The Geek Gene Amplification

If you saw me walking down the street, you most likely wouldn't think I am a geek. If you were to hazard a guess as to what my profession is, you'd probably pick something like a kindergarten teacher, a nurse, or something of that ilk. There is nothing about my general appearance that screams "crazy science teacher". But I am. I, Tara, am a geek. I know it, I embrace it.

For the most part, my geekiness goes unnoticed. There is the occasional small slip-up - someone asking a simple science question and getting a ridiculously long answer, or quoting Shakespeare should a proper moment arise. And then there are the big slip-ups, which definitely don't go unnoticed. Take dance class a few months ago as an example. My dance instructor was talking about rotation, and kept making reference to "centrifugal force". I held my tongue, again and again, growing more and more frustrated every time he said it, until finally I turned to my partner and said "Centrifugal force refers to the momentarily perceived force experienced by a non-inertial mass body in a rotational system. The force he's talking about is CENTRIPETAL force." That in and of itself is a pretty big geek-out. Unfortunately the music came on just as I finished and the next words out of my mouth were "Isn't this from Star Trek?".

Now, while I geek-out quite well on my own, I can guarantee that every time I am with my friend Natalie, it is going to get worse. Like this past weekend - we were out for the evening, with her mom, and our last stop was a lounge, complete with dance floor. At some point, our conversation made it around to the Heisenberg Particle. We talked about it for a few minutes, tried to explain a few things to her mom, and then actually realized we were in a lounge on a Saturday night, discussing the Heisenberg particle. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, as we told Nat's mom. The day of Natalie's wedding, she and I were getting our nails done and were deep in conversation, about PCR and the Milwaukee Protocol. We shared this story with Nat's mom and, part way through, Natalie said "We probably should have been talking about, wait, what are girls supposed to talk about?". That pretty much sums it up.

Life Lesson: Embrace who you are. Let your geek flag fly!