Nerdy and Proud of It

From Wikipedia.Org:

A nerd (adjective: nerdy) is a person, typically described as being overly intellectual, obsessive, or socially impaired. They may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, obscure, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly technical or relating to topics of fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities.^[1][2][3]Additionally, many nerds are described as being shy, quirky, and unattractive,^[4] and may have difficulty participating in, or even following, sports. "Nerd" is a derogatory, stereotypical term, but as with other pejoratives, it has been reclaimed and redefined by some as a term of pride and group identity.

Not too terribly long ago I had a discussion with a friend.  I don't remember many of the details, but at some point I referred to myself as a Nerd.  My friend immediately stated that she didn't think I was a Nerd at all, and that she thinks I'm very cool, pretty, and not socially awkward.  All very nice things, but the truth is that I am a Nerd and darned proud of it too!

In fact I even joined a community of Nerds that call themselves Nerdfighters.  If you want to check them out there is a link over on the right side of my site.  The idea behind Nerdfighting is that we use our super brain powers for good, to make the world a better place.

From Nerdfighters.ning.com
We fight against suck... we fight for awesome. We fight using our brains, our hearts, our calculators and our trombones.

- Hank Green, a founder of modern nerdfighting

So to all my Nerdy friends, keep being yourselves, keep being Nerds, and of course, DFTBA (Don't Forget To Be Awesome).

Ahead of The Game

One of the books in the challenge is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  I was going to read Contact by Carl Sagan next, but this inconspicuous little paperback novel seems like it would be a quick and easy way to knock another book of the 100 List.

I was right in a way, but also wrong.  Along with the books, I've also been seeing if I can find matching movie titles.  With that in mind I did a search for Ender's Game and as luck would have it there will be a movie coming out in November.  Yeah, I'm going to have to go see that one in the theater.

Now to the book.

The basic story is about Ender, a little boy who is taken at the age of six and trained to be mankind's greatest military leader ever, in a fight against the "Buggers" (aliens) that attacked Earth many years ago, and are expected to attack again.  Most of the book is describing Ender's training and his progress and thoughts regarding the training.  I'm going to save more details for after I see the film and make my book to film translation, but I will say that I suspected some of the twists in the plot, but the final ending was amazing and was very satisfying, but still left the story open for continuation (there are more books!).

This is going to be one of those titles that sticks with me for awhile.

Stardust

I just finished the first title I selected to read as part of The NPR's Top 100 Science-Fiction & Fantasy Books Challenge.  The book was Stardust by Neil Gaimen.  There are actually a few books by this author on the list, but I chose to start with one because I have the movie based on this book, and I've watched it several times.  I figured since I was familiar with the story, the book would be a quick read.

I'm going to start with the movie and say that it is a wonderful movie, certainly one of my favorites.  It has all the necessary components for a good fantasy movie; might, magic, a hero and heroine, and a wonderfully wicked villainess, and in the end Good triumphs over Evil.  The movie follows the basic story in the book, with some moderate changes until about the last third of the story.  Then it diverges quite a bit, and I have to say they did it to give the movie a proper Hollywood Happy Ending.

I enjoyed the book as well, and I had fun noting all the things that had been changed for the movie.  I'm getting better about being able to read a book, then watch the movie and enjoying the changes (to an extent) instead of feeling insulted by the producers and directors for messing up the story.

That being said though, this is one of those rare times when I actually liked the movie better than the book.  Even rarer, the reason I liked the movie better was because of the Hollywood Happy Ending.  I've only read two books so far by Neil Gaimen, Stardust being the second.  The first was Coraline which I read after seeing the movie based on that book.  Based on just these two books, I've concluded that Neil Gaimen likes to write unconventional endings.  In my opinion, they are slightly anticlimactic.  The endings are good because they are unique; not what you're expecting, but at the same time, they just aren't quite as satisfying.

There are still more books on the list by Neil Gaimen, including Neverwhere, and  American Gods, so I will withhold final judgement about his writing style until I have finished at least those two titles.  In the meantime, the next book I picked to read is Contact  by Carl Sagan, which also has a movie based on it (I'm beginning to see a trend).  Watch for the review later this month.

Social Media and ADHD

I like to think I'm a pretty with it, keep up with technology, kind of girl.  I'm fairly computer literate, I can type, send e-mails, Facebook, and of course run a blog (with some expert help from The B-Man for fancy coding).  However as I've been getting more into blogging and I've been trying to connect more with other forms of social media, I'm finding out that I'm actually really behind the times on what is the 'trending' forms of online communication.

What first brought this to my attention was the blog of one of my younger friends which has been crafted on Tumblr.  I'm not familiar with this blogging platform at all, but every blog I've viewed on that site feels very random, and unorganized, as if the blog (and possibly the blogger) has ADHD.  This isn't a necessarily a bad thing, and from the conversations I've had, it appears to be a very popular form of social media, especially with the new generation.  Personally though, I'm not sure I could get used to the layout, and the mere thought of trying to learn a new blogging platform (while keeping up this site as well of course) makes me feel tired.

Knitted Twitter Bird

The other site and program that made me realize how behind the times I am is Twitter.  Now I do have a Twitter account, and you can follow me, though mostly it's just an automatic Tweet whenever I update my blog.  I am trying to get better about using it to Tweet random thoughts, but it doesn't come easily to me.  Also I am not good at checking the few people I follow on Twitter to see what they are Tweeting, and when I do, I feel like I'm reading the middle part of a conversation and have no idea what the Tweets are referring to.  Again though, this is one that I am trying to learn and actively participate in...#learning twitter.

Of course there are many other new and upcoming social media and blogging sites, many of which I've never heard of, and some of which I've tried and didn't find to be suitable to my needs.  It will be interesting to watch the continued evolution of social media and see what new platforms and programs become the next social media giants.

The NPR's Top 100 Science-Fiction & Fantasy Books Challenge

Science-Fiction and Fantasy are by far my favorite genres of literature to read, and I used to think that I had read a majority of the best titles available.  Then this fun little list popped up on my Facebook page the other day.  My initial response was "Neat!".  I opened it up, started reading through the titles, clicking off the ones I have read.  When I got to the end I was rather dismayed to discover that I have only read 19* of the titles on the list.

Now I've decided that this list isn't entirely fair, since many of the titles shown are actually trilogies or series of books, and personally I think each individual book title should count.  For instance, Lord of the Rings should count as three books, not just one.  Also they are missing some of my very favorite books and authors,   However, I've decided to make it a personal goal to try and read every book on this list.

Some of the books I own.  There are more in storage and scattered around the house.

I have a friend who is doing something similar, though she is going to read the 1,001 books you supposedly must read before you die.  A daunting task and I admire her ambition.  I would have trouble with that not only because of the amount of time it would take, but also because I would have difficulty forcing myself to read titles that didn't interest me.

*To my friends on Facebook, I initially posted that I had read only 15, but after going through the titles again, I found a few I missed.