User:Smilesplash

Intro
Wikipedia rocks my socks. I think it's fantastic that so much of human knowledge is freely available to anybody with an Internet connection--unless that connection is censored. Please support tools like the Tor Project so that people behind firewalls can have free access to information. Of course, we don't always use the Internet wisely. I scroll through pictures of lolcats all the time; what a waste. But alongside all of the Internet's silly memes, there are really important things going on. Social media covering the civil war in Syria. Entire websites protesting legislation (and succeeding!). Individuals making friends in countries across oceans. Now more than ever we are a global community, and I am a citizen of the world.

Projects

 * I don't do much major editing, but I fix any errors I find (typos, misspellings, wrong words, etc,). After so many years of English classes, I can't ignore them. But I'm happy to say that I don't correct people's grammar in conversations anymore.
 * Recently the Spoken Wikipedia project caught my attention. If you have a request that fits with my interests, list them on my talk page! I'll consider speaking the article. My voice: female, mid-level pitch, young adult, native to the U.S., mostly General American accent.

Interests

 * History was often boring to me in school, but World War II never makes me yawn. I've read many books or parts of books that deal with the war, especially the European theatre, fascinated by the military maneuvers and appalled by the crimes against humanity. My father's father fought in Europe and was generous enough to share some of his memories with me before he died in 2006.
 * I've started taking free classes (MOOCs) on Coursera and completed a counterterrorism course that made me think more about the issue. It seems to me that extremist groups turn to violence when they believe there's no other way to make people listen. That's part of why freedom of speech is so important to me. I have a lot more to say about politically motivated violence, but I'm trying to keep this brief. In short, I want to be a peacemaker.
 * I love poetry. I read good poems, write bad poems, and study the craft. My favorite poets include Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Carolyn Forche, and many more.
 * Russian is my favorite language. I've been studying it for a while now, but I can only have basic conversations and still have a lot to learn.
 * Geology is awesome. Plate tectonics and igneous rocks intrigue me.
 * Mass Effect is the best video game ever, in my opinion. No other game has made me feel such joy, amusement, longing, sorrow, and pride while flying around the galaxy blowing shit up. I try to make the same in-game choices as I would in real life, which makes me almost entirely paragon. I always romance Liara, no matter how cute Samantha Traynor's accent is. And I choose green.