Badges of Nerdom

You have read that title correctly, this post is all about the nerd badges that we all, or in this case I should say I, tend to carry around with us to promote our nerdiness. This also happens to be this week's Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth.

What exactly is a 'nerd badge' anyways? To me personally it can be anything ranging from a habit to a physical item. I'm fairly convinced that no matter what you tend to label yourself in life, be it computer geek or jock or music junkie or whatever, you will in some way sport your nerd love for that in which you obsess over. For the record, yes sports jerseys count in my book towards nerd paraphernalia.

Let's chat about my pile of nerdy items. Prior to my move into Azeroth I was a music geek. My free time was consumed by musical activities: marching band, pep band, concert band, pit orchestra (in high school), orchestra, music festivals, and I was a bass drummer in a pipe corps. I played all sorts of instruments, mostly those in the bass range. I played bass clarinet/Eb contra alto bass clarinet for concert band as well as for a few summers in the city band, played baritone sax for pit orchestra, usually played bass drum for marching band, did cello in orchestra my senior year of high school and studied double (upright) bass during college, played various percussive instruments in my percussion ensemble group and played electric bass for college pep band. Yes, my tiny little self could pretty much always be found hauling some sort of overly large instrument around. To this day my car still has a set of drum sticks tucked into the back of my driver's seat, and a set of mallets in the trunk along with a folder with bass drum music (hand transcribed by yours truly) and spare sheet music. I can't seem to open a box without finding something music related in it. The physical collection of my nerdom has outlived the years of my neglect to my once passion, and it's not something I think I'll be shaking anytime soon.

...I just looked down at my pants and realized that they're marching band sweat pants. /sigh

I do not think that our nerdiness is always a physical item though. On the first day of try-outs for college marching band I was meandering in circles, waiting for my turn to come. As I meandered, I was drumming on my belly. Typical drummer habit really. One of the guys came up to me and said "Hey! I noticed you're drumming on your stomach. Our drum instructor does that all the time too!" I of course internally rolled my eyes a bit, thinking to myself "How nerdy..." without realizing that I too was a huge nerd with huge nerd habits.

I do have a few physical tokens outside of music memorabilia (aka items I once used on a daily basis) that belts forth my epic amounts of dorkdom. My pile of keys that I tote around? Yeah, attached to my drum key is my WoW authenticator. Yes, it goes EVERYWHERE with me. There's also a mood ring that is nearly in a permanent state of brown, not quite sure what to make of that. I have yet to acquire a WoW shirt or hoodie, or really any other sort of real world physical WoW collectable item outside of a few booster packs of TCG cards, but I'm sure I'll get a few of those items in time.

Of course, my nerdiness doesn't like to stick to one genre. Many of you who follow me on Twitter, or have been in a guild with me in the past, or have any knowledge of my guild Battle of Serenity (now slightly defunct, but still epically awesome), may know that I have a mild obsession with the Firefly series and Serenity movie. Yes, I have a paladin named Kaelei (Kaylee and Kayleefrye are both taken on my realm), who happens to be an engineer/jewelcrafter. She doesn't have a firefly pet yet, but you can be assured that she will only be using that pet once they become account wide items.

Honestly, I'm just a huge nerd/geek/whatever, and I've learned to embrace this side of me as I've grown older. Once upon a time I probably would have scoffed at you and pushed you off of the couch (Inside joke - I once had a boyfriend who thought it was ludicrous that I didn't know who Boba Fett was. He proceeded to make fun of me for my lack of Star Wars knowledge - the one area of geek culture that I've never really gotten into - and he wouldn't cease his jabs. I pushed him off the damn couch for it.), but now I just say "Yeah, I'm a geek. What of it?"

So what about you, reader? Do you have some sort of nerd badge that you tote around in hopes of striking up a random conversation with a fellow geek? Or are you one of those more secretive nerdy types?