Bare Necessities (Lucas' Introduction)

"Hola, muchachos". I answer to the name Lucas, I'm 20 years old and I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
 You know that large country close to Chile, the one with the miners trapped. I'm currently studying
Medicine at the University of Buenos Aires but I'm thinking of changing to Biology (to specialize myself
in Biotechnoly). I love science in general (biology and chemistry in particular). So i knew that
i needed to study something related with living creatures and i always found human anatomy amazing, i remember going to the morgue of the hospital with my uncle (who is a physician) and watching each organ, It was awesome. My problem is that i'm a person who is always interested in EVERYTHING, I think that every career is amazing; luckily, some more than others.
Taking up the issue, I've been reading a lot about bio-tech advances lately and I'm too excited about it.
Also I checked the Biology's program and It's moresuitable for my plans, not because it's easier, because
it's better organized... medicine has a lot of burocratic issue (annual courses, correlativities between
them) and I really want to start working this year, I need to finance some travel plans. On the other hand,
I'm going to miss the anatomy class and touching corpses (Yeah, Creepy guy FTW!)

Things that i like... I truly deeply love traveling. Last summer(Your winter, yeah! I'm talking to you, north hemisphere people),
 I was in the USA (East coast: NYC, Miami,Orlando, Philadelphia and Boston) and the summer before I did a student exchange
in France, after that i backpack through a part of Europe (England, Italy, Holland, Spain, Germany). Well, I don't know why I'm
telling you this, but the point is that i love the freedom and the excitation of knowing new places. My plan for next year is
traveling to either Australia or Canada. And also, i love learning languages.

Hobbies... well, I like to read a lot. I haven't read a John Green's book yet (I know I'm a failure as a nerdfighter, they aren't
published in my country but I ordered Papertowns and TFiOS on Amazon, so I'm going to read those soon). My favourite authors are
Douglas Adams, Jane Austen, Herman Melville, José Saramago, John Steinbeck, Osvaldo Soriano... It's so difficult to choose favourite things...
I'm also a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes stories and Arthurian Mitology (The Vulgate Cycle is an incredible way to see the medieval way of thinking)
And also I have a great affection for Harry Potter because I grew up reading those books, but i'm not into the fan circuit (on the other hand, one
of the "few" things i buy at USA was an replica of Sirius Black's Wound, F-YEAH!).
I love watching movies too, favourite directors... It's probably a tie between Wong Kar-wai, John Ford and Takeshi Kitano. I'm also particulary interested in animation films and classic horror movies.
Favourites Bands: If I have too choose a few... Belle and Sebastian, Jamie T, Streetlight Manifesto, The Rural Alberta Advantage, 65daysofstatic and Rancid.
Shows i like/d: Grey's Anatomy, Misfits, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Star Trek (every series, Benjamin Sisko fan), American Horror Story, Gilmore Girls, Everwood,
The Office and probably a few more i can't remember in this particular moment.
Also I enjoy reading graphic novels (and sometimes comic books but when they have a recopilatory volume), Football (yeah, FOOTBALL, not soccer:P)and time
to time playing some magic the gathering with my highschool friends.


Things i dislike: I can't remember anything i truly dislike in this moment... I don't know what's happening to me right now... I'm in carebear mode?!


And probably that's all i can write for now.

Best Wishes!

Lucas

PS: It's my first post in any blog and my english vocabulary is pretty lame. So let me know if you notice any mistake.
PS2: I noticed that I didn't speak a lot about my academic situation but it's because I'm going through a confusing situation, I promise more information in the future.

PS3: I'm too lazy to take a photo of myself in this moment, next time it will be one. So I put a picture of my favourite animated character, yes i'm that childish... so what.

Millie says Hello.

Hello everybody! I'm Millie and I'm a 19-year old Psychology student from Malaysia. I just started my second year at HELP University. The reason I got into Psychology was merely cause it seemed like a darn interesting thing to study and I just couldn't see myself studying anything else. I figured if I could sit in a shopping mall watching people and wondering about them, I could sit in a lecture hall and learn about them for real. I also did like the idea of it being a social science in the sense that there's a somewhat methodological approach to it, but there's an element of never really knowing what's going on. It can get quite frustrating when everything is in the grey area, but it's fascinating all the same.

What am I going to do after? Well right now I am merely drifting about aimlessly with a really vague goal of continuing on to getting my Masters and becoming a practicing Clinical Psychologist. At times I choose this goal just because it seems one of the harder things to do and I want to be motivated to go above and beyond to get there. At the same time, I have an inkling that I will be staying in the academics line and might just end up as a lecturer. But we'll see.

I'm one of those people that really enjoys learning things, but never really puts a lot of effort into it. If I had to really strive to learn things I would actually not like it very much so it all works out. Admittedly, I am blessed with the ability to catch things at an above average rate. I'm also the kind of person who people stare at for acting really childish and weirdly. But at the same time, I am also the person people commonly call out to be the most "adult-like". I do quite enjoy having dual roles to play in my life.

What do I like? Books and music are the two top things that come to mind. I love reading, but I have slowed down over the last couple years because the internet killed my attention span. But I've been working on that and am going to try and read 50 books in 2012 as a challenge. I'm already five books in so I'm on track so far. I absolutely love Harry Potter and most recently, the Hunger Games. Other favourites are The Picture of Dorian Gray, Tuesdays with Morrie and the list goes on.

Now for the music I like. I, unfortunately, have not been blessed with an inclination to instrument playing so I am merely a listener. I lean more towards the indie genre, with a fair dose of Alternative and Folk. My favourite bands are The Hush Sound, Relient K, Owl City, Noah & The Whale.... and so on. I also really really like live gigs.

Other things I like are TV shows like Community, Big Bang Theory, New Girl, Grey's Anatomy, Bones and some others. I have been told I watch too many tv shows. Other than that, I like potatoes, collecting pins and badges, hanging out with my friends and talking. I really like talking.

Stuff I don't like : Overplayed music on radio, people that think reading is boring and people who demand respect without returning it.

Random facts: I'm short. Even by Asian standards. 5'1" yep.

Till next time then! DFTBA.

Introducing Alexandra

Hello everyone, I'm Alexandra! I'm a third year Honours English and Film Major at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. Ever since I was little I always wanted to go into movies... as a Director. I'm not a big fan of being infront of the camera, I belong behind it, but I have acted before. I have another year in this program and then I hopefully ship myself off to proper film school somewhere for a couple of years. I haven't really decided where to go yet, and I'm trying to put it off just a little bit longer and focus on my last three terms her. My interest in filmmaking caused me to jump on the youtube wagon, which I don't update as often as I should. It's mostly filled with film projects from High School, University and the few I've done just for fun. I don't really vlog, most of what I've posted is either an adaptation of something or an original project of some sort.

 I'm also half of another project online: Death of the Author Reviews. We look at teen books and review them. It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun. We recently just did a review of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, so you all should go check it out. Death of the Author Reviews is loosely based off of the literary theorist Roland Barthes, essay of the same name. Barthes argued that once the author finishes their book there is no one interpretation of it, it's up to the Reader. We thought this would be a direction to take our reviews in. On top of that I have a blog where I talk about books and movies (my two biggest loves).

Other facts about me: I'm a trained and ranking Archer in Ontario, I used to compete during high school, but haven't been able to since I went away to university. I have a total fangirl love for Doctor Who, the BBC Sherlock, The Lord of the Rings (books and movies), fantasy books in general, Shakespeare, movies and musicals. I love camping, hiking, long walks and travelling. I'm off to San Francisco for my Winter Reading Week Break, so I may end up posting about that here at some point if people are interested. I can play the flute (not that well) and last but not least, I'm left handed.

Things I dislike: baseball, people who mistreat books, giant squids of anger and having to wake up early in the morning.

All in all, I'm a gigantic nerd, and love Nerdfighteria for letting us all connect. it's great finding people that love certain things as much as you do. I can't wait to get to know everyone on this blog and watch it grow into something awesome.

DFTBA

- Alexandra

Mia's Uneventful Introduction

Hello, everyone!

I am Mia (also known as sterling on YourPants), a 21-year old archaeology student from northern Finland. I specialize in human osteology, the study of human skeletal remains, which is pretty much the reason I am studying the field of archaeology in the first place. I entered university in 2009, so I am currently paddling through my third year - time goes by way too fast if you ask me. I initially double-majored in archaeology and cultural anthropology but after the first year we were to make a choice which one to throw our full weight at. I went with the one that included the human remains. I intended to keep anthropology as a minor but the fact that it has a very small amount of courses sent me on a search for another option. I’ve since landed on museology as my minor.

I started my B.A. Thesis during the summer between my first and second year of studies, helping to produce information for an article, which I ended up co-writing. I’m still working on that same thesis because I am very skilled at procrastinating. In fact, I hold a PhD in procrastination and my work on that field has been well recognized by my peers.

So. “Why human osteology?“ I hear you ask (because you figure that is a better question than "why archaeology?"). I should probably word this in a different way or simply come up with a better reason, one that doesn’t make me sound demented, but, I like dead people. They are fascinating - human anatomy, pathology, causes of death, the decomposition process, I could go on... but I won’t. Generally being able to tell things by looking at a piece of bone is simply interesting to me. In addition: Dead people do not judge you, puke on you, pee on you, say or do rude things to you…they are generally more agreeable than the living, hence great people to work with. Also, they are already dead, responsibility over their life has been lifted! I’m pretty sure I would have gone on to study to become a Medical Examiner if I wasn’t so lousy at math.

Now, when I’m not looking at dead things or things that dead people have done hundreds if not thousands of years ago, I’m pretty much glued to my computer like a proper geek lady. Here, in the world of Internet, I watch episodes of shows that I love, chat with online friends, do play-by-post forum role-playing (and help maintain some related forums), watch Youtube videos, spam people with my art, and mindlessly refresh my Tumblr feed, grinning at gifs.

I draw quite a bit, these days mainly digitally. I’m decent at it and occasionally I even manage to make some money off of it, if I get lucky. (Wanna buy art? Buy some art from me. No? But look at this pretty. Oh please, god, please buy art from me! *falls to knees and bawls* WHY WON’T YOU BUY MY ART?) Krehm. Anyways. I like drawing.

I can’t bring myself to make a particularly smooth and wordy transition into things that I like and dislike, so, here, have some lists:

Some TV shows that I like(/d): Battlestar Galactica, Gilmore Girls, The West Wing, Castle, Bones, The X-Files, Stargate SG-1, ER, Body of Proof, Grey’s Anatomy, Friends, CSI Las Vegas, 30 Rock, Firefly, Futurama, The Rachel Maddow Show, Doctor Who.

Some things that I like: Cats, drawing, instrumental movie/TV show/game score music, play-by-post role-playing, writing, the book Bossypants by Tina Fey, winter, snow, caps lock as a humorous effect, being able to use my open window as a fridge or a freezer during winter, documentaries about serial killers, the English language, Tumblr, making quote graphics, the comfortable position I’m lying in right now.

Some things that I dislike: Warm summers, black flies (Simuliidae), the Tea Party movement, Comic Sans font, most chat/text message speak, when people use your instead of you’re or vice versa, those teenagers on the train who I had to listen to while they pondered on whether B.C. is ‘Before Christ’ or ‘Before God‘, most Reality TV, most music doing well on the billboards these days, public restrooms, the fact that I'm not lying in that comfortable position anymore.

P.S.: Enjoy the stick figure version of me that I doodled up a while back. It makes me look like a skinny person. Also, I'm guilty of making the banner image. That is all. See you all around!