I'm a geek

Yes, I am a geek. I'm sure you all knew this fact- especially if you've read some of my earlier posts. I'm aware that the fact that I study physics (and enjoy it) is enough to include me in that category.

Let me share with you the moment that I realized that I was a true geek. I suppose I knew it long before, but this is the first time that the fact really hit home.

The moment came when I was watching the movie Spiderman II. If you're familiar with the story, you know that Spiderman's alter ego, Peter Parker, is also a geek. Now you see, in a movie it's not enough to tell the viewers that Spiderman is a nerd, you have to show it. And what better way to show that the story's superhero is just a supernerd is there than to show him in a lecture hall, completely infatuated with the strange symbols written on the board by an old balding nerd of a professor.

If you saw the movie, this short scene probably made you think, "wow, that guy is a geek!" However, the thought that popped into MY head was, "Hey! We just covered that material last week in Quantum Mechanics!"

Wow! I'm just as nerdy as Spiderman!!!

Now all I need is a radioactive spider....

Of course, not all depictions of geeks in motion pictures are quite as flattering as Spiderman. I must say, however, that I still enjoy watching them- but not for the reasons you might enjoy them.

Let me give another example to illustrate. This one comes from the movie Transformers. I've never actually seen the movie, but a friend told me about this scene and it had me practically rolling on the floor with laughter. The scene goes something like this:

Two nerdy scientists are in a lab, and one turns to the other and says, in a British accent: "Why don't you STOP thinking about Fourier transforms and START thinking about Quantum Mechanics?!"

Now, you might not think that this sentence is particularly funny, but my friend and I both did, and for the same reason. You see, whoever wrote this stupid dialogue obviously has no idea what the terms 'Fourier transform' and 'Quantum Mechanics' even mean. If you are intimately familiar with these two terms, you would know that no scientist sitting in a lab would ever utter that sentence.

This sort of dialogue is the kind that I hear all the time in movies and on tv. It's the kind of dialogue that just screams, "this is the smartest sounding sentence that the writer could come up with".

It just goes to show that while you're making fun of nerds for their lack of athletic ability and social grace, they're probably making fun of you for being an idiot.