite the opposite in fact. Some people didn’t approve of my lifestyle because they didn’t understand it. It just didn’t seem natural to them that I enjoyed science and math. Others argued that being a nerd doesn’t make sense because if everyone was a nerd, no one would understand how to procreate and the human race would vanish. They said, “we’ll be hopelessly-stuck somewhere between home plate and 1st base.” I didn’t understand hockey analogies.

That was high school, but times are changing for the better now. For every ignorant person out there it seems there are 4^2 (16) people that accept nerdiness, even if they don’t spend their Friday evenings trying to prove Euclid’s Parallel Postulate. And we even have our own TV show, Mythbusters, which is bringing our lifestyle to the forefront of society. And while we’re on this subject, I’d just like to point out an error in the “greater traction in reverse on ice” episode. The apparent 900 lbs of force exerted by the car in the reverse direction is largely due to the fact that at the beginning of the test there were MULTIPLE inches of slack in the chain that allowed the car to gain momentum, effectively elevating the force measured as the chain became taut. Ever heard of the scientific method, dumbasses?

Okay. Sorry. I’ve been needing to get that off my chest. Anyways, I hope that this letter gives you a new perspective on what it is like to be a nerd. Just remember that when you make fun of us, because eventually you’re gonna need someone to fix your computer.

-Arthur


Dear Arthur,

I appreciate your letter. However, I don't think you realize that we are, in fact, nerds as well. I mean, this is a blog. I'm an engineering major and I do nanoindentation. Do you think that I don't feel the pressure from society to be cooler? Charlie has a two blogs about the television show Lost. Do you think that he doesn't get immense crap about that from his friends? The truth is sometimes you have to be able to poke fun at yourself, whether it's about your nerdiness, your love for public hot-tubs, your interest in historical barns, or the state in which you live. So please, remember that this is all in fun. And also, I completely agree with you about that episode of Mythbusters.

-Ben