I have decided to make a greater effort to make this something more than a list of things I have done, do, and will do in an effort to instead effectively summarize my true self.

I approach life passionately and with enthusiasm, trying to give importance to everything I do, and therefore do everything well for its own sake. I throw myself completely into whatever I may be doing, be it work or play, and try to do it joyfully. However, I can be apathetic and even nasty when I don't feel that what I'm doing or being asked to do is valuable. This is defined, for me, in a variety of ways. I am happiest when I believe I am helping people or sharing, creating, or preserving something beautiful. Beauty is music, love, nature, happiness, and life. And many other things. So from the right perspective, most tasks are beautiful and therefore valuable.

I'm quite introverted, and most of my life have mostly kept to myself, although for the past couple of years I have begun to become more confident in myself and my social skills, discovering, to my great surprise that people actually like me and even think I'm cool. ;) (maybe you will too!) I do still have a strong tendency to sort of hide away and be uncommunicative if I don't know someone, but it is certainly possible to draw me out, possibly getting me going on some long story or tangent. I've probably, not certainly, developed some quirkiness over the years and as a self defense tactic have taken a certain amount of pride in being a bit weird in my own way. I've long hung out with nerds of one kind or another and still prefer the company of intelligent individuals. I'm not sure exactly how I define that anymore though, and I wonder if it's not the word I'm looking for at all.

Much of who I am has to do with my (fairly recent) past. I'm a college sophomore right now, but I had a rather unique high school experience. I went to the main high school in my district, where I played in band and developed my knowledge and love of music, but I also went to a smaller, special, "alternative" high school focused on community and experiential learning where teachers could come up with any class they wanted to teach and do it, decisions were made democratically in town meeting by everyone instead of through student government, and the walls themselves were covered in student artwork. Perhaps, but only perhaps, most importantly, second half of senior year is spent on two internships or independent studies called Walkabouts.

My second Walkabout was spend living in an egalitarian intentional community in Virginia. I had an amazing time and learned all sorts of things and changed a bit. I spent a lot of time out in the garden discovering how very happy I am out in the sun digging in the dirt. :) Many of the things I wrote above are things I discovered over Walkabout. (example: people apparently think I'm cool)

I am crazy, smiley, and musical

I'm a student at Bowling Green State University studying Environmental Policy and Analysis. I do try to keep "studenting" from being the only focus of my life, though. I am coordinator of the Bowling Green community gardens, president of the BGSU Veg(etarian/vegan) club.

The community gardens represent many things I'm passionate about and I'm incredibly excited to be in charge of them this year. The two community gardens in BG are part of a movement that brings healthy, sustainably produced food to anyone who needs it for a little bit of work in exchange. And besides getting to contribute to that, I'm just super excited about digging in the dirt.

Making messes,double booking myself, being awkward, wasting time, triple booking myself, forgetting what day it is, breaking oboe reeds, ruining jokes, the list goes on.

Taking the question a bit more seriously, I do consider myself a reasonably accomplished musician, particularly as an oboist. I have various boring academic skills as well. I am good at relating to people and understanding their emotions and points of view to the extent of sometimes forgetting my own. I'm probably good at other things too.

I'm pretty quiet, especially when I don't know people, but I smile and laugh a lot. In the right context, I will smile almost all the time, and I am always a legitimately good audience. I laugh embarrassingly hard uncontrollably sometimes.

Also, I have a collection of band nerd t-shirts with horrible, horrible puns that sometimes get some attention. I'm quite fond of them. Similarly, I have also been picked out of a crowd for ridiculous piano knee socks and/or a knitted hat made to resemble a pumpkin. Sadly, the pumpkin hat has been lost.

Do I have to? I'll be vague because favorites are hard.

Books: fantasy is my preferred genre. There's nothing like good high fantasy and I feel that it's the least disappointing when written poorly. I'll read all sorts of things and enjoy it though.

Movies: I don't really watch movies all that often. I tend to feel similarly about comedy movies to my feelings toward fantasy books. I am particularly fond of the work of Mel Brooks and of Monty Python.

Music: this is impossible. Ummm.... I listen to progressive rock often. I really like Yes and Gentle Giant. Jethro Tull is pretty awesome. I'll listen to many other things though, as long as it's somewhat interesting to listen to I won't mind hearing it again.

Then there's "classical" music and I hardly know where to begin. The music for wind band that I've most enjoyed is by Gustav Holst and Percy Grainger. I tend to enjoy most oboe solos. I guess I'm biased that way. I also seem to have a thing for French composers.

Food: As I said before, I'm vegetarian these days, with this idea that I might actually be strict about it someday. (Right now, I'm basically lacto vegetarian, although I will occasionally overlook eggs until it's too late and not really regret it) I... just like good food, and what I want really depends on my mood. I love eating things straight out of a garden ^_^ but it's not *that* hard to make me happy.

Love, music (to listen to), (a way to create) music, yummy food, sunshine, hugs.

How BG's meal plan needs to accommodate vegetarians better. Ways to avoid my homework. The food system. Things I learned in class. Random, silly philosophical points of no real significance. Ridiculous analogies. Who knows? Sometimes I even thing about what I'm currently doing.

This is highly inconsistent. Lately, I've been going to bed very, very early to make up for not sleeping enough during the week. Lame, I know. Sometimes I do cool things too, though.

If someone prompts me, I might come up with something interesting to put here. As things are, I don't feel I need to put anything particularly private here at all. If you have a question, ask?

you want to talk. Warning: I am not currently looking for dating. /warning. But, that means I'm mostly on here to assuage boredom and you can help! Also, if you know me, you should definitely message me.