Things That May Be Relevant Or Interesting: The Short List
-I'm gay. (I don't like the word "lesbian" much.) This is an important part of me and I talk about it a lot.
-I'm a geek -- I obsess over things, analyze them to death, and often fail to notice when nobody else cares about something.
-I consider myself a general equality activist. I think we've all got to look out for each other; so long as inequality is present we all suffer. For this reason, besides supporting gender equality and GLBT rights, I care deeply about eliminating racial and religious discrimination of all kinds despite being a European-American Christian. I talk about equality issues of all types with some frequency.
-Politically I'm left-wing, inclined towards socialism. I'm anti-corporate, pacifist, feminist, and other things ending in -ist. I left the Democratic Party for the Green one because the Democrats' official platform is too moderate for me.
-I'm a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) -- unprogrammed branch. I identify as a Universalist Friend, meaning I respect that other people may be served best by other religious paths or none at all. I won't preach at you unless you ask me about my beliefs.
-I was homeschooled exclusively until I began taking classes at the local community college at the age of sixteen. Stereotypes about homeschooled children being allowed to run wild, deprived of social contact, or religiously indoctrinated do not apply in my case; I get excellent grades, am better-liked than I consider logical, and chose my own religious path as a teenager without parental pressure. I hope to someday homeschool my own children.
-I'm going into computer engineering, focus on programming. My parents both have CS degrees, so it's in my blood. I was born into high-tech and to a certain extent I'm more comfortable in the society of computer geeks than anywhere else. I dual-boot Linux and Mac OS X, for example; only in a techie crowd can I count on people understanding what that means.