Early Evidence That You Were A Nerd

[Opus]

I think I was one of two kids in my neighborhood into sci-fi. Trek reruns, The Six Million Dollar Man, Space 1999, Dr. Who, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Land of the Lost, Starblazers, Force Five and Star Wars made up my childhood. I played D&D and loved watching Monty Python late at night on PBS with my dad.

Nerd.

 

[Kestra]

I'm loving all the stories.

 

[Amaris]

I, too, was an avid reader.

My grandma got me the condensed (or compact) OED when I was six or seven. I read it cover to cover. I often joke my vocabulary was better when I was in the second grade than it is now. It did give me the audacity to call one of my teachers senescent.

...

 

[Ood Sigma]

When I was 6, I demanded an Apple ][ for Christmas because they had one at school and computers were just so cool. I ended up getting a lower-end computer (Texas Instruments) but from that my love of computers and programming was born. I spent more time on BASIC programming than playing the games.

I'm trying to think when I liked geeky TV shows... my brother of all people introduced me to TNG when I was in high school (this was during the 3rd or 4th season). I have a vague memory of watching an episode of TOS at a friends' house when I was very little (maybe 7 or 8) and it scaring the crap out of me. Not even sure what episode it was but it had to do with a red alert and an asteroid or some other space object getting closer and closer on the view screen.

 

[EmoBorg]

i collected and played Magic: The Gathering when i was a teen. I guess that made me a nerd.

I did not become a fan of star trek until i was in my twenties when i first saw reruns of voyager. I had seen several episodes of TNG and TOS in my teens but i was not interested in them and hence i did not follow them But VOY was the show that converted me to being a star trek fan. Babylon 5 bought me to sci fi earlier before. It was a slow conversion from the mid 1990s to the early 2000s.

 

[Roshi]

I would say 'all of the above.'
I started watching Star Trek early on (I was four) and became massively interested with astronomy. When I graduated from high school, I was given my 'file', the one that followed me my whole school curriculum. It was written 'always talks about space, planets and rocket ships...'
You have to keep in mind that 'nerd' is NOT a recognized term in my country. Never were a group of people (kids) identified as such. The fact that I started to wear glasses from the age of 5 didn't help too.
I too was an avid reader. And as a space geek, my very first book was Explorers On The Moon. I wasn't able to read when I got it and it's filled with doddles (le rolleyes!).
I remember smiling during the opening credits of UFO Robot Grendizer, The Six Million Dollar Man and I would pretend that I too had bionic implants and to prove it so, I would run in slo-mo...
A the age of 13, I got my first computer, an Amstrad 6128. It was with a fucking disc and it was oh so fast!!! I spent my first pay ever on a CASIO fx8500 calculator. And it still works!
In December 1993, I was with my then gf and we stopped in front of a model workshop. There was a model that caught my eyes: The Enterprise A from TUC. I had to buy it!
I completed my nerd training when I first joined the TrekBBS.

 

[Rhaven]

Spending all my spare time reading vs playing with the other kids.
Knowing all the names of the constilations visible in the night sky at the age of 6.
Doing my older brother's math home work in my head, for fun.
Spending hours trying to get my hand to do the Vulcan sign which wouldn't work. So I glued my pinky and ring fingers together with super glue. Mom wasn't happy with me, to say the least.
Searching for any rerun of TOS in the TV Guide and staying up to watch them, over and over

 

[Amaris]

Another sign that I was surely a nerd was when I was in school (7th grade AP English), and wrote on a vocabulary paper under the word "Impulse" the following definition:

Impulse; A fusion engine that propels a starship to sublight speeds equivalent to 1/10th c.

 

[Orac Zen]

Reading. All the time. Pretty much anything I could pick up, I'd read. Encyclopaedias were heavy but I managed.

Watching classic Who and not being even remotely freaked out by the Daleks (the hiding-behind-the-couch thing made zero sense to me).

Almost every project I did in primary school was about space. Astronomy fascinated me from an early age.

Classic Who aside, if it was a TV SF series, I watched it. Even Lost in Space.

 

[Miss Chicken]

^^^I was more scared of the William Hartnell Doctor than I was of the Daleks. And my earliest crash was for Jamie McCrimmon.

 

[Ulva]

Knowing all the names of the constilations visible in the night sky at the age of 6.

This. My dad dragged me outside with a telescope and got me interested in what was out there. I dreamed of becoming an astronaut - until it was discovered that I needed glasses. All I could think of at the optician was how my future carreer were in tatters.

 

[thestrangequark]

My mom likes the tell the story of when I was 5 years old and asked her why, if we were capable of cloning, we couldn't have Star Trek style replicators. I think that was probably a pretty solid early sign of the nerdiness to come. Earlier than that maybe it was my obsession with bridges -- when I was two I was practically inseparable from a little black and white book of bridge blueprints I'd gotten for my second birthday. I am still quite fond of them, especially suspension bridges:

Ain't she just beautiful?!

 

[Emher]

Gotta agree, that's a nice looking bridge there. You must be on cloud nine walking over the bridges in NY then, huh?

 

[thestrangequark]

^It's why I do it every day! I don't know why I'm so obsessed with them. I've had the same weird fondness for dirigibles since childhood too...

 

[1001001]

I'm not a nerd.

 

[Emher]

I'm fascinated by buildings in general. I've gotten to see some interesting old building techniques in my job, but mostly I find the big projects the most interesting. Empire State Building is a given. I guess I'm facnitaed both by the thought it goes into making both the structure and the technology to make it possible to build it.

Like for example, I saw a documentary the other year about the World Trade Center, and a big part of that was what made that structure unique. That the characteristic outer beams is what held it up. Something that led to it's ultimate downfall unfortunately.

Also an extention is this are cathedrals. I don't admire what they stand for in their connection to religion, but as works of engineering they are fascinating. My favorite in Sweden is Uppsala New Judge-Church, built originally in the 1500s, but restored in the 1800s. It is exactly 118m meters tall and long. And a fantastic building. Just awe inspiring.

 

[thestrangequark]

^Have you ever read The Pillars of the Earth? If you're interested in cathedrals you'd probably really enjoy it!

 

[Emher]

I have not, I must add it to my list!

Also regarding cathedrals, I must go to Paris and Notre Dame at some point. Seems so awesome.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It's funny looking back there were tons on signs but I can't remember when it really hit me that I was different. Probably around 13 I started not to fit in well and started feeling really shy and awkward. Around 10 I put on a lot of weight (despite being pretty active) that never left which certainly helped to exacerbate everything.

As to early signs, I watched all the superheroes and science fiction of the day. People talk about all the superhero movies these days but I had live action Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Superman, Hulk, Shazam and Isis, Six Million Dollar Man (and his Woman). Had Star Trek, Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Land of the Lost and Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers. Not to mention King Kong, Dracula, Godzilla and more. I can remember drooling over 4K computers in the back of Radio Shack catalogs and my second-grade teacher inviting me to play some artillery game on a TRS-80. And all this before I was 8.

 

[thestrangequark]

I have not, I must add it to my list!

Also regarding cathedrals, I must go to Paris and Notre Dame at some point. Seems so awesome.

It's very good. A nice, meaty bit of period fiction about politics and religion and daily life a thousand years ago, but throughout are detailed explanations and analyses of how cathedrals were built, how the styles evolved and spread from nation to nation, the technical aspects as well as the cultural. Plus, there is a great yet subtle twist at the end -- not a twist of plot so much as a twist of morality, where you get to literally the last sentence and think, "Fuck me! How'd he get me to think that this whole time?!"