Nerd's Eye View

Hi all,

I took a look on the blog website of Pam Mandel (I think that is her real name) called the Nerd Eye View Blog. (http://www.nerdseyeview.com/blog/?p=297)
Pam Mandel, a freelance technical writer, was born in Santa Monica, California and now lives both in Seattle, America and in Aigen, Austria.
The reason why she lives here in there is because she is married to an Austrian man. Looking around her blog I found out that she loves to travel because she even has her own travel blog (http://www.travelblogs.com/pam/index.htm)

When I first heard the name of the blog I was a little bit confused because I always thought that a nerd is what we call in Austria "Streber" or "Schwachkopf", a classmate or teenager that wears huge glasses, has a lot of pimples, never meets friends because he or she has to study for school and is the teacher's pet. The reason why I got confused is because Pam writes that the word has changed it's connotation. Therefore, I decided to look up the word in varies online dictionaries and they all disagreed with her statement. It is still a swearword.
She also mentions that she used to be called a nerd. Maybe she is still one and that is why she tries to beautify the word or I just misunderstood her blog name! Please let me know if I am wrong! Thank you! ;)

However, what I really like about her blog is that she has a lot of categories and I especially liked the one about Austria. I think that it is very fascinating to read about my own culture from an expat's view. One entry called "If there are cockroaches, it is Christmas!" describes the traditional things Austrian people (living in rural areas) do during Christmas time.
I think that this blog entry is definitely worth reading even for Austrians (like me) because I have never heard the word "Strohschabe" before and her explanation of the meaning is quite funny. So check it out: http://www.nerdseyeview.com/blog/?p=139

Here entry about the Austrian Way made me smirk because when she writes about the way we handle our waste separation I remember the conversation I had with two German girls who studied in Austria. The first thing that came into their mind when we talked about Austria was that they could never figure out how to sort the rubbish. I think that it is very funny that little things like which garbage can is the right one for plastic are recognised and talked about by foreigners.

I am definitely looking forward to reading more of her blog entries. They are funny and thought-provoking.

See you,
Julia