Rather than attempt to write something interesting or convey any sense of reason and ability to communicate, I'll give a completely sterile and uninteresting list:

* My main thing nowadays is mathematics, somewhat skewed to the applied side of things. However, I don't consider myself a kid who can only think about math. Other college majors I considered include, but are not limited to, Art History, English Literature, African-American Studies, Anthropology.
* I am an enormous nerd. Unfortunately I don't mean in the "I like Battlestar Galactica" way, but rather the "I couldn't resist picking up Warren Page's 'Topological Uniform Structures' while I was in Northampton today. It was only $6.95!"
* As far as hobbies go, I play guitar, mainly electric and mainly blues. I'm reasonable at it, okay with a slide, but I won't be quitting my day job. Sometimes I write, but that's tapered off over the years.
* Brief autobiography: Born and raised in Oklahoma City, went off to Massachusetts for college, and off to Ontario for grad school. Don't worry, I'm not at all conservative (and am extremely liberal on social issues), and my Southern accent has been violently suppressed. The drawl sneaks back when I visit home or talk to Oklahomans on the telephone.

I'm studying for a Masters of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, and am a TA. Specifically, my focus is quantum computing (this is misleading; my actual focus is spending too much time watching videos of guitarists on Youtube). My long-term goal is to be a professor, though I think I'd be content with working in a lab or doing industrial research.

My skills seem to be more broad and passable than focused and talented, but I'm pretty decent at mathematics, physics, and writing. The last may not be evident from my profile. I'm also a better-than-average guitar player, keeping in mind that the average guitar player is really absurdly terrible.

Otherwise, I sometimes have a quick wit, and I'm a pretty fast learner.

I really have no idea. Seriously, do people actually know this about themselves?

I guess I get called out fairly often for wearing long-sleeved shirts in the summer, which is a holdover from living in the drier, hotter summers of Oklahoma.

Books - Poems by Charles Wright, Invisible Man, A Different Universe, the Foundation series, Slaughterhouse-Five, A Course in Combinatorics, Goldstein's Classical Mechanics, Blood Meridian, The Road, Underworld, Child of God, All the Pretty Horses, The Lady with the Dog. Titles which have commas in them: Rabbit, Run; God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. I'm going to throw Achewood here, even though as a webcomic it doesn't quite count.

Favourite writers: Cormac McCarthy (yeah, I'm one of those kids), Charles Wright, Louise Glück, Robert Pinsky, Chris Onstad, Fareed Zakaria, Roger Ebert.

Movies - City of God, Duck Soup, City Lights, Gates of Heaven (the documentary), Planet Earth (if that counts), Pleasantville, Ratatouille, Barry Lyndon, Ghost World, Divine Intervention, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, Yellow Submarine, Raging Bull, Do the Right Thing, Killer of Sheep.

Music - My all-time favourite is Freddie King. Other favourites include Elmore James, Marion Williams, the Velvet Underground, Charles Mingus, the White Stripes, Bob Dylan, John Scofield, Susan Tedeschi, Blind Willie Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt, Kanye West, Blind Willie McTell, Thelonious Monk, Booker T. and the MGs, A Tribe Called Quest. Broadly, I'm really into post-war blues and 50's rock, and enjoy most genres of music. I adore good rap (e.g., De La Soul) and country (e.g., Merle Travis), but don't really listen to a lot of rock and R&B beyond, say, 1975.

Guilty pleasures: Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp novels, the 60's Batman movie, generic 60's psychedelia (such as Tommy James and the Shondells).

Guiltiest pleasure: The Atlas of Middle-Earth. Seriously. It's exactly what it sounds like.

Food - Fried chicken, mints, carrots, cucumbers, Cheerios, Velveeta, other items consistent with the culinary development of a 5-year old child. I love cherry candy with an inhuman passion. If I must eat something that does not embarrass me in polite company, I really enjoy Turkish cuisine, particularly hot dolma with yoghurt.

So let's not do the clever thing of "food, water, air, DNA polymerase...." In fact, let's not have anything at all that would actually be deeply important to me, as these are probably fairly universal. Here's a list of things that I really enjoy, but obviously I could do / have done without them.

In no specified order:
- A guitar.
- Minty candy.
- Pens and paper.
- A textbook on algebra or combinatorics.
- A dog. (This is deeply important to me, though I've survived without one for a while.)
- Access to the internet. (or, if this is a bit too generous, at least access to Achewood.)

Primarily mathematics at this point, but thankfully that's not all I think about. The issue of race in the U.S., particularly black Americans, drives a lot of my thought, as does music. Other topics include, but are not limited to: human history, mechanics, religion, the 20th century, international affairs, politics. Also, I love puns. I hope you find this endearing; otherwise, you may find me insufferably annoying.

I'm ludicrously terrible at spelling the word "reminiscent." I always want to write "reminiscient," probably because I pronounce it in a strange way (the final syllable becomes "shent" for God-knows-what reason).

you're interested in something that's casual and low-impact, or if you want new friends. Hopefully you don't find the evident abundance of nerd too much of a deal-breaker. I'm also new to Waterloo, Ontario, and Canada, so I certainly wouldn't say no to an offer for showing me around.