Well, I've been living in Iowa for better than a month now, so I guess it's about time I go about updating this thing. My name is Jeremy, and I've come out to Iowa to attend graduate school at ISU. It's very different out here than where I come from in the northeast, but I like it so far. People are friendly, and school is great, but tough -- I am working pretty much full time (or more) between the classes I take and the classes I teach.

So, about me. I'm studying for a PhD in math with a plan to go on and teach the subject on the college level. Being a student is, as noted above, more or less a full time job -- about a third of that time devoted to teaching two calculus classes, and the rest is reserved for studying and homework. I'm simultaneously trying to prove a conjecture I came up with that will doubtless revolutionize mathematics -- or at least let me to publish the proof in some journal.

As it stands, I have two Bachelor's degrees -- my BS in math, and a BA in psychology from several years ago. If you know anything about psych, you know that there is NOTHING that can be done with a bachelors in the field, but by the time I realized that I wasn't going on for a masters in psych, it was too late to change majors the first time around. As a result, for the last twelve years I've shuffled from clerical job to clerical job. I've had some fairly interesting jobs. I designed forms for a St. Paul, MN insurance company, transcribed autopsy reports for the University of Minnesota, and for three memorable months worked as secretary to the public defender of Dawes County, Nebraska -- who repeatedly threatened to kill me.

My last major relationship ended in the fall of 2007 -- the day after my birthday, in fact. It was mutual and friendly. We were no longer that much into each other, and I wanted to move back to the east coast where my family lives, and she had a friend who wanted to move out to Minnesota where there were a lot more jobs. We talk on occasion, and I'm friends with her daughter on Facebook.

I am something of a geek -- I'm play RPGs, Magic the Gathering, and occasionally World of Warcraft, City of Heroes or Champions Online, depending on my mood. I have a huge comic book collection. I read a lot of horror novels and mysteries. I love horror movies, thrillers, and comedies. I've written two novels, one of which will be up on Amazon for Kindle in the near future, and the other of which... I still haven't let anybody read. I speak Russian, though my skills are rusty. I play the bass (to one degree or another) and sing in the same clef. I'm in the process of designing a board game -- and have been for, oh, ten years maybe.

I'm liberal possibly to a fault. I picked up the Bush Family Cookbook the awhile back, and was tremendously disappointed. Their recipe for disaster was missing, and there was no information whatsoever on cooking an election.

Yeah, so, if that joke offended you, don't write to me -- we so won't get along. Otherwise, hey, see? I'm funny!

I am totally awesome, super funny, and prone to hyperbole.

I'm working on my PhD, which consumes the vast majority of my so-called free time. I try to take Friday evenings off for the sake of not going insane, and occasionally find other time available. Most of these times are occupied with random movies and occasionally going out and doing something with people from my grad program.

I'm a great cook. I got it from my dad. In our house, dad does most of the cooking and mom, left to her own devices, heats up Lipton Cup-a-soups and makes cinnamon toast. I have adapted a Rachel Ray chili recipe into my own 'Rainbow Chili', which involves peppers, onions and tomatoes that cover almost the entire rainbow (assuming six colors) -- and I've been tempted to toss in a few blueberries just to complete the spectrum. My stews are fantastic. I'm 1/4 Italian and my spaghetti sauce comes from an old family recipe... taught to my mom by her Israeli therapist in the early seventies.

I'm actually very good at secretarial work. I type better than eighty words per minute and I can understand heavy accents fairly easily (which, you know, is important in medical transcription -- the number of doctors and residents I ran into at my last job who were from the US, I could count on the fingers of one hand). I'm pretty well organized, even if I'm the only one who can figure out my organization system.

I kick ass at Guitar Hero, assuming you don't ask me to play it higher than medium difficulty. And I am utterly phenomenal at swearing when I drive a car into the water in any of the Grand Theft Auto games. Among certain of my friends, the act of crashing a car into a body of water has come to be known as 'pulling a Jeremy'.

Let's be honest: I'm not a thin guy. I'm chubby, but I'm eating a lot better and getting regular exercise, so hopefully that will change in the near future. I'm a lot more open than I used to be, so the shy thing that used to be here no longer really applies. I'm still a regular comedian, though. Who wants to know why the chicken REALLY crossed the road? I'll give you a hint: CONSPIRACY!!!

There are seriously too many to list here, but I'll do what I can. And if I get one of those massively long lists that some people drop... well... you've been warned.

You can picture me holding up a flashlight in front of my face in a darkened room while I say that, if you want. It's spookier.

Books. I love books. All kinds of books in all kinds of genres. I've read pretty much everything Stephen King's written and enjoyed almost all of it. Likewise, I love Christopher Moore (and if you haven't read his stuff, do, because he writes everything from the gospel according to Biff, Jesus' childhood best friend to really dumb angels raising armies of zombies because they think it's the perfect Christmas wish for an eight-year-old boy), Terry Pratchett, Bernard Cornwell (I was never into historical or war fiction until I picked up his Arthurian saga), Jack Whyte, Jonathan and Faye Kellerman... I read Richard Laymon, Brian Keene, and Jack Ketchum for decent not-quite-mainstream horror, and possibly the most evocative book I've read all year is 'Battle Royale' by Koushun Takami. I've been downloading a number of books on my computer via Kindle lately to expand my horizons, too. To say nothing of all the comic books and manga I read (The Walking Dead is utterly incredible) -- I did warn you I was a geek.

Movies. I've got a special connection to movies -- my dad teaches film, and my sister has actually gone on to become a producer in Hollywood. She worked on 'Step Up', 'P2', and the four 'Twilight' movies that have come out so far. That said, I really do love all kinds of movies. Horror is possibly my favorite genre -- and in particular I -love- BAD horror. Silly, cheesy, stupid slasher films where you want to yell at the victims for setting themselves up. Ridiculous monster movies with bad dialog. Which isn't to say I don't love the good stuff, too. My all-time favorite horror film is the original 'Dawn of the Dead'. I love comedies, too, both the intellectual and more serious sort, like Judd Apatow's work (say, 'Knocked Up' and 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'... if you can really call those intellectual or serious) or 'Stranger than Fiction' (might have saved myself with that one), and the dumb buddy comedies like 'Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle', 'Eurotrip' and, long time favorites, 'Wayne's World' one and two. The last three movies I saw in the theater were... 'The Dark Knight Rises', 'Total Recall' and 'Men in Black 3'.

My taste in music is almost as varied. I won't go through it all for you. It's probably enough to know that I love 80s music (the Cars and the Police being my two favorite bands from the period), Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Fall Out Boy, Disturbed, Green Day, Rage Against the Machine, the Beatles, and more bands and individual songs than I really want to count. Not much for country or rap, though there are individual songs in those genres that I like a lot as well. I'm trying to get a radio show on the college station. I intend to focus on covers -- I have more than 20 hours of cover music on my iPod.

Food. This is easier. Italian tops the list. Sushi's way up there. Mexican. I'd rather avoid places like Applebee's, personally -- their menus are so generic.

Bad horror movies.

My dogs (learning to do this, since they're back in Massachusetts).

My laptop (without which I would not be annoying you with this overlong profile) and my iPod.

A fan -- I can't sleep without it.

Dark chocolate covered Altoids (they are a weakness).

A tee-shirt that reads 'W W |battered hockey mask| D ?'. Actually, I've done without this one far too long. I saw some guy wearing one in the store today and was like, dude, I've gotta get that shirt!

Math. Going hand-in-hand with all the other geeky things, I genuinely love the field I'm majoring in. I've spent a lot of time pondering the concept of triangular numbers, and what application, if any, they actually have to anything. Today I solved a difficult problem on my drive home that had been niggling at me since the end of my math class this morning.

How to upgrade my Magic deck to counter the decks I've been losing to at Friday Night Magic.

How to fix my books so more people will enjoy reading them.

The average wing-speed velocity of an unladen swallow.

Watching TV. Or rather, streaming Netflix and associated sites on my old laptop that's connected to my TV, since we don't actually have any TV access at my house.

My dream job has little to do with my math major. I want to be a radio disk jockey. I think that would be one of the most awesome jobs ever.

If I made you laugh.
You are a geek yourself -- particularly if you're into comic books or Magic.
You know of good cover bands/covers of popular songs.
You want to read my books.
You think I sound as awesome as I think I am (ah, there goes that hyperbole again!)