Revenge of the nerds

I have recently come to the conclusion that I am, have always been, and will always be a nerd.

(What? you whisper to yourself. She’s telling us something we already know and calling it new?)

Let’s start with the past. Back in the day, when you thought of cool, you probably didn’t think of me. And that’s OK. I understand that. I didn’t think of me either. I mean, I had big glasses that took up half my face, unfortunate hair at times, was really shy, and actually liked to learn. (I also, at various points in my life, have worn my jeans tight-rolled, loved me some stirrup pants with short, zip-up boots, and tried to bring neck ties for women into the fashion forefront.)

In high school, I was on the quiz bowl team. (And for the record, I don’t think this made me nerdy because in my high school, being on the quiz bowl team was something most people wanted to do.) In Missouri, the way quiz bowl worked was that 4 players were on a team and competed against another school’s 4-player team. You could have more team members than that and make substitutions and such, but generally your best team started and played for most of the games. The best team wasn’t always the people who knew everything; it was the team who could work together the most. And my senior year, that team was a guy named Brad (also a basketball star), our captain Chris, me (always sitting in the third chair next to Chris b/c our advisor called me “soft spoken”), and my brother. We had played together so much that we anticipated each other’s buzzes and knew who specialized in what. I specialized in literature, knew a lot of grammar and fine art stuff, and was reliable when spelling or religion/Bible questions came along. I was not reliable when math problems came along, mostly because I can’t really do math in my head and I have to write out every step of a problem to see how to complete it. That doesn’t work so well when you’re working against a time limit.

But anyway, I digress. The point is, back in the day, I knew stuff. I could name the presidents in order. I had started memorizing the periodic table (yes, this confirms my nerdiness). I knew authors and their great works, artists and their mediums. I knew things. I actually sometimes answered things correctly when watching final Jeopardy.

But then I graduated, went to college, and got older. And all that info has been replaced by other useless things, like which celebrities share my birthday and the fact that Patrick Dempsey went to clown college and juggles really well.There’s also random music trivia that no one else cares about stuck in there, alongside other random and somewhat useless facts that I sometimes blurt out and then deal with weird stares.

Then, it happened. My inner nerd was awakened this week by a coworker. One day at lunch, a friend told us about a Web site his daughter had pointed out to him called www.sporcle.com. It’s basically a site full of trivia. I’ve taken tests on naming all the presidents (and no longer remember many of their names) and naming the states. (I did get 49 on my first try and completely blanked on Pennsylvania. It stinks when you forget a state you have actually visited!) But I now stop by Sporcle every night and try another quiz, which generally only reveals how much I’ve actually forgotten. Oh, well. It can’t hurt. Maybe this brain exercise will help stave off dementia later in life.

Oh, I may have moments of cool, but don’t let those fool you. Inside, I’m still a nerd who likes the History Channel, enjoys learning, and would still compete in quiz bowl competitions if they had them for adults. Except I guess that’s Jeopardy, and I doubt I’d pass the test to get on. Maybe Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, though.

A nerd can always dream. 🙂