Closet Nerds

As quite a shy young woman, I do not broadcast my nerdiness. In fact, on the outside, I probably look quite normal. Until I open my mouth. But definitely not if I'm wearing my purple skinny jeans. Although I have been praised on my choice of trouser colours. Case in point, I don't look like much of a nerd. I wear normal enough clothes, listen to normal enough music, read normal enough books to appear normally average. But under this cover, I am a nerd. A proud one at that. I wear All Caps and Doctor Who t-shirts, I listen to Chameleon Circuit and The Parselmouths, I am obsessed with the Harry Potter books.

Yet, unless someone gets to know me, actually gives me a chance to talk freely about what genuinely interests me, most of the world would never know. And when I find that one of my friend's is also somewhat secretly nerdy, I love them even more. And looking around campus, I notice things. There is a lot more nerdiness out there than I thought. Some examples include a girl sitting on the bus in front of me, listening to All Caps, and a girl walking past me on campus wearing a shirt that says 'Keep calm and it will be totally awesome!' I didn't even get made fun of for knowing the name Buckbeak's would-be executioner! All this is making me think that there is a lot more nerdiness in most of us than we think.

Specifically, I am an English Nerd, so being good friends with Sophie is awesome! In fact, I have a blog because of her! Being her friend gives me a chance to discuss books. Because despite most of my friends at university doing an English degree, we don't generally talk books. So me and Sophie... yeah, it's probably not a proud thing to admit to but we have major in depth discussions on characters and plot lines from books that are not only not on our reading list but are probably too young for us anyway. By the way, I am talking about the Georgia Nicholson Confessions series and the Morganville Vampires series. And sometimes Harry Potter.  You know, when we're not talking about Glee or Bones or how much of a fool her housemate is.

At this point I would like to just ask if anyone knows what Minecraft is. Some do, some don't. Ok, so I got hooked because The Boyfriend plays it and even though I have been playing, ooh, at least a year, I am not very good. And by that I mean, I get blown up by creepers and shot by skeletons. A lot. I like to play on peaceful mode and build things. Generally it's little villages made of pine wood or cobblestone. But last week, like the huge nerd I am, I made a new world purely to recreate Hogwarts.

Yeah, feel free to laugh at me. I am even re-reading the books and researching Harry Potter Wiki just so all the rooms go in the right place. Oh God, I just realised how pathetic that is!

The point of this blog was to highlight that nerdiness is everywhere and in most inevitable. Pretty much all my friends are nerds in some respect and most are hardly aware of it. If anything were to come from this blog, it would be this: don't hide your nerdiness, don't be afraid to show it. Because chances are, there are people out there that are just as nerdy as you and you don't even realise.