The Nerd Test

There was a Nerd among us, a brilliant young man *
Who knew his math as well as any student can.
In build he was somewhat scrawny and rather lean;
Neither tall nor short, but somewhere in between.
His nose was large and crooked, his voice nasal and loud;
Of his problem with acne he was surely not proud.
His glasses were wide-rimmed and heavy and thick,
And in his braces cafeteria food often did stick.
He was dressed in sweatpants and sneakers covered with dirt,
And “I Love Math” was proudly displayed on his shirt.
His shoulders and spine had begun to unstraighten,
For with textbooks his backpack was heavily laden,
And his initials were stitched in white thread
On the top of the backpack, which was otherwise red.
He was clumsy and weak, and most sports he did hate,
But he ran to his classes and never was late.
He read books on calculus and trigonometry;
And did mental arithmetic instantaneously:
Even very large numbers he could add and multiply.
He had memorized one thousand digits of pi. **
He knew many proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem,
And in national competitions everyone did fear him,
For in the entire country he was one of the best.
He was sad when he got a ninety-nine on a test.
The time on his watch was always perfectly exact,
And in his six honors classes he never lacked
The adoration of his teachers, for he always raised his hand
To show that the material he did understand.
He always laughed at the bad jokes they did make,
And corrected them whenever they made a mistake.
His grades were all ‘A’s; he had perfect SATs;
He could get into Harvard or MIT with ease.
But this behavior annoyed all of his peers,
And made him the target of jokes, jests, and jeers.
By no girlfriend had he ever been loved,
And into his locker he often was shoved.
He sat alone at lunches, spending his time
Studying math and playing games on his TI-89.

Liz “Riz/e” Marcil, December 19, 2002

* Note for females: make the appropriate changes in gender.
** You don’t need to have memorized 1000 digits to answer yes here, as long the number you’ve actually memorized is large enough to be considered insane. 100 or more will be sufficient.