User:Lavendar Vallery

Education and Background
My background is primarily in science and mathematics.

I'm a university student studying game design and programming as well as a bit of graphic design. Outside my formal education, I like to learn about various topics online including physics (nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, general relativity), human biology (neurology, psychology, drugs, biochemistry), music (synthesizers, acoustics, pop culture), history, chess and puzzles, linguistics, and different languages. I graduated from the IB program with a bilingual diploma where I studied mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, English Literature, and Swedish Literature. I also studied physics in Tokyo for a year.

I have taken courses in academic writing conducted scientific and other research, studied formal logic as well as theory of knowledge, a course which focuses on understanding bias, the nature of a source of information, identifying fallacies, and intentionally or unintentionally misleading/exaggerated language.

Interests
My main passion is music, I am a songwriter, pianist, singer, and I love listening to music. I recently started learning to play the electric guitar. I collect CDs and as such have a decent library of albums which could be used as references for wikipedia articles.

Some of my other interests include art (music, sketching, photography), east-asian culture, cuisine (mostly Chinese), linguistics, medicine (particularly neuroscience), physics (nuclear, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, general relativity), analog synthesizers, and more.

Languages
English is my first language, Swedish is my second. I also speak Japanese and have studied Spanish, French, Latin, and Chinese. I am currently studying Korean. I enjoy studying languages and I have also studied linguistics, phonetics, and specifically how the mind processes spoken and written language.

Neutrality and Conflicts of Interest
I don't really have any agenda. I don't care that much about politics and I don't have many strong opinions regarding controversial topics. My goal as an editor is to make sure that what's on wikipedia is accurate, helpful, thorough, and portrayed neutrally or fairly.

I am generally quick to identify biased phrasing which aims to either demonize or glorify something. I tend to get annoyed by that sort of thing even if I agree with the statements being made. As this is something that annoys me, I tend to spot weasel words relatively quickly. Sentences which look like they have nice fancy words that sound meaningful but if you read it again you'll realize you gained no meaningful information from that sentence. I try to filter my own language in the same way I would mentally filter or correct somebody else's language.

I generally keep my opinions to myself with the exception of trivial topics with relatively low significance (admittedly vague and poorly defined). One example is the sacrilegious disgrace that is pineapple pizza, an absolutely inexcusable culinary crime that is misrepresented as "edible food" which is not only categorically disgusting in "flavor" but also on a moral level. Obviously this is kind of a joke, my neutral answer would be that I don't really like it but if other people enjoy it, that's fine. I just simply don't eat pineapple pizza and it's not really a problem. Though when I do see friends ordering it I have to ask why... Obviously this paragraph is an example of how not to describe a topic.

I try to stick to topics with which I am familiar.

Artists

 * Aiko (singer)

Albums

 * Chess (musical)
 * Elton John - Live from Moscow 1979

Concerts

 * Elton John's 1979 tour of the Soviet Union

Film

 * The Liar and His Lover (film)

Actors

 * HoYeon Jung

Programming

 * For loop

Psychology

 * Self-medication

Neurology

 * Serotonin syndrome
 * Caffeine-induced anxiety disorder
 * μ-opioid receptor

Drugs

 * Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
 * Pethidine

Drafts

 * Chronic Ankle Instability (procrastinating)

Old Draft

 * Elton: Jewel Box

Personal Resources

 * Sources
 * List of Albums
 * Album Collection