User:Emoticon

Academic
Currently I'm studying logic and rhetoric, because my professors always used to say that these were my weak points as a student. In my spare time, I tear people's arguments to pieces.

I love English literature, particularly early modern British literature. Topics of interest to me are sex, violence and decorum.

Continental philosophy mostly makes me foam at the mouth. Certainly there are some good ideas there, but sadly, they are all buried in the same obfuscative, lofty jargon.

For anyone planning on studying English Lit, the easiest way to get an A is to prove banal, prosaic points that the professor is likely to agree with so laboriously and exhaustively that you remove any semblance of beauty from the text and your paper. Personally, I think wrestling an A- from a contentious professor by making a point that actually contributes to human knowledge in a nontrivial manner is worth more, but this is a hard road, made harder by the fact that most graduate students (who will be grading most of your papers at most universities) studying English got there by proving banal prosaic points their professors were likely to agree with so laboriously and exhaustively that they removed any semblance of beauty from the text and their papers, and thus view creativity with a mixture of suspicion and jealousy.

Technical
At work, I wear every hat from system administrator to technical writer to graphic designer. I enjoy programming way more than I should, and I love learning about new technologies. I know a smattering of C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, bash, XSLT, Java, PHP, Lua, JavaScript, ActionScript and SQL. My current favorite is Ruby. If my next job is determined by number of languages known, I think I've got it covered. If they want depth, I think I'm screwed!