my geekiness, let me show you it

Akabeko‘s done it again, providing yet another great Blog Azeroth Shared Topic idea:

How do you express your geekery? Do you own obvious paraphernalia like a Horde-symbol bumper sticker, in-joke tshirts like the dps/ups pun, or less obviously related items like a gift from a guildie? Rather than physical indicators, do you mix nerd lingo into your everyday speech or talk/post about geekdom in non-nerd spaces? How do you advertise your nerd tendencies? Does it help you to attract new nerd friends?

Back in the day when Harry Potter was my major fandom, I was not shy about expressing it. Come to think of it, I’m still not shy about my love for JK Rowling’s world.

I have one of the black T-shirts from Warner Bros that says “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good” on the front and “Mischief Managed” on the back. I have another T-shirt with a custom Quidditch design that was made for a fan party I attended in 2004 that I still wear regularly. I went to midnight release parties for Books 6 and 7 in costume. I assessed new people I met in social situations by asking first, what they thought of Harry Potter in general, and second, whether they thought Hermione should end up with Harry or Ron (hint: “harmony”, in certain contexts, still makes me LOL). I had bumper stickers from a couple of my favorite HP fan sites on my car. I have a wand I bought at a Ren Faire, the Time Turner replica from Noble, a pint jar full of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans (for display only!), and the Latin translation of Book 1 (no, I haven’t actually read it).

I made Hogwarts House scarves.

The body of the scarves is a knitted K1,P1 ribbing, I charted the letters myself, and the edgings are two crochet rows of my grandmother’s afghan stitch.

As a TA, I liked to give my students a fake quiz on the first day of class so that I’d have something to give back to them at the next class, to help me learn their names. The questions on my quiz were Snape’s three questions to Harry at his first Potions class (Philosopher’s Stone, p 137-138 in the Scholastic edition), and I noted at the bottom of the page that I’d stolen the questions from Snape. I’ll probably print up some new copies of that quiz to bring to my first Chem 112 lab classes next week.

When I was doing undergraduate research, I drew Snape on my fume hood.

No, really.

I drew a more elaborate mural on the fume hood I used as a graduate student:

and with paper behind it, to improve the contrast for the photo…

Left to Right: Telemain, Max & Valerie from “The Princess Bride”, Snape, Harry & Hermione & Ron, Morwen

My undergrad advisor was amused, but my graduate advisor was not.

Speaking of fume hoods, another of my favorite T-shirts is the one I picked up from an American Chemical Society meeting that says “Experiment With A Chemist” on it. I have another T-shirt with the periodic table showing the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spin properties of each element, which I got when I went to the Experimental NMR Conference one year. I have a few other chemistry shirts from undergrad chemistry club. I never managed to get the physics club T-shirt that had on it “And God said: [Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism] And there was Light.”, but I have many times wished that I did. I always tried to wear one of my chemistry shirts on the days when I was in lab with my students.

I’ve been more subtle about my World of Warcraft geekiness. I try not to talk about WoW on my LiveJournal or my Facebook, because I know that potential employers will probably find those places — as far as I know, there are only two people in the whole world with my real first name, which makes me ridiculously easy to Google-stalk. And both BTH’s parents and my parents disapprove of how much time we spend playing the game 😦

Still, a few years ago, I bought BTH and myself matching Dalaran University T-shirts from J!NX as an anniversary present. I talked BTH into getting me the Windrider Cub, and then I bought the Gryphon Hatchling “for him” — but because he is FOR THE HORDE, of course he wasn’t interested in the in-game pet and I got it anyway 😛 They sit on top of my art desk in the living room, and if we had people over more often, I’m sure I’d get questions about them. I like to doodle during church — many of the pictures in my Gallery were done on Sunday — and sometimes the people sitting next to me ask me about what I’m drawing. I usually answer that I’m drawing characters from a computer game that I play, but I don’t specify that the game is WoW very often.

Even though I don’t really advertise my WoW-geekery and can’t necessarily say that it’s gained me any new nerd friends “IRL”, it has given me a funny story or two.

After BTH and I got married and “graduated” from the Singles Ward, I was called to be a leader in the Young Women’s program in our new ward. One evening, I was at a mid-week activity that was combined, with both the Young Women and the Young Men. As I was roaming around watching how my girls were doing, I passed by the older brother of one of my girls, talking to his friends, and something in their conversation caught my ear. I slowed down so I could listen. They were talking about Death Knight DPS, and at one point the boy was trying to remember the name of the ability that spreads diseases around. “Pestilence,” I said. “Yeah, that’s it!”, the boy said, and the three of them continued their conversation for a few seconds — and then they all looked at me with a supremely wierded OUT! expression on their faces and fell silent until I’d moved on.
Later, that same boy started seeking BTH and I out at church to talk to us about WoW and raiding and epix and suchlike, and I was glad that we could be adults that he could talk to about the game as fellow fans.