Yet another application.
Just before I start, I'd say I consider myself more of a nerd than anything, so before this I was thinking of applying to hot_nerds . Seeing how dead it was, though, I figured I might as well try here first.
Okay, so here goes. I've always had a problem with sounding like an arrogant twat in applications, so please excuse that, rest assured it wasn't really a concious decision - I'm yet to master the art of writing essays about myself.
Some basic info: I'm Varvara (though most people either call me V [hence my username] or Barbara), 16-turning-17 in July, currently reside in NSW, Australia but was born in Russia.
Looking at all the stuff that's ever fascinated me, I'd guess my main reason for liking any particular activity is the thrill that I get out of figuring things out - things "clicking" in my mind. I couldn't possibly describe the feeling (I have enough trouble with expressing my feelings as it is...), but to me it's one of the most wonderful things in the world.
So, geeky interests, in some sort of chronological order:
Computers: My interest in computers probably stems from having to figure everything out for myself since the start of high school. Everyone in my immediate family seems to be intrinsically computer-phobic (well, besides my dad, but seeing as he lives halfway across the world from me that doesn't really apply), so when it became obvious that I'd most probably need a computer for my high school years, we got a computer professionally set up and that was it. From then on, I had to figure everything out how to do everything I wanted to do by myself. It turned into a sort of game, and I hated reading instruction manuals for that reason - it seemed to ruin the fun. I got a lot of joy out of figuring things out by myself and finding out how they worked. Since then I've dabbled in graphic/web design, programming (however, I never seemed to be bothered to master a single language, as soon as I learned the basics of one I slowly lost interest and moved on to the next. I guess it was mainly a lack of time with school work and whatnot, so I satisfied myself by knowing that if I really needed to write something more complex, I could always look it up and learn along the way.), tried out various OSs (currently Ubuntu seems to have stuck as my sole OS, because of the great hardware support more than anything. At least, that and my general laziness), taking my computer apart and putting it back together again (since I wasn't exactly rich enough to buy the parts to build my own), et cetera, et cetera. Eventually, over the course of my high school years, this obsession seems to have died down a bit. I don't really know the cause of it, but I'm guessing it was just a lack of people to share my interests with (going to a small all-girls private school didn't exactly help. I was the only person in my year to apply for a computer-related course, so I couldn't do that either due to "lack of interest"). Putting aside my social awkwardness, I'm still a social person, and everything seems to get boring after a while if you have no one to share it with. So I slowly began to give up. I'm still interested in the same computer-related things I was interested in back then, but that combined with my previously mentioned laziness and having no real goal to push towards seems to have sort of "slowed" the obsession.
So that brings me to my present-day obsession - physics. For all the same reasons, just on a larger scale. I have to quote Richard Feynman on this, because try as I might I wouldn't be able to say it any better: "I find excitement in discovery. The excitement is not in the fact that you have created something, but that you've found something beautiful that's always been there. ... I want to know what is true. That is why I look into things. To see and find out what is going on."
I guess the main reason it keeps me interested is because there *aren't* answers to absolutely everything. There are the as-of-yet-unanswered questions that are just as fascinating (or even more fascinating than) the known answers.
I'd estimate that in the past year about 90% of the money I earn has been spent on physics books/textbooks, and right now I'm almost half way through reading Volume I of the Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Now on to school, although there's really not that much geeky stuff here. My favourite "real" class, not surprisingly, is physics. The syllabus/general style of teaching is a pain, but it's still much more interesting than any of my other classes.
That aside, my favourite not-really-a-class class has to be Cosmology, which is a so-called "distinction course" that students here get the chance to do if they've accelerated in one or more subjects in earlier years. The course is done by correspondence and is meant to be at a first-year-uni level, so the work load is enormous. That combined with my procrastination abilities really isn't a good thing, but I'm slowly getting used to it. As an added bonus we get to on two camps during the year - the first one in early February took the 20 of us on a 10-hour drive down to Coonabarabran where we stayed for 5 days, toured various telescopes around the area, got a maximum of 3 hours sleep each night, played a load of badminton (don't ask) and in general had awesome fun.
As for next year, I'm hoping to get into the Advanced Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney, and ultimately am considering a career in theoretical physics research. Sure, the prospects seem small here in Australia, but who knows where life will take me...
Again related to everything I've said above and for mostly the same reasons, I've just recently developed a love for hard SF novels. Some all-time favourites: Time / Space / [not so much Origin, a bit too gory for my taste] - Stephen Baxter; The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov; Incandescence - Greg Egan; and others I can't put my finger on right now. I'm currently reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson, I don't quite know what I'd classify it as, but suffice it to say I haven't been able to put it down for the past 2 days.
And so, I guess that's about it for geeky interests, so here come the photos:
(I'm the one on the very left with the short blonde hair)
(Again, obviously the one on the right)
One side note before I finish this off: one thing that I really feel the need to mention is my little pet peeve - the use of effect and affect. Sometimes it just makes me want to smash my head against a brick wall. Seriously, people, IT IS NOT THAT HARD TO LEARN TO USE THE RIGHT ONE.
Anyway, with that, I think I'm just about done.
EDIT: Wait, not done. Just one photo from Cosmology camp:
Alright, *now* I'm done.
Okay, so here goes. I've always had a problem with sounding like an arrogant twat in applications, so please excuse that, rest assured it wasn't really a concious decision - I'm yet to master the art of writing essays about myself.
Some basic info: I'm Varvara (though most people either call me V [hence my username] or Barbara), 16-turning-17 in July, currently reside in NSW, Australia but was born in Russia.
Looking at all the stuff that's ever fascinated me, I'd guess my main reason for liking any particular activity is the thrill that I get out of figuring things out - things "clicking" in my mind. I couldn't possibly describe the feeling (I have enough trouble with expressing my feelings as it is...), but to me it's one of the most wonderful things in the world.
So, geeky interests, in some sort of chronological order:
Computers: My interest in computers probably stems from having to figure everything out for myself since the start of high school. Everyone in my immediate family seems to be intrinsically computer-phobic (well, besides my dad, but seeing as he lives halfway across the world from me that doesn't really apply), so when it became obvious that I'd most probably need a computer for my high school years, we got a computer professionally set up and that was it. From then on, I had to figure everything out how to do everything I wanted to do by myself. It turned into a sort of game, and I hated reading instruction manuals for that reason - it seemed to ruin the fun. I got a lot of joy out of figuring things out by myself and finding out how they worked. Since then I've dabbled in graphic/web design, programming (however, I never seemed to be bothered to master a single language, as soon as I learned the basics of one I slowly lost interest and moved on to the next. I guess it was mainly a lack of time with school work and whatnot, so I satisfied myself by knowing that if I really needed to write something more complex, I could always look it up and learn along the way.), tried out various OSs (currently Ubuntu seems to have stuck as my sole OS, because of the great hardware support more than anything. At least, that and my general laziness), taking my computer apart and putting it back together again (since I wasn't exactly rich enough to buy the parts to build my own), et cetera, et cetera. Eventually, over the course of my high school years, this obsession seems to have died down a bit. I don't really know the cause of it, but I'm guessing it was just a lack of people to share my interests with (going to a small all-girls private school didn't exactly help. I was the only person in my year to apply for a computer-related course, so I couldn't do that either due to "lack of interest"). Putting aside my social awkwardness, I'm still a social person, and everything seems to get boring after a while if you have no one to share it with. So I slowly began to give up. I'm still interested in the same computer-related things I was interested in back then, but that combined with my previously mentioned laziness and having no real goal to push towards seems to have sort of "slowed" the obsession.
So that brings me to my present-day obsession - physics. For all the same reasons, just on a larger scale. I have to quote Richard Feynman on this, because try as I might I wouldn't be able to say it any better: "I find excitement in discovery. The excitement is not in the fact that you have created something, but that you've found something beautiful that's always been there. ... I want to know what is true. That is why I look into things. To see and find out what is going on."
I guess the main reason it keeps me interested is because there *aren't* answers to absolutely everything. There are the as-of-yet-unanswered questions that are just as fascinating (or even more fascinating than) the known answers.
I'd estimate that in the past year about 90% of the money I earn has been spent on physics books/textbooks, and right now I'm almost half way through reading Volume I of the Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Now on to school, although there's really not that much geeky stuff here. My favourite "real" class, not surprisingly, is physics. The syllabus/general style of teaching is a pain, but it's still much more interesting than any of my other classes.
That aside, my favourite not-really-a-class class has to be Cosmology, which is a so-called "distinction course" that students here get the chance to do if they've accelerated in one or more subjects in earlier years. The course is done by correspondence and is meant to be at a first-year-uni level, so the work load is enormous. That combined with my procrastination abilities really isn't a good thing, but I'm slowly getting used to it. As an added bonus we get to on two camps during the year - the first one in early February took the 20 of us on a 10-hour drive down to Coonabarabran where we stayed for 5 days, toured various telescopes around the area, got a maximum of 3 hours sleep each night, played a load of badminton (don't ask) and in general had awesome fun.
As for next year, I'm hoping to get into the Advanced Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney, and ultimately am considering a career in theoretical physics research. Sure, the prospects seem small here in Australia, but who knows where life will take me...
Again related to everything I've said above and for mostly the same reasons, I've just recently developed a love for hard SF novels. Some all-time favourites: Time / Space / [not so much Origin, a bit too gory for my taste] - Stephen Baxter; The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov; Incandescence - Greg Egan; and others I can't put my finger on right now. I'm currently reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson, I don't quite know what I'd classify it as, but suffice it to say I haven't been able to put it down for the past 2 days.
And so, I guess that's about it for geeky interests, so here come the photos:
(I'm the one on the very left with the short blonde hair)
(Again, obviously the one on the right)
One side note before I finish this off: one thing that I really feel the need to mention is my little pet peeve - the use of effect and affect. Sometimes it just makes me want to smash my head against a brick wall. Seriously, people, IT IS NOT THAT HARD TO LEARN TO USE THE RIGHT ONE.
Anyway, with that, I think I'm just about done.
EDIT: Wait, not done. Just one photo from Cosmology camp:
Alright, *now* I'm done.