Hello, my students!

I was so busy responding to your Roll Calls that it completely slipped my mind to post my own. Very rude of me, not properly introducing myself. すみません。

As most of you know, I started this guild as a way of forcing myself to keep up my Japanese basics, and I've genuinely enjoyed running it. Other places you might find me on Gaia include the Life Issues forum, because I'm nosy, and the Writer's forum, because I love grammar. A lot. Even though I just typed a sentence with no subject.

Well... I'm an Acadian, born in the Canadian Maritimes, although I don't speak French very well. I'm currently living in Western Canada, but I'm dying to get back home. I enjoy all of the things that French-Canadian stereotypes enjoy, including cheese, meat pie, cussing and fiddle music. Sadly, at the time of writing, I do not own a pet moose. Ironically, I actually started studying Japanese in high school because my only other option was French. I'm glad I did, because speaking Japanese is a valuable skill in the tech industry, and I genuinely enjoy learning it.

Since my life revolves around my education, I might as well ramble about that for a bit. I'm a university student at a top Canadian university, completing two degrees at once - A Specialized degree in Computer Science, and a First-Class Honors Degree in Psychology. I take a full course load year-round, and I'm almost certain that my adviser thinks I'm crazy. On a related note, I haven't really slept in years. My area of focus is Artificial Linguistics; in other words, I'm interested in teaching computers to break down and produce convincing human language. I'm hoping to go to the USA for a Master's degree in Cognitive Science someday.

As you might have guessed, I'm pretty good with computers... I've got a decent grip on Perl, Python, Java, C and VB, so if you're into that kind of thing... hit me up and we'll talk. I'm also pretty good with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash, so we can talk about that too. When term ends, I'm hoping to start making a Flash game of some sort... maybe a simple RPG? We'll see.

Ummm.... Music! I play music! I've been play the guitar for 6 years now. I taught private guitar lessons all through high school, and I assistant-taught a guitar course at my school in senior year. I also play the alto saxophone and the piano. I've been involved with a lot of musical ensembles over the years, including a year performing with STOMP, but right now I just play with my local community band.

Oh, I also do Shotokan karate, which is a very traditional form of the martial art. I'm not half-bad at it - I was the Provincial Champion of my age category in 2008 - but alas, I'm a tiny person, and had to quit when a large, overzealous opponent injured my spine, hip and ankle. I'm really hoping I'll be able to fight again one day. If any of you out there are interested in martial arts... again, let's talk.

Well, that's about as much as there is to me. I'm not a very exciting person, but I try! If you actually read this entire thing and you're still not finished stalking me, I highly encourage you to check out my blog (link in my signature).

Now that you know so much about me, I hope to get to know all of you as well!

-- Starry Starry Fright

Oh, and I own the cutest puppy in the world. For serious.

http://tinyurl.com/3ncfaor