Being a nerd

Photo compliments of HEXrpg.com

Lets face it, I am a nerd. I like a lot of things that are most likely considered "uncool." I am 23 years old and still absolutely love the Harry Potter series. I have read all seven books, several of them up to three or four times. I have even read the first book in Spanish. I have seen all of the movies. And when I was in high school I began playing on a Harry Potter Role Playing website called HEX. That stands for "Hogwarts Extreme."

A few years later, in my junior year of high school when I became a part of newspaper staff I didn't have a lot of time on the internet. So I gave a lot of the items I had earned on the website away to other users and went inactive. That inactivity lasted for about five years, until last week.

Last week I didn't even remember my password. I had to email the website staff in order to retrieve it because I no longer had access to the email address I had used to sign up. But within a day I had my password and was back online.

Many things had changed within those five years, but many things stayed the same. I won't go into a lot of that, I will simply describe what it is all about. First and foremost, it is a Harry Potter website dedicated to role playing. Some features are very similar to an old website called Neopets. Users can create their own stores, a club, and even a dormitory. They can play games, make friends, and collect items. The areas and forums on HEX are mostly named after places from the Harry Potter series. There are common rooms, the great hall, the quidditch pitch and many other locations.

One forum is dedicated to all RPGs. And for those who still don't know what RPG means, that is "Role Playing Games." Users pretend to be in the fantasy world and they make up their own plots. It is often in a story-like format. I was amazed at how quickly I picked back up after five years with no role playing.

Another common activity is attending classes. Every "term" new professors are selected to teach classes at Hogwarts. Users buy the textbooks and required items and then do homework based on an RP the professor posts. The points they get from that homework goes toward winning the house cup.

Then there are contests. And games. And I am not going to say much more. If it sounds interesting to you, check it out at www.hexrpg.com. As for me, I am going to go be a nerd some more.