User:Grumpylaw/About you

About me
Welcome to my "about me" page!

I'm usually not very good at describing myself but I will try! I'm 24 years old, male, and I hold a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from Université Laval, in Quebec City. However, I'm not done with my studies. I'm currently completing a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in translation and terminology at my ol' alma mater. I am a French Quebecer, speaking Quebec French natively. You will probably see me editing the pages on Quebec French and Quebec French phonology, especially doing recordings. My accent is that of the capital, but I speak a working class sub-variety, coming myself from a working class family. This slight rustic twang is quite important to me, and even attending university didn't manage to stamp it out. It's my way of remembering where I am from and how far I've come, as I am the first person in my family with an university degree.

I am very interested in linguistics, but only as an amateur as I have done no formal studies and have no degree in the subject. However, I own many books about linguistics, particularly phonology and syntax, and I just love reading about it. Noam Chomsky is a personal hero of mine because he is a very multi-pronged person with a lot of different interests and manages to juggle between them and acquire incredible expertise in each one. However, my professional interest is law. I am beginning to draft a plan for articles about Quebec law on Wikipedia, as complete as they can be. That citizens know their rights and obligations is very important to me and I view our current system as quite deficient in that regard. What good does passing a consumer protection law do, for example, if consumers don't know its contents, or even worse, can't know its contents because it is written so badly? Simple legislative writing is the cause I have set as my own, and I wish to contribute to Wikipedia in that regard. Things like CanLII are a very good step, but it's possible to go further.

Aside from professional interests, I am interested in Stoic and Cynic philosophy (Diogenes of Sinope is another personal hero), politics and martial arts. I am an ikkyu in Judo, long overdue for my Shodan but I've had to quit because law school took too much of my time. I want to return eventually, when time permits. I'm also very interested in asceticism and other ways of simple living. I've been studying Esperanto for several months - I really like it. As an auxlang, it's not too good, but I really enjoy how precise it is while being easy to learn.

After being estranged from my faith for many, many years, I'm starting to see the Divine all around me and it gets progressively easier to believe.

And well, that's about it for me. Hopefully we get to know each other through this wonderful project!