On Sunday I went to a nerdfighter gathering that I had the privilege of organizing. It was the funnest thing I’ve ever been to. I got there half an hour early because my parents dropped me off and then I waited inside of the building we were meeting outside of. (When I said we were gonna meet outside, I somehow didn’t realize that I live in Winnipeg and therefore November means winter which means cold.) I had brought along my iPod as a time keeping device and my copy of Paper Towns so that my fellow nerdfighters would know where to gather. I sat for fifteen minutes with butterflies buzzing in my stomach convincing myself that no one was coming and I would be a loser and all alone all afternoon. Then I just did it went outside to wait at the designated spot. (It was still fifteen minutes before the actual gathering was to begin, but I went out just in case anyone was early.)
The earliest anyone was, was like five minutes early so I was a little chilly by that time. I was watching a little kid shoving snow off a ledge when a guy siddled up to me, well not siddled, that’s a creepy words, I guy came up beside me, looked at my book and said “Are you here for the nerdfighter gathering?” If I had been a radom person reading that book sitting there I would have felt bad for him, he almost looked athough he expected me to say no. Thankfully I grinned and said “Yup! I’m Becky, what’s your name?” He was Justin and soon after my buddy Emily (who introduced me to nerdfightaria) came up. We waited til two and then Dan and Destiny came. By ten after two we decided waiting inside would be forgivable and migrated to where I’d waited when I first arrived. By the time we got inside there were like eight of us. Then three more came. Then we all reintroduced ourselves, promptly forgot almost everybody’s names and got ready to nerdily make friends. We had no plan, I’d not known if anyone would show up and that always makes planning ahead difficult. Those of us who wanted bought hot chocolate and mini donuts and then our group sat down in one of the seating areas (a practically empty one) and we sat there for about two and half hours just chatting.
I have never met a group of people that I felt more instantly at home with. We sat down, and we were friends. Conversation started slow but as common topics were breached and common interests discovered tongues flew smoother and faster. We could make Monty Python references and not have to explain them, we could wear Pizza John shirts and have others exclaim at their awesomeness, we could admit to all out loving Doctor Who and meet with approval not eye-rolling. It was so fun. Being able to whip out my video camera and have people act as though that was a completely normal thing to do instead of hiding their faces, to look at someone’s giraffe earrings and love them because they related to the vlogbrothers, not because they were giraffes. To clean up the garbage at our table as an action of Not Forgeting To Be Awesome. To admit to vlogging and have people think that was super cool, not need a definition.
Sunday November 27, 2011 from 2-5pm was when I first really felt I was not sitting on the outside of the conversation but I was part of it, that I was a part of something bigger, a part of a community, a part of nerdfightaria.
That's just some thoughts from a nerdfighter gathering...
