The Meeting of the Minds...or Nerds!

I left the house pre-7:00 am this fine, unassuming Saturday morning.  I arrived at Purdue University-Calumet about an hour later.  The quest was to conquer the Biochemistry GRE.  I had only taken a few confident strides toward my destination, inhaling a few deep breaths of crisp autumn morning air, when I saw them.  At this point there were only two, but more awaited inside and the others were yet to arrive.  I took some even deeper breaths and even more confident strides and began to follow the duo of NEUTRALS to room 107.
Understand I am attempting this story with limited exaggeration, but to give you an idea, I walked in with two lads that walked only on the balls of their feet, bent too far forward at the waist, wearing neutral tones (of the sweatpant variety), carrying approximately EIGHT freshly sharpened pencils (POINTING OUT!!), and frantically reading/studying some scribbled on papers.  When we arrived at room 107 I met MORE of them!  In fact I had no idea that sweatpants came in this many different shades of brown, grey, and black.  There I was in my bright red coat, light blue scarf, and yellow shoes, with my notes left in the car and my (what I thought was excessive) three pencils safely stowed away in my purse.  I thought my age would be my defining feature, wrong answer #1.
As I stood waiting with the masses listening to things about the Bohr theory/model/something, jokes about  the door really being open or closed or both (I don't know, I didn't get it), I saw a boy walk in with his parents...PARENTS!!  Who needs a parental escort for the GRE?  Really, I thought hopping, gray sweatpanted, pencil javelins were bad, but bringing your parents...no, that is WAY WORSE!!
After delaying the start of the test by a half hour they finally separated us into our different subject groups.  Physics was first and there were A LOT of them, and once they all found each other they started in on all the jokes again...I still didn't get a single one of them.  It just so turned out that there were only two us taking the Biochemistry exam, me and this polish accented guy who was wearing a HUGE black, of course, puffy jacket.  He was friendly, or so I thought, but had no concept of personal space.  For he started talking to me right away and standing so close to me that I felt as though I was being swallowed whole by all of the puff of his coat.  It was bad enough that the thought crossed my mind that he may be trying to suffocate his only competition before the exam even started.  I soon excused myself to use the restroom...and BREATH!
After my quick thinking survival tactics, I came back and the exam was about to begin.  At this point the results are up in the air.  I will say that it went way better than the practice exam, or at least it felt like it.
As I left the room, I ended up with a couple of physics people.  One of them was the only other fashion forward soul in the room, a boy wearing a navy blue knit sweater with three white CATS on the front, surrounded by geometric floral something or others. (NOT A JOKE)  As we found our way back to the great outdoors, he turned to me and said, "So that's what the sun looks like! I could calculate its maxium wavelength for you but I couldn't tell you what it looked like." My response, "Ha, that one I got!"
If  there is anything to be gleaned from NerdFest 2011, it is that the world of academia needs some cross-curricular training in fashion and socially acceptable jokes!