Specialized Nerd

Almost on my way home today I remembered that I had to pick up my Geology Club bar crawl T-Shirt from my friend Dan who is Vice-President of the club. ;)
Upon reciept of said T-shirt, I took the time to read it. No joke it says:
"We're cumingtonite to poikioblast your cleavage"
Equally classy, the back says, "We'll be subducting all night long!"
Obviously I start cracking up. Whoever came up with these T-shirts was pure genius.

And here's where the head scratching begins. In order to understand how funny this saying really is, you'd have to know that the word cumingtonite is actually a metamorphic silicate mineral... AKA a mineral made under intense heat and pressure. Poikioblast is a mineral with bits of other, older rock bits inside of it. It's a product of deformation. And cleavage... well that's where two sides of a crystal meet. Hard not to figure that one out eh?

Among others... here are my favorite geology puns.
"Geology Rocks"
"Schist Happens"
"Gneiss Cleavage"
"Hot igneous body"
"Geologists make the bedrock"
"Subduction leads to orogeny"

The beauty of being in the "know" is that you can appreciate these little nuances.

Not only do these nerdy little jokes make you feel at home, but it defines people who understand the essence of who you are in your working world.

If you don't believe me, here's some examples from other places.

Teachers talking about "No Child Left Untested"
Engineers celebrating Pi day.
Microbiologists saying "Titer this!"
Nurse pun: Nurses are I.V. leaguers.

Just to let you all know... everyone does it.

Face it: Everyone is a nerd in some way or another. The trick is embracing your nerdiness and loving yourself even more for it!

Doesn't that just rock?