Nerd it like You mean it!!

So I've noticed that all my posts have been very serious at best, if not outright depressing. The only remedy is, of course, to talk about something less depressing, so naturally, it's time to talk about getting nerdy.

But I'm not talking about the stereotypes we have of nerdy people: The pasty-faced kid at the back of the class with the glasses, 15 different allergies and a science textbook superglued to his face.

And I'm not talking about the girls who pretend to be nerdy because they're wearing the thick-frame glasses with no glass in the eyes.

Because "nerdisms", as I call them, aren't all about stuffy scientists or fake glasses. Everybody has a thing they go all nerdy about. Take me, for example: A twenty-something woman who's nerdy about dinosaurs, volcanoes, prehistory and the Ancient Egyptians, although dinosaurs are basically prehistory. It's a running joke that I'll be over the moon when they find a dinosaur, in Egypt, next to a volcano.

But they already kind of did that when they found Spinosaurus Aegypticus: a carnivorous dinosaur found in Egypt, only with no volcano in sight (bummer), and yes, it's that dinosaur famous for trashing a T-Rex in Jurassic Park III.

Now, I'll stop myself from going into a lecture about dinosaurs, Egyptian or otherwise, to shout something at all the nerd-haters: It's OK to be a nerd. Calling someone a nerd isn't even an insult, even by today's standards; we just laugh, say "yeah, whatever" and walk away.

But there is this implication of nerds being anti-social at worst, awkward at best, and here is where my two absolute favourite nerds come in: My uncle, and my granddad. Both are somewhat nerds in the more traditional sense: Granddad was a chemistry buff, my uncle's a soon-to-be-retired theoretical physicist. Granddad managed to branch out to being a nerd in mnemonics, the English language, crossword puzzles, Sudoku and jokes, both dirty and clean; uncle worked on the Hadron Collider in Switzerland, and both are as sociable as the proverbial social butterfly.

So here's something for nerds around the globe to hear and remember: You are the coolest people in the world. Whether you're a nerd about physics or photography, sociology or salsa, technology or tequila, you show off your nerdism like you're on a catwalk for the nerding world.

And there is NO SHAME WHATSOEVER in being a nerd. Shout it at your parents - my dad would probably die if I did, but do it - shout it at your friends who fake it, shout it to the whole wide world, and then go back to nerding like you do best.

Granted, there are different kinds of nerds - science nerds, history nerds, fashion nerds, but my point is: Nerds are people who know stuff. Nerds will be in charge one day purely because they possess the know-how.

And it honestly doesn't matter if you end up losing friends over your nerdisms. Hell, I've forgotten almost all my friends from secondary school, mostly because they were evil. But my best friend in the entire world has known me for the better part of 15 years, and despite all my nerdisms, she puts up with it, and even joins in. But nerds are powerful people, as Peter Drucker rightly points out:

"Today, knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement."

So nerdy people, rejoice! You've got the knowledge, which means you got the power, with all the Bruce Almighty-ness that that implies! All I ask is that you ignore the people who say nerds aren't cool, and keep at it.