͛m o n o l o g u e ͛

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宅女 / 宅男

宅 (zhái) (from Japanese お宅 (otaku))

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女 (nǚ, "woman") /男 (nán, "man")

: nerd :

(noun) /nəːd/

: an intelectual badass :

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MEY

People seriously need to stop stereotyping Asians as nerds. Not all Asians are nerds and not all nerds are Asian. There's nothing wrong with having a passion for books, enjoying learning, and gaining more knowledge for yourself. Yes. It's not for my parents, not for my teachers, and definitely not for the sake of making myself look like a nerd and living up to the expectation of others.

Yet people always consider me as a nerd once they saw that:

A. I'm Asian

B. I'm wearing specs

C. I have a book in my hands.

Just because I have a book in my hands, doesn't mean I'm a nerd, really. Maybe I was just reading for my next exam, or maybe I have an essay that I have to write. But no, everyone thinks I'm a nerd and when they say it, it makes it sounds like a curse word. In the end, I gave up telling people that I'm a bookworm, not a nerd, and decided to make peace with the term.

When a guy is a nerd, possibly someone who looks like he just walked out of GQ magazine like Tyler Vincent, everyone thinks that's hot. But when a girl, who looks like the book version of Hermione Granger —  not the movie version because everyone agrees Emma Watson is too pretty to be Hermione, everyone scrunches their nose like just smell a pot of piss placed in front of them.

Nerds get bullied. Unless you believe the movie or novel version of a badass nerd who ended up with the quarterback jock and walked on the beach, bathing in the glow of sunset together.

Okay, maybe I'm not being fair here. Nowadays nerds don't get bullied anymore because believe it or not, the school and the community are now stood tall against the bullies. However, nerds tend to be left alone, which I'm pretty grateful for because I'm not that good at socializing with people.

I don't need thousands of followers on Twitter or fake friends who left me once things get hard. A friendly reminder: the fact that I don't even have a Twitter account doesn't change my point. I only need a few people who like me for who I really am and don't try to change me.

I found them when I went to a summer camp a few years ago and met Autumn Summers — see the pun I did there, Jessica Williams, and Norma Johnson. The three of us formed a friendship that lasts longer than I honestly thought it would be.

It's the beginning of our third year at Carlton High. Two more years to spend with my friends before my family ships me back to Taiwan to learn Mandarin. It's funny how I can fluently speak English but not really good at Mandarin. Every time someone speaks Mandarin to me, probably assuming that I'm fluent in Mandarin, I have to tell them that I need them to say the translation in English. Embarrassing, right?

I guess it is. But it's not my main problem right now. My friends and I receive a threat letter and keep getting pranks by a mysterious person we'd like to call Villain X. We have no idea who she/he is but we know, if we are not careful, we might find ourselves in deep trouble.