I’ve been interning at the patent office this summer, back in the land of geeks and nerds. After spending the last few years in law school surrounded by liberal arts people (and ditto for the time working in Vietnam and my stint in the retail industry), it’s kind of weird to be surrounded by geeks again. Geek is a separate culture, and I can feel my brain switching over into geek mode in a way not all that dissimilar to how I feel it switch into a different mode when I’m traveling in another culture. In another month I’ll be back in the liberal arts world again, and it will be time to switch my brain into that mode again.
I can speak geek and have people understand me, which is kind of refreshing when the other part of my life involves checking myself because I know that most people don’t have a STEM background. It’s nice to not be the biggest geek in the room most of the time.