Life At the Nerd Tables, Part 2: "If You Read the Books..."

"Gandalf is going to send Jack Sparrow on a dragon through the wardrobe to Tatooine in Warp 5 to kill the Cullen brothers with a Quidditch ball."

The above quote summarizes a little bit too well what went on with this particular group of nerds.  I'll refer to this group as "Nerd General"--a few drama people, a few music people, maybe one or two techies (but put more than two and that completely changes everything), and an overarching group of people who have far too much knowledge about a particular school subject/popular franchise.

For example, I know a lot about Pirates of the Caribbean.  I can tell you how old Captain Jack Sparrow was when he became captain of the Black Pearl.  I can tell you what he did as a teenager.  I can even tell you what he did in those two years before he was viciously mutinied upon.

Similarly, I had friends who had read so much Star Wars Extended Universe, you can't even theorize Star Wars VII's plot line in their presence because this will happen:

You were doing fine there until you said "daughter"

Anyway, the first line of this post is basically the end of the conversation that sparked my Mixed-Up Fantasy World Facebook Note Serial (click the link to read, but please don't read if you can't stand fantasy/crossovers/magic/fan fiction/people who hadn't read Harry Potter when they wrote it or if you like Twilight).  Incidentally, I should probably give ginormous credit for that work to my friend Cutler who inspired it, thought it was awesome, and said he saved it to his computer when he quit Facebook for a while.

Kind of like any five minute conversation when you eat with a bunch of people who are part of "Nerd General."

Yeah, that's oddly probably one of the things they should warn you before you eat with us.  You will lose the game.  Regularly.  I don't know, maybe this happens with jocks too.

"What is the game?" some ignorant to the phenomenon may ask.
It's a game everyone in the world is playing.  Some are just not aware yet. Your only goal is to not think of "the game."  As soon as you have thought of "the game," you have lost the game.  Now that you are aware, you are required to play.  Have a nice life!

Okay, the other thing is, there is probably an expert on some topic within your general facility.

Have a history question?
We got a few of those people.  And we'll give you a hundred extra details besides for free.
Have a Star Wars question?
Over there, those people are.  Wielding lightsabers, they are.


Want to know any details about what the Silmarillion is  and what is contained within its
pages?
The Lord of the Rings fans are over in that direction, huddled over their rings, muttering, "My precious." (Some of them aren't even at the nerd tables.)

Theology question?
Hello, this is a Bible college.  Let's all get together and thoroughly discuss this based on what each of us has learned under our sundry pastors and teachers and own private study.  No guarantee we'll end up with an answer, but we'll be more in awe of God than when we started.

And this could easily go on at any nerd table.

And if you haven't read/watched what we're about to discuss, prepare to be in a world of confusion.  I mean, at the table I discussed in Part 1, I was almost never confused, except when people cryptically talked about conversations that I hadn't been around.

Here, I get confused when the Star Wars people start discussing Extended Universe or, until I read Silmarillion, anything that didn't happen within the pages of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.  Seriously, you ask a Star Wars person a simple question like, "Who is the father of Anakin Skywalker?"  Next thing you know, you're treated to a ten minute dissertation about how midichlorians work and how they possibly could have gotten inside Shmi Skywalker, and just when you think they're about done--BAM!--Darth Bane somehow gets dragged into it because he is apparently, cool.

I know, like, nothing about this guy, but apparently, some people know a lot.

Or, for my own personal example, you ask a simple question, like, "When did Memorial Day start?"
"Memorial Day started with the Civil War when Southern women went to decorate the graves of their soldiers.  This eventually also caught on in the North.  It was originally known as Decoration Day, but over time, we came to call it Memorial Day."
"Why is it the last Monday of May?"
"Hold on; let me Google that...Some general declared it.  And actually Memorial Day is May 30.  The Monday thing is 'Memorial Day (Observed).'"

All that knowledge crammed in my head, and I still struggle finding my way to the closest restaurant that sells shawarma without typing the address into my GPS.

You have no idea how badly I want to be at that table.

So, basically, I mean, it's really hard to explain this group of people to anyone outside of us.  It's just kind of like a random conglomeration of people who all happen to be nerdy about something.  More than likely, we all were nerdy about different stuff, but the fact that society had for some reason classified us as nerds was enough for us to sit at the same table, pull up a chair (And another.  And another.  And another.), and eat a meal together, laughing hysterically and occasionally plunging deep into the depths of theology before rising back into laughter because someone said something totally hilarious that did relate/was supposed to relate to the conversation, but now we're laughing, and the topic has completely changed.

But, like I said, maybe the jocks are like that too.
I wouldn't know, though, because I've never really been one.
And I don't need to be to be cool.
Because being a nerd is way too much fun.  And, you know, considering we have the people that ultimately control the technology the jocks and the regular people use, we will one day rule the world!

"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"  "The same thing we do every night, Pinky.  Try to take over the world through methods that can't be mentioned on the Internet lest Katrina fall under suspicion if any of them happen."

Life At the Nerd Tables, Part 1: "Why Does No One Ever Sit With Us?"

Okay, I'll admit, the question, "Why does no one ever sit with us?" was a completely rhetorical question.  And actually even the question itself was kind of a lie because people did occasionally come sit with us.  Granted, it was about the same three or four people who just didn't seem to want to/didn't have the same lunch time as us five days a week.  Besides, I knew what the answer was:

Because by my junior year of college when I asked this, I was already, basically, officially a part of the nerd group at my college--a loose affiliate of people mainly based around the techies, drama nerds, and music people, although a few of us had absolutely none of those talents and had just read a bunch of books and watched a lot of TV shows and movies.  I never ASKED to be part of the nerd group.  I didn't even notice I was part of it for a long time when it finally dawned on me that basically the only athletes I spoke with on a regular basis were the hockey players.  And even then, only about two of them.

So, at this point, when you realize this, you kind of start making fun of the jocks while simultaneously attending every single sporting event you could make it to.  After all, there often wasn't much else to do on campus besides going to the games.  Okay, yes, you could do homework, but if you do homework all the time, you're boring.

And nerds are NOT boring.

Anyway, it's not like the athletes could really hear you.  I mean, now with the dining hall completely remodeled and rearranged, I don't know how the social order has everyone sitting, but here is a basic diagram of what it looked like when I attended:

PLEASE NOTE:  THIS DIAGRAM IS A STEREOTYPE!  THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS TO THIS!

Allow me to repeat that caption again:  The above diagram is NOT ALWAYS followed!  There have been music people sitting with the jocks, jocks sitting with the nerds, and so on.  Also for those of you offended by my term "jocks," get over it.  That's what we called you.  I'm not saying all athletes are terrible people.  For crying out loud, there were people on my college's sports teams regularly seated among the nerds.  I'm using "jocks" to refer to the people who were the type who acted, dressed, and talked "cool."  Although, nearly every nerd can tell you they're wrong.  Bow ties and fezzes are cool.

Obligatory random Doctor Who reference

Anyway, back to what I'm talking about.  As you can tell by the title, this is part one of four because, let's face it, no one wants to hear me go on forever in one post about how awesome each nerd group I associated with was.

Anyway, the first group I'm going to talk about is one that mainly consisted of about four or five of us, depending on which semester it was.  And occasionally a few others who somehow could manage to stand our weirdness every once in a while.  And there are good reasons why "no one" ever sat with us.

1. We had all once escaped from the mental hospital.  I remembered the least of it, and all I remember is something about an Asian pirate doctor wearing purple named Jack.  I think they wiped our brains before we left.  Like I said, I don't remember much.
2. You probably needed to be a fan of Star Wars, Star Trek, or Stargate:  Atlantis to even begin to understand our conversations most days.
3. Pinning and sending each other Pieces of Flair LONG after it was deemed no longer cool to do so.

   

   AND NOW IT'S ALL GONE!

4. We would also talk extensively about books we read.  And how Cherie needed to learn to stop reading the last page first.  Once one of our absolute FAVORITEST teachers came and sat with us and we totally convinced him he needed to read Animal Farm because he had never done so and we were all like, "What?" and told he must read it!  These conversations are also how I knew the entire plot of The Hunger Games trilogy before I ever read it.
5. Our extremely well-thought-out and viable plan to escape college and be halfway to Canada before anyone even knew we were missing.
6. Retribution plan.  It always ends up with at least two of us dead.  Also involves escapes to Canada.  And maybe another country too.  I think it was France, but I'm not sure.
7. Sarah and I assigning superheroes to our college's various societies back in the good old days when my college had societies.

   

   Wolverine was forever claimed in the name of Judson society that day

8. Random outbursts of singing.
9. Janet and I had conversations that went like this:

   

   Please note:  The above is not an actual conversation.  Rather, it is a sample of how a conversation could go.

   Furthermore, lest you think we're the worst friends on planet earth, I'm totally listening to what she's saying, and she's totally listening to what I'm saying.  We just don't know how to respond, so we keep going with our own agendas, and when we get to the end, we have both communicated all we need too.
10. Something about Skype conversations that went on when Katrina wasn't around and therefore she was not privy to information about.  And you either.

So, there you are, the ten reasons on why almost no one really sat with us.  And I totally knew why no one sat with us.  But it was okay, because we were awesome, and we knew it.  Granted, awesome doesn't normally mean there's only a few of you, but awesomeness is relative.  And those of us who can withstand the weirded out looks of anyone within hearing distance and continue on with our lives knowing we're having fun and that we wouldn't trade our fun for a million popularity points will probably go on and do something awesome someday.

Edit:  Per my replies to the comment, here is a revised comic of what could also happen at lunch.

I never get anything I want...

Intergalactic Star Wars Day

Oh, yes!  The day has arrived.  The holiday that every American school child should be let off for every year, not just the years it happens to fall on Saturday or Sunday (like this year and next year.)

IT'S INTERGALACTIC STAR WARS DAY!

Get it?  Because fourth sounds like force.  Yeah, I really hope you didn't need that explanation.

I mean, in Japan, kids get off school for Intergalactic Star Wars Day.  Or, actually, they get off for a national holiday that falls on the same day, but we should just pretend Japan is actually cool enough to let all their kids off because of George Lucas's epic masterpiece.

Also, side note:  this is our first Intergalactic Star Wars Day in which the franchise is owned by the Evil Empire... Disney.  I just hope Disney isn't the movies' own Order 66.

Disney Order 66:  Execute all canon the Star Wars fans have ever known.

Ah, I still remember the first time I ever watched Star Wars.  I was seven years old.  It was the 20th Anniversary Special Edition in 1997.  Yes, this means I grew up with Greedo shooting first.

No matter what, at least he dies.

My dad sat down in the living room to watch them with us kids.  At first, nothing really tipped me off that what I was about to experience was going to be life changing.  I mean, our family had some movies that we just had to watch with the parents.  Maybe the fact Mom wasn't watching this movie with us should have tipped us off.  I mean, normally with a new movie everyone watched.  But, no, the actual case was that my mom isn't a Star Wars fan.

Anyway, we sat down in the living room to watch the video tape.  And I was BLOWN away.  Almost everything in my body instantly knew it was amazing.  My bladder didn't even tell me how badly it needed to pee until the whole film was over.  Same thing happened the next two days as I watched The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  My poor dad had to read off all those opening crawl for years until the youngest of us three kids was able to read fast enough to keep up.

*epic theme music*

Naturally, I wondered where I-III were, but I was told they didn't exist.  Like I said, it was 1997.  I figured they had to happen eventually.

Awesomeness for seven-year-olds

So, of course, as soon as I'd seen all the movies, and I was in love, and fortunately, the other missionaries we were working with at the time had a son two years older than me who also liked Star Wars, and my brother who's two years younger than me also loves Star Wars, so it's not like I was alone in this thing.  No girls were around who really, really liked Star Wars, but I didn't care.  I had people who liked Star Wars.  Naturally, my younger brother got a lightsaber.  Actually, I think for all my growing up years from 1997 on, there was only once a time span when there wasn't a single lightsaber or lightsaber knock-off in the household.

We actually owned the knock-off double blade, not the real one.

Actually, when I think about it, Star Wars was probably the first time I followed all the steps of being part of a fandom.
#1:  Become introduced.
#2:  Fall in love.
#3:  Find others that share your love.
#4:  Buy merchandise.  Or, rather, have your brother get merchandise, in my case.

This person is naturally awesome.

Only one of the most frustrating Lego structures ever.

Just as good as regular Monopoly

#5:  Have one minor fault that makes you feel slightly out of place in the fandom.

I confess!  I don't hate Jar Jar Binks, like I'm supposed to!

#6:  Have lengthy discussions about everything.
#7:  Learn lots of information about stuff that isn't in the films and feel superior by correcting others who don't know as much.

I will admit, though, I've never actually read a Star Wars book and most of my information concerning the Extended Universe comes from Wookieepedia.  Also, my friends are on average WAY bigger Star Wars fans than me and can correct me at every turn.

If this isn't considered normal behavior, then I don't know what is.

So, yeah, that's my Star Wars story.  Well, at least so far.  In two years' time, it will pick up again when Star Wars VII airs.

Do us good, Mickey!  Follow the canon.

Anyway, Happy Intergalactic Star Wars Day, and may the fourth be with you always.

Sorry, the Doctor Who reference had to happen.