Inside a Nerd's Mind

A Walk, Talk, …

“Leeeeeeeet’s gooooooooo!” Kim dashed outside in an energetic tone.

Me and the others followed Kim onto the road and we walked home.

We didn’t have any car because we travelled to the party by walking and using public transportation. It’s already past midnight, there’s rarely any taxis in sight so we decided that we should just walk home. It’s cheaper and we can spend the time talking to each other. This part of town is quiet, nice, and small that most of us practically know each other at this point. That is why we thought that we will be safe.

The clock is already past 1 AM. The moon serves as our main source of light with weak lamp posts every kilometer or so that guides us towards home. The night is dark and full of terrors and we chose to swallow down that terror and keep it behind us. We’re comfortable and happy with each other. But to eliminate the exhaustion of walking, we spent the time playing games and talking about our future.

“Hey, let’s play a game!” Kim enthusiastically suggested.

“Sure! What game?” asked Jeremy.

“Uhmm… How about… for every letter in the Alphabet, let’s think of a country!” Kim said.

“That can be fun.” Zachary replied with a grin.

“Wow, hold on there, history major. We all know you’re going to win.” I said.

Oh, come on now joy killer, this will be fun.” My mom commented.

“I’LL START!” Kim declared.

“Argentina!” She answered.

“Afghanistan.” Zachary answered.

“Ugghh.. Come on, I don’t know any A’s.” Jeremy replied. Jeremy thought hard and hard and hard. “AUSTRALIA! HAHA I GOT IT!” He celebrated.

We smiled at Jeremy’s celebration and celebrated with him too.

“Austria.” I answered. Jeremy actually helped me with that one. Their names are quite similar, don’t you think?

We looked at my mom, waiting for her to answer.

“Wow, this is going to be difficult.” I said to myself. “Even I, can’t think of any more A countries.” I added.

After a while, a grin appeared in my mom’s face. “Algeria.” She proudly stated.

“Wow.” was the only thing that I can say. We all looked towards my mom full of amazement.

“BRAZIL!” Kim answered.

“Bangladesh.” Zachary answered.

“Uhh.. Uhh.. B.. B?? B – B… B! OH OH What’s that country with the chocolate one? I ate a chocolate from there yesterday! Uhh… Uhm… Be – Bel – Bel – BELGIUM!” Jeremy answered.

“Wow. That must be some sweet and tasty chocolate for you to remember.” I chucked.

“Uhm… Brunei?” I answered.

“Bangladesh.” My mom answered.

“CANADA!” Kim answered.

“China.” Zachary answered.

“What! You both stole the easiest ones. Damn.” Jeremy said.

Zachary and Kim laughed.

“Come on, there’s still other countries that starts with C.” chuckled Zachary.

“Hmm… What’s the spicy thing? The spicy food! I forgot what it’s called. Uhhm… Ch-Chi-Chili? Is it Chili?” Jeremy stuttered.

“Close, but it’s Chile.” Zachary corrected.

“It’s only one letter! It should count!” Jeremy complained.

We all looked at each other and laughed.

“What!? Come on!” Jeremy pleaded.

“Sure.” Zachary chuckled.

“Hell yeah!” Jeremy cheered.

“DENMARK!” Kim answered.

“Dominican Republic.” Zachary grinned.

“Uggh.. Are there even more countries that starts with D??? Uggh.. Can I pass?” Jeremy asked.

“Sure. But you can only do it once.” Kim said.

“Fine then. I pass.” Jeremy stated.

“Uggh.. This is hard. I can’t actually think of a country that starts with a D.” I said. “I pass too.” I stated.

We then all looked at my mother wondering whether she would pass or answer.

“Hmm… this is actually difficult.” My mother said. “I can’t think of anything too.” She added.

She took a deep breath and stared at the stars. I knew she was really thinking hard at this point.

“How about… THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO!” My mom proudly stated.

“Whaaaaaaaaaat! Hooooooow!? That’s not fair.” Zachary was surprised by my mother’s quick wit.

We shouted and cheered because my mom took Zachary by surprise, which is not that common and actually funny to see.

We continued playing the alphabet game with a few other games actually. Zachary suggested that we could play a trivia game about history on where we would guess the famous people involved in a historical event. You know that started boring and ended badly. Jeremy suggested that we could just take turns singing parts of a song and the one who sings the wrong lyrics would lose. It was fun actually. But Jeremy would pick old songs that only he would know. Jokes on him, I also knew the songs that he chose. Songs like What’s Up by the 4 Non Blondes and Your Love by The Outfield are one of my favorites but it turns out that it’s also Jeremy’s favorites. Most of the time, we would sing head-to-head and it would end up in a draw because we would finish the song. Battling with Jeremy was fun because he was competitive, not like Zachary-competitive on where he would be demeaning and smug, but competitive on where he would pique your interest and challenge you to actually think and not just answer to answer.

We were still walking down the road, just minding our business and playing our games. I think we were actually pretty loud as we see lights turn on and turn off as we pass by. I’m glad no one yet has yelled at us for being too loud.

After a while, we didn’t know any more games to play.

“You guys are growing up already. What do you want to be in your life?” asked my mom.

“I want to become president someday.” Zachary answered.

“Why?” asked my mom.

“Noooo! Don’t ask that.” Jeremy sarcastically pleaded.

We all chuckled even including Zachary.

“This country is in ruins and I want to fix it. I don’t understand on why our current politicians can’t solve the easiest of problems or perhaps it’s just not included in their personal interests.” Zachary explained. “Nowadays, politics is just show business and not real public service. Politicians just wait for an issue to arise and show or act like they are helping when they wouldn’t even lift a finger to assist if it wouldn’t benefit them in some way. They bury their heads in the sand and wait for election. It’s all for a show and the finale is re-election.” He further explained.

“I want to break that stigma. I want to be the person that when people look up to, they’ll say ‘that’s the person that brought real change.’” Zachary added.

We were taken aback by what he said. I mean, we already know that he wants to be a politician or a president someday. But this time, his reason was different and deeper. We didn’t expect him to actually care about the public enough to devote his whole life into it. Or maybe this is just a training ground for him to be an actual politician. Perhaps this is just his audition and test whether he can manipulate people into believing him. We may never know.

“Wow! Being a politician would be difficult especially starting to be one. How do you hope to achieve it?” My mom queried.

“Well… Uh… I have to build my name first in the community. And… Uh… I can start in school on where I can become a school’s student officer. Then… uh… I can do the same thing in college which would surely improve my chances at the local level… Uhh… Then I can do some philanthropic deeds like community service… Then maybe I can run for a lower city office like maybe a city council… Then I can for vice mayor and then mayor when the time comes. Then I’ll just go up my way to Governor, to the House of Representatives, to the Senate, and to the Presidential Office. If I get lucky, I can skip the Legislative branch and go right straight to the Executive branch.” Ethan explained thoroughly.

“Wow, you quite have it all planned now, don’t you?” My mom responded.

“Well, it’s only a plan. I still have to do it and executing it is the difficult part.” Zachary replied.

My mom nodded and turned to Kim. “How about you, Kim?” She asked.

“I want to be a biologist someday.” Kim enthusiastically replied.

“A biologist? Hmm... That’s interesting. Why?” My mom curiously asked.

“I like science. I like studying everything around me. The what, the why, and the how’s. It’s just fascinating and interesting to know.” Kim replied.

“But a biologist only studies living things, don’t they?” My mom clarified.

“Yeah! I like studying life. Every thing about life is just amazing; their processes that makes them adapt to survive, their reproduction to make their species multiply. Every thing about them is for their own survival. I like to study the complexities of the world, what makes the planets revolve, what makes the universe expands, and what makes life keep on living.” revealed Kim.

“That’s… so… inspirational, Kim.” My almost teary-eyed mom said. “I’m glad we will still have people in the future that has so much passion.” My mom added.

My mom was pleased with Kim’s answer and looked at Jeremy next. “How about you Jeremy, what do you want to be when you grow up?” asked my mom.

“Uhh… I actually don’t know what I want to be. I still don’t even know what program I want to take in college. I’m still confused and thinking about it.” stammered Jeremy.

“Oh, that’s okay Jeremy. When I was your age, I still don’t know what I want to do in my life. It just hit me in the head when I was approaching college.” My mom remarked. “Life may be short but you’re still young, you still have a lot of things to experience and have a lot of time to do.” My mom reassured.

We all nodded at what my mother said. But afterwards, she looked at me. At that point, I know what she was going to ask. We have only discussed briefly on what I want as a career and what program I want to take in college.

“How about you, Ethan? Have you shared to your friends what you want in the future?” My mom asked.

“Uhh… Not specifically. But, they know that I want something related to computers.” I commented.

“So, what do you specifically want?” Zachary asked.

“Yeah Ethan, what do you want?” Kim asked too.

“Uhh… I think – I think – I think I want to take either… IT or Computer Science.” I stuttered.

“Oooh… fancy words… cool choice. What’s the difference though?” Jeremy wondered.

“Uhh… I think… the difference is… Uhm… I’m not sure… but I think that IT people maintains the hardware and software that was made by the other fields… Uh… while Computer Scientists focuses on the thinking of the computer or the software itself… Computer Engineers… focuses on the hardware.” I stuttered.

We were reaching that dark part of town. I hope nothing bad happens.