Embracing your inner nerd

When I was a kid, I was one of those who wanted to be one of the cool kids. I wanted to feel popular. But being a nerdy bookworm was always more fun than to try to figure out how to fit in with the populars. I wanted to talk to them, but I had no idea what they talked about (not Harry Potter, I knew that much...). I wanted to play with them, but they never seemed to play. And slowly it dawned on me that being popular in school must be horribly boring. It's all about keeping up an image. Standing in a corner of the school yard during recess freezing your ass off trying to look cool rather than wearing ugly thermo pants and maybe get a bit dirty, but having the time of your life doing so because guess what; you defeated the dark lord.

I would sometimes listen to the conversations cool* kids would have. I can't really remember what I heard, but I remeber thinking that it was boring.

One conversation I do remember. We were fifteen. I was sitting outside a classroom reading, and they were further down the hall. They talked about how drunk people had been the last weekend. And how fun it was. And that was it. "Fun" for them was basically acheiving alcohol, hiding out somewhere and then drinking it. I still don't see how that is fun.

Meanwhile me and my friends had spent the same weekend making dinner together and then most likley rewatched lord of the rings and drunk several liters of tea while talking about life, the universe and everything. I still enjoy that.

I think my point with this post is that, while I used to feel hurt when my sisters teased me for being a nerd, at some point in my life I came to realise that that is what I am. I enjoy thick fantasy novels. I love discussing specific deatails in Lord of the Rings, comparing the books to the movie. I have Doctor Who posters on my wall. I still play with LEGO.

And I'm freaking proud of it!

Because that is part of me. And that allows me to not only buy that dinosour sweater I saw and fell in love with, but also proudly wear it in public :)

I read, therefore I am

One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is books. E-books specificly.

I read a lot. Sometimes I think I can't go to sleep if I don't read a little bit first. And I've always been reluctant towards e-books. I can see the advantages with having all your books on a Kindle or something similar. They weigh less, and take less space. But I still prefer having the actual book in my hand and read words on paper rather than on a screen.

But then two months ago I moved to Germany. My first thought when packing was "How many books can I take with me?". Because I could only take with me so much that I could fit in two suitcases and a sportsbag.  My dad just stared at me with a look that was a mix of disbelief and the thought "crazy girl!". Then he told me that I couldn't bring any books at all, but that I could download a program to read e-books on my computer. Considering my prejudices against e-books I decided to give it a try. And I didn't like it. Plus the source I used to download books was my local library and the only books they have is crime novels. It may be the most popular category right now, but it's also the one category I don't really like.

Anyways. I sneaked down the Lord of the Rings trilogy in my bags, and they kept me happy until earlier this week. When I finished the last book.

Although I thought I'd found a solution. When playing around with my phone I found this e-book program for it in the google play store. And a bunch of free e-books I actually wanted to read. And I found that I could live with reading books on my phone. Until the stupid thing stoped working.

So now it's just me and my computer. And I really don't like it.  But I have come to the conclusion that it's not the e-books I don't like. It's e-books in combination with my computer.

One month 'til christmas. I'll survive.