Early Evidence That You Were A Nerd

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Kestra, Feb 23, 2013.

  1. Emher

    Emher Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2003
    Location:
    Emher
    Sounds excellent! It's the one by Ken Follett, right? Think I found it on my usual online book shop.
     
  2. thestrangequark

    thestrangequark Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2006
    Location:
    Brooklyn
    ^Yep! It was one that I first read at an inappropriately young age (like Kestra reading through her house), because both my parents really enjoyed it, so we had two copies lying around. I reread it again a couple years ago, though, and enjoyed it a lot now that I am old enough to understand it!
     
  3. Emher

    Emher Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2003
    Location:
    Emher
    Well I read Jurassic Park which had disembowelment and stuff at age nine :lol:

    Anyway, ordered it now! Is it healthy that I giggled when I saw that it was 900+ pages? :D


    Also, am I a deeply disturbed man for preferring paperback versions of books? It just sort of started with me buying Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan books in paperback back in the day and it just sort of kept going.
     
  4. Gaseous Anomaly

    Gaseous Anomaly Vice Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2005
    Location:
    A padded cell
    I guess it was 4th grade when I wanted a chemistry set for Christmas, I was just thinking it would be cool to blow stuff up. I still blow stuff up, but now the booms are much larger and cost more money.
     
  5. thestrangequark

    thestrangequark Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2006
    Location:
    Brooklyn
    ^I think my worst underage reading incident was when I was 11 and read half of Naked Lunch. I got to a scene where someone was injecting herion through a wound in their leg and was like, wait, I'm eleven...I think I'll put this down and rearrange my stuffed animals instead...
     
  6. Emher

    Emher Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2003
    Location:
    Emher
    Yeah, I was kinda self regulating about that stuff as well. But more about movies to be honest. I was really afraid for a lot of stuff in films for a long time. Then I saw Jaws and Starship Troopers at age 13, and it was downhill from there... :lol:
     
  7. Grey

    Grey Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2012
    Location:
    Caladan
    Wow. Reading through this thread, I can safely say that being really smart and gifted is not one of the reasons I knew I was a nerd. I was a pretty average kid, intelligence-wise.

    I guess I'd say I knew I was a nerd when it became apparent that I was socially awkward and preferred my interests (video games) over trying to impress anyone. Which is good, because I would have impressed no one!

    I spent all my time wishing there were such things as devices that would allow us to play playstation games in our hands, TVs built into cars, the internet. And then when I got older I had an anime/manga phase, which morphed into a general animation/comics focus, which is where I am now.

    Comparatively speaking, I am late to the Star Trek party. But better late than never!
     
  8. Ulva

    Ulva Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2004
    Location:
    Möllan, Malmö, Skåne, Sweden
    I realised a bit late in life that I really like architecture, both housing and landscape. In school I never seemed to grasp maths, but when I started studying landscape engineering and had to calculate mass and strength for durability, I realised I didn't have any issues with maths. I had issues with teachers. In hindsight I am disappointed, because I would have loved to study architecture, had I realised it wasn't me being a maths illiterate, but someone not being able to catch my attention. I should have known, because had no problem with physics, as long as it was astronomy or nuclear science. Electricity however, they could keep. I hated every second of it.
    So was I. Which isn't strange since TOS aired only in 1977 during 8 weeks and then we were supposed to be done with it. I remember it vaguely. TNG started airing here in 1994, and then I was the right age and in the right place, because I'd had my first child 1½ months earlier and was home all the time and had the telly on. A friend of mine who was smitten by the Star Trek fever when TOS aired, got all fired up when I mentioned I was watching TNG and after that, things were never the same again. I was bitten. :borg:
     
  9. Sigokat

    Sigokat Commander Red Shirt

     
  10. iguana_tonante

    iguana_tonante Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2006
    Location:
    Italy, EU
    I did the encyclopaedia reading thing, and when I finished them all, I branched out to dictionaries.
     
  11. Emher

    Emher Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2003
    Location:
    Emher
    I just don't have a head for numbers :lol: I would have loved to have gone into studiying geography (another love of mine) at the university, but you needed Maths C done for that. I barely finished Maths B.
     
  12. Finn

    Finn Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2006
    Location:
    Finn
    I did the encyclopedia/textbook thing too. Also, being able to explain the characteristics of a mammal at the age of three probably would do it.
     
  13. Deckerd

    Deckerd Fleet Arse Premium Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2005
    Location:
    the Frozen Wastes
    I didn't read encyclopedias and I only rediscovered ST when I was in my 30s, although I remember being addicted to the original series when I was a child. Nerd credentials = 0.
     
  14. Pingfah

    Pingfah Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 28, 2005
    Location:
    Pingfah
    Yeah, I used to occasionally catch TNG at 6pm on BBC2 and had seen the original cast movies and a few TOS episodes, but I didn't really get into Star Trek until after DS9 had finished its run.

    Sci-Fi has been more of an adulthood discovery for me, I was more of a horror fan when I was a kid. I used to love prosthetics, and always had an issue of Fangoria on me.
     
  15. trampledamage

    trampledamage Clone Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 11, 2005
    Location:
    hitching a ride to Erebor
    I didn't read encyclopedias, my addiction was the big National Geographic Atlas of the World that my mum owned. I loved looking through that thing - I still love maps. My sister credits my first desire to move to Canada to the time when I read the population density statistics in the atlas :)

    I grew up in a sci-fi household though, so that was normal for me. I remember trying to impress my dad with my reading and saying "I'm reading books by Harry Harrison, have you ever read any of his?" - his reply being "read him? I've met him." :lol:
     
  16. TorontoTrekker

    TorontoTrekker Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2002
    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    :lol: Nice. :bolian: (I never met Mr. Harrison, myself. I'm sure we were probably at the same con once or twice, but our paths never crossed.)

    I don't remember this clearly, but I know that my parents took me to a child psychologist who recommended that they send me to a private school that's run by the University of Toronto, but they didn't do that. I was probably about 4 at the time, so there was clearly a perception that I was of above-average intelligence.

    I do remember that when I was about 5, my father started taking me to meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. I still own a pretty good reference book about the constellations that has "Christmas 1973" written inside the front cover in my father's handwriting (I was 6 at the time). That was probably one of the earliest hints of my geekiness.

    Around the same time, I was building dinosaur models with a friend who lived down the street. He later lost interest in geeky pursuits, and in fact, he contributed to making my life a living hell later, in high school because I wasn't one of the "cool kids" that he preferred to hang out with. (I ran into him about ten years ago at a theatre event, and he apologized, and we've kept in touch over Facebook.)

    Around that same time, I was also reading a lot - I remember having an anthology by Roger Elwood that I read several times over, which included stories by Lester del Rey, Poul Anderson, Barry Malzberg, Robert Bloch, Dean Koontz and Philip Jose Farmer. I also read a fair bit of Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke back then - Bradbury from the library, and Asimov and Clarke from my father's book collection.

    It was probably around that same time that I first saw Star Trek - "The Devil In the Dark" being the first episode I saw, and "A Taste Of Armageddon" following shortly thereafter. I didn't really get into it in a big way until the summer between grades 7 and 8, when I turned 11.

    It was probably inevitable, but if you'd asked me back then whether I thought I'd ever be friends with any the people who created this stuff, I would have told you to stop being ludicrous. :D
     
  17. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    Out of my brain on the 5:15
    I did the read the encyclopedia thing, too. Glad to know I'm not the only one. I blame that on my parents always telling me to "look it up". After a while I was reading it for fun. Guess my parents go their money's worth out of that set. I also loved reading through the sets of books on American History and Science they bought for us. Another favorite read was a collection of myths and legends. My earliest nerd moment was wondering why the Thor in the comics wasn't like the Thor in the myths. I was big reader, always getting gold stars for that in school. Once I even checked out the book the teacher was reading to us, because it was taking too long. Now I have to read, its like an addiction. I read, billboards, road signs, cereal boxes, bumper stickers. Anything with words on it that's in eyesight. Also, I tend to comment on what I read, which drives the wife crazy.

    Art was another nerd thing. I was always drawing. Superheroes were a favorite subject and I started making my own comics. I still have a drawing pad in my car and will draw at lunch when the mood strikes.

    I sucked at sports, too. Funny that I had the eye hand coordination to draw but not to throw a ball. The only sport I was decent in was swimming. That was the result of watching too many movies where Tarzan fought crocodiles. ;)

    Oh yeah, and I watched a lot of Star Trek.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2013
  18. 1001001

    1001001 Let the Good Times Roll!! Moderator

    Joined:
    Nov 3, 2001
    Location:
    People's Gaypublic of Drugafornia
    Okay, I have to admit to this Encyclopedia thing as well.

    That's a really interesting phenomenon. So many of us have mentioned it, it must be a solid predictor.

    :lol:
     
  19. RandyS

    RandyS Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2007
    Location:
    Randyland
    Okay, I guess we'll have to add me to that list. I use an encyclopedia every now and then too, and have for decades.

    I honestly didn't know THAT made me a nerd.

    I guess I should turn in my pocket protector, huh?
     

Share This Page
http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/early-evidence-that-you-were-a-nerd.204271/page-3
www.trekbbs.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-07
95640
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:IGJMXIOUTAABQNLSOKPTNDBJ7GRUDIQF
<urn:uuid:15edf271-55c1-4a99-9acb-ad45f396c3eb>
2016-02-07T11:08:42Z
212.13.212.80
sha1:YIGJKSIXFK2YSZ7MNOJ2PK7WJTTJ6SGP
<urn:uuid:c72921eb-f8ec-4bb4-ad27-8fd4fb54e0c7>
http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/early-evidence-that-you-were-a-nerd.204271/page-3
response
<urn:uuid:e8ae98a5-42c2-41c7-896e-6fd1769a45e6>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-236-182-209.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-07
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for February 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf