looking east

Since I came to Bangkok, I have found myself spending much more time on the internet. I even started to add quite a few new blogs to my daily digest which means that it takes me almost two hours a day, just to read what other people have to say. And, for once, I am not just reading the blogs, but even following the links in the posts and writing comments. Now, this might sound just normal and sane to the most of you, but it really worries me. And I start asking myself: Maybe I am not so different from the geeks and nerds?

To be honest, I have spent quite a lot of energy to distance myself from the “nerds and geeks” at the computer science department at university, on the job, at geek gatherings (though I would mostly not attend in the first place) and anywhere else where the “others” were considered as geeks. Why? Well, just because I believed what the prejudice said about them: they are boring, pale, scruffy, onesided, weird and have no social competences. And when they raise their voice it would be about gadgets, borderline software and all these other geeky topics. I could go on with this list forever, but I think you get the point here.

Being constantly surrounded by geeks meant that I really had to make an effort to be different. And I was quite successful I guess. No one ever called me a geek anyway :). I also effectively ignored all invitations for social networks, friend requests and stuff, though this has become mainstream in the meantime and I might need to reconsider my stance. I only got myself a facebook account a few weeks ago, but this was for implementing a facebook app (is that geeky?).

So here I am, still not considering myself a geek, but stuck with a master thesis topic that might transform me into one. It somehow reminds me of psychology students who study psychology to learn more about themselves. Though I haven’t yet mentioned what worries me most: I have written my first completely useless application which has been inspired by no one else but myself. It’s nothing exciting, just a little unfinished web app, but still: which other non-geek would be doing this?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 12:35 pm and is filed under academic, computing, thoughts, geeks.