> Interesting you should say that, as one of the groups of friends I hang out with (and the ones I feel like I most belong to) called their website the "Normal Ones." (Yes, they are mostly nerds.) Of course referring to themselves as normal. But hey, normal is relative, right?

Danggit, you gave away our little secret (yeah, I'm part of the 'normal ones', although we grew out of that pretty quickly...and what about being a "homeyg", huh?) I ask indignantly: whatever is wrong with being a nerd? Quite frankly, I truly feel better being out of the mainstream and in the little nerdly group that it is. I've tried hanging out with people considered "normal teenagers" by the rest of the world, and I have nothing in common with them. We're the same age, go to the same school, and the similarities end there. They sit there gossiping and talking about makeup, boyfriends, dumb teachers, how they're going to cheat on the next math test...(if they're girls) and then if they're boys it's pretty much the same thing, only replace the makeup with sports and boyfriends with girlfriends, plus assorted perverted obsessions with Britney Spears. Now of course we do gossip a bit but...we talk about things like politics, the environment, "does God exist?" life after death, the concept of infinity...that sort of thing. And then people just stare at us and think we're a bunch of nerdy freaks because we do what we enjoy doing! Now is there anything wrong with that? Like for a couple of weeks this one group of kids insisted on absolutely tormenting us during lunch. They threw carrots and tomatoes at us, stole our backpacks, called us rude names, cussed at us...then when we finally complained they claimed we started it. We sometimes throw food at EACH OTHER, but not at others who don't understand it's all a big joke and there are no serious feelings against each other.

Lesi "just venting a bit!" Sputnik

"Be nice to the nerds in your life...they'll be the ones handing you your paycheck."