Meet Epbot reader Katherine H.:
Katherine is a proud geek girl college student who's just a *little* Star Wars crazy. (Note awesome Boba Fett t-shirt & Droid phone.) In fact, this is Katherine's college backpack:
One day, Katherine found the following in her campus newspaper, filed with all the other anonymous messages students leave for each other:
D'awwww.Katherine was/is engaged, so she never responded to the message. However, if that doesn't encourage you geek girls out there to let your geek flag fly with pride, I'm not sure what will.
(Oh, and Katie? Hang on to that water bottle! You may need it in college.)
Next, meet the top three winners of Google's inaugural Science Fair:
Yep, Lauren Hodge, Naomi Shah, and Shree Bose beat out over 10,000 applicants from 90 different countries to snag those snazzy LEGO awards. Rock on, ladies! Who says science is for boys?(No, really. Who says that??)
(And thanks to Betsy H. for the link!)
And finally, everyone who followed geek girl Cyril's Tumblr blog knew her dream was to someday play a princess at the Disney theme parks. So when a nasty troll named "anonymous" posted a public message saying Cyril would never be pretty enough, an artist named Alice (who didn't know Cyril personally) decided to show her support by painting Cyril as Rapunzel:
Not only is it a gorgeous painting, Alice's efforts really show what a beautiful thing online community can be. Kudos, all of you. (Well, except "Anonymous," of course.)Have any feel-good geek girl news to share? Then share in the comments, or e-mail me!
[UPDATE: Yikes! Sorry about the link mix-up for Cyril's blog, guys - it appears the first link I had was hacked to go to an anti-Harry Potter site. Thanks to the commenter who gave me a revised address; it should all be fine now. (phew!)]
While as a geek girl, I'm thrilled that girls are being honored in science fairs for their hard work, I'd like to point out that all 15 young people who went to the Finals for the Google Science Fair are amazing and deserved attention.
ReplyDeleteI know one of the young men who competed and made it to the finals. He is an amazing person!
Yeah to all the young folks who compete in Science Fairs and to all 15 finalists of the international Google Science Fair (who are incredible achievers).
There appears to be an error in the Tumblr you linked to. Rather than this:
ReplyDeletehttp://tanglicious.tumblr.com/
It seems you want this:
http://dreamparticles.tumblr.com/
There is now a roaring fire in the background of all your posts. Awesome!
ReplyDeleteThat is sooo cool! He'll probably never read it, but way to go jedi-newspaper-man. I realize he didn't get the girl, but it'll make any geek girl melt to see that he had the courage to write it anyway.
ReplyDeleteGeek girls unite! Katherine's story bears an awesome parallel with one of my own. I'm in college, and I wear a Buzz Lightyear Backpack with expandable wings around campus. I get quite a few comments on it almost every single day. One day, after riding the bus to work (sporting my backpack, wings extended of course!) I found a note on my car. Apparently, one of the guys on the bus loved my backpack and wanted to talk to me. We've struck up a great friendship all in the name of "To Infinity and Beyond!"
ReplyDeleteI had a bit of a geeky girl moment last night on a date, my first in a year. I was wearing a Harry Potter t-shirt and had my Harry Potter backpack and I was kind of embarrassed about it, but my date said he liked Harry Potter. I said not as much as I did, especially since I have a Harry Potter tattoo. He said he wanted to see it, and when I showed him my Deathly Hallows on my ankle. He said "Oh you have collected them all! The wand, the stone, and the cloak."
ReplyDeleteOur date got much more comfortable and we clicked really well after that!
Jen, I don't comment often, but I read everything through my RSS app. I enjoy the Cakewrecks blog, but I *LOVE* the EPBOT blog. It's interesting, sure, but it's more than that: you do good things here. You stand up for the geek girls and you rally us so that we have the opportunity to do the same. I love that. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI was lucky to have a few geeky friends when I was the age these girls are. It wasn't seen as the weirdest thing around; there were people who got worse pickings on. But I love that you bring this stuff to our attention and let us join in the chorus of people encouraging them. That's important for them, but it's important for us, too. Thank you.
the prizes look like the lego prizes awarded to the lego league winners. a couple years ago my son was in lego league and the winners were a group of girls(there were three at the final contest there may have been more in the group) and they won a trip to the nationals and received trophys made out of legos!! if you don't know what lego league is it is sponsered by lego (of course) and is for age 9 and up and they design and program a robot made of legos to run an obstacle course. my daughter is soooo excited that she is finally old enough to participate this year De.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is in 2nd grade and LOVES Pokemon. In Kindergarten she chose a Pokemon backpack. We had long talks about how some people might say that Pokemon was just for boys, but that she could tell them that "Girls can like Pokemon too!"
ReplyDeleteLast year she chose a pink Hello Kitty backpack for school (which was just to fit in, even though I had tried to get her to get something else). She met another little girl in her class who LOVES Star Wars. They have become best friends and this year Alexandra has picked a Pokemon backpack again! I'm so glad she has found this little friend and that together they help each other "brave the bullies"!
As someone who grew up a bit on the odd side I love the geek girl posts
ReplyDeleteAwwwww Cyril's lovely
I cant believe someone would say she isnt pretty enough
ugh! some people just have to be mean
My daughter is going off to college this fall in the wilds of Minnesota. She will be taking her Pokemon backpack and her HALO hoodies. Yeah, she's a gamer.
ReplyDeleteYour post made my day, especially the lovely drawing and the message from Hans.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Today's post made me all kinds of happy and validated today. Jen, you should write "Chicken Soup for the Hopelessly and Awesomely Geeky Soul."
ReplyDeleteThanks for the smile and the warm fuzzies!
GEEK GIRLS ROCK!!!! I know because I am one. No matter the manner of geekery, everyone should let their geek colors fly!
ReplyDeleteAs for "who says that"? Yeah.
ReplyDeleteMy chemistry teacher in high school said that. He said that after X years of teaching chemistry, he had never given a girl an A. Girls shouldn't be in science, girls should be in home ec.
So of course I had to get an A. I busted my tail. Had to fight for every single grade. I'd take my test up to his desk along with a male classmate's and show him that our answers were the same and demand that I get the same credit. He had a habit of marking mine wrong when the answers were correct. It was horrid.
But by golly I got my A!!!
Jen, are you are going to GeekGirlCon in Seattle this October? http://www.geekgirlcon.com/
ReplyDeleteMy daughter and I are super excited (and I'm so proud she's geek like me :D ).
If you hadn't heard of it I thought you needed to know!
Yesterday I ran across a book at Amazon ... who knew that H.G. Wells came up with the idea for miniatures wargaming? What I loved, though, was the subtitle: "Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books." by H.G. Wells.
ReplyDelete-jklGoDuke
Also, that girl IS so pretty. And, more importantly, smart.
ReplyDeleteEngaged or not, I'd totally have to meet the guy who asked to be my Han Solo. Of course, I also have dreams about finding an age reversal serum so Harrison Ford and I can go on at least one, if not many, hot steamy dates. :)
ReplyDeleteI have that same R2 phone :) I'm actually really bummed I can't get the matching new Xbox just released at SDCC, because we already have a boring black one. I really want to paint ours now though, although hubbs might not be cool with me applying liquid of any kind to his beloved Xbox ;)
ReplyDeleteRock on Geek Girls! The Force is with us all!
WV: aridiesi.... sounds like a cool Star Wars chick name to me :)
Cyril is so pretty! She already IS a Disney princess, imho.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I just don't play on the internets enough, but it cracks me up that there even *is* an "ant-Harry Potter" website. Which just proves that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. Good times.
ReplyDelete:D This post made me super happy. Glad I could make it into your blog!
ReplyDeleteCool side note: Alice co-designed this AWESOME Harry Potter shirt over at Threadless. I have this shirt, I love it, and have worn it every time I have seen Harry Potter 7.2 so far.
ReplyDeleteHooray for geeky girls!
I am a geek girl and crazy proud of it. :0D I wore my "TARDIS Express" T-shirt when I went out to eat with my sister and I had two people tell me how awesome it was. :0D Another time I had another girl tell me she loved it...sadly she was surrounded by workmates and seemed slightly embarassed to have said anything. :0( I also had a guy ask me to marry him (not seriously) after finding out I loved Doctor Who, Star Trek AND "Murder by Death". I also had some guys in school tell me I couldn't be a ST fan because I'm a girl. I just stared them down and didn't let it bother me.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for Epbot!
Ducky, you're my hero.
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought I was enough of a Star Wars geek to set my Droid's ringtones to Star Wars sounds...but an R2 Droid? Amazing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm not at all surprised that all of the science fair winners are girls. :)
Nerd girls can do ANYTHING! :D
It's so nice to know I'm not the only one who bought the R2-D2 phone!
ReplyDeleteI even have a picture of my daughter using it, while she is dressed as Darth Vader. Star Wars rules!
Thank you for including me in the Geek Girl category! I'm very honoured <3
ReplyDeleteI just shake my head at all this. I'm a 55 year old grandma and a geek through and through. I've been a geek all my life and thinking back to high school, back in the days of yore, I don't remember ever being picked on for not being a girly girl. My classmates all got along pretty well, and except for a little good-natured ribbing now and then were very respectful of each other. When I worked as a software developer, same thing. The men I worked with were respectful, but we also had fun. There was none of this awful, disrespectful "brogrammer" culture that seems to be everywhere now. What the heck happened?? Who taught their sons to act like that?
ReplyDeleteI love this picture! I have the same R2D2 phone :) My co-workers are always quick to share any Star Wars goodies with me (like my manager who sent me the link to the R2D2 Xbox and C3P0 Controller)... :) Go Geeky Girls!
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