On Being a Nerd

I first began to realize that I was a nerd when I was in the second and third grades and developed an unbridled enthusiasm for ancient mythology and the lost city of Pompeii. It perplexed me that other little girls weren't interested in those things. They wanted to collect Strawberry Shortcake dolls and sticker books. I hated Strawberry Shortcake. And for the most part, I hated collecting stickers. Now, if the sticker industry had made images of buried Roman cities, well, then, I might have been interested. But alas, they did not. A hopeless "book-cracker," as my friend T. would say, I have always been fascinated by words. When I studied Russian (just for fun, I might add!), I spent many happy hours sorting through word roots and trying to figure out where they came from. Other word-root nerds have told me that my speech patterns have a sprinkling of many nationalities in them - Pennsylvania Dutch, Polish, Yiddish, Irish, and some others I can't remember. In fact, my last name means "Land Owner," which is a fact probably very few of you find interesting but which inspired me to wonder endlessly where exactly in Poland did my family own land? Only a fellow nerd would understand my excitement. Whenever I say "That baby is screaming like a banshee," or "I was a nickstnutch when I was a child," the thought pops in my head, "Did some long-forgotten ancestor embed that word or expression in my family vernacular, or did we just pick those words up from our particular region?" The possibilities fascinate me. In fact, I was wildly intrigued when my friend T., a fellow book-cracker and a hopeless nerd, told me that she had read in a history of the Lehigh Valley areas that people who say "Bethlum" as opposed to "Bethlehem" may have gleaned that expression from their Colonial ancestors. I wanted to tell the world. But, alas, the world of a nerd is a lonely one at times. People often don't understand. I ran into that lack of understanding just today. I had read about a National Geographic study that will be using the DNA of people from all over the world to trace common ancestral groupings and ancient migratory patterns. Their ultimate goal is to find the common thread that links us to that one guy in Africa they say we're all descended from. The best part is, nerds like me who find such studies fascinating beyond our wildest dreams can participate in this study! All we have to do is purchase a kit and send our cheek-swab in. After 4-6 weeks, we can go online and see where we are in the global ancestral groupings and find where our ancient ancestors migrated from. I was so excited, I ran out to tell my mother that I had ordered a kit and would be participating in an international research study. She sat up on the couch, with her brow furrowed and a perplexed look in her eyes. I was blabbering on and on about this study and how excited I was, but I finally gave up and asked, "Are you following what I'm saying?" Sadly, she wasn't. She did not share my enthusiasm. I was sad. Anyway, I will stop torturing you non-nerds now with my ramblings, but I know that some of you were secretly excited at the thought of an international DNA study... You may be a nerd, even if you deny it. You never know!