Here I am, a tall Swede currently attempting to survive a year of master thesis and Japanese classes in Osaka University. Trying to combine an active social life with labwork. Living life and loving it. Would love to meet someone who could show me around the area. Any attempts to travel around on my own leads to me getting lost eventually.

I hope to be important enough to be mentioned in a wikileaked secret document one day- until that day arrives I'll be studying chemistry/civil engineering at the university trying to stake out my future as I go. The field is material science and it is mindblowing at times. Will be studying in Japan for about a year as part of my thesis and with any luck I'll end up staying there for another year or two. Would like to spend a prolonged time in the US after that. The plans are more heart than brain at the moment but I'll give it a fighting chance.

Long distance running and initiating random conversations and maintaining good shape without exerting effort (fast metabolism).

Probably the height. Which can be a turn on/off depending on the person. Well, either that or me not being too shy, even around those I don't know.

Books
Neil Gaimann's American Gods
Paulo Cohelo's The Alchemist
Orson Scott Card's Ender Saga (though I don't agree with the author's controversial views on...well, look it up)
Haruki Murakami's The bird that winds up the world
Ian McEwan's Saturday and Solar
Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted (extremely messed up piece of fiction)

Music
Anything goes! Love it when people try to tune me in to their favorite bands.
ELLIOT SMITH- Junk Bond Trader... Play it on my funeral!
The National- Conversation 16/Afraid of Everything

Movies/TV
Love the scary and/or atmospheric movies.
Memento, The Grudge (don't be judgemental) and Solaris (yes, the George Clooney version) rank high. Walking dead and Dexter both rank extremely high on my "must watch"-list.

Food
Love the japanese cuisine but other than that no real prefrences. Edible is a must.

*Friends
*Family
*Dreams (unobtainable goals in life kinda dreams)
*Dreams (the random nightly occurance that don't make much of any sense)
*Cone of silence
*Coffee

Often contemplating the impressions I get from the people I've encountered during the day. Things they say or do- stuff like that. Yeah, sounds weird- but I bet that's the case when anyone tries to explain what they think about. People are weird.

Maybe I'll be studying for a random test.
Maybe I'll be running and taking in some sweet scenery or maybe...just maybe I'll be at a bar trying to have a conversation over ear-poundingly loud (but good) music.
That or the defualt "hanging with the friends" which can be followed by any of the above.

Generally pretty open about stuff like that. Most embarrasing was my first encounter with Tequila two years ago- followed by 4 hours at my friends toilet. That or this summer's Stockholm marathon(09), where I made several face-palm like attempts to get the crowd riled up. Sigh.
Also I tend not to look people in the eye when I talk to them- I tend to look through/behind/around the one I'm talking to. Seriously working on getting it fixed though. Nothing personal, just a form of shyness from my earlier years still residing within. [Update for 2010- now looking people straight in the eye when talking to them. Kept the earlier bit because removing it will mean coming up with something else in order to reach that 1000 word profile. Being practical here- not lazy ] //Note to the past-self that wrote this- don't worry mate, you got over it

...you want to have a conversation. Pure and simple.
Love meeting new folks, no matter who they are.
People spend far too little time talking to one another- between reading my profile and talking to me you'll definitely get more out of a 5 minute conversation than learning this entire presentation by heart. That probably goes for most people. Your friends perception of you is most likely different than your own perception of yourself. Plus points if you're down with chemistry and want to talk dirty about surfactants.