How does one define one's self in this modern medium?
I am a theoretical physicist, with a BSc in Honours Mathematics & Physics with Distinction, a MSc in theoretical physics, and a PhD in theoretical physics specializing in particle physics & cosmology/astrophysics. I have been employed as both a teaching assistant and a research assistant in physics, earned several large scholarships and fellowships for to fund my education and research, and have jointly published research papers in leading peer reviewed journals in the fields of dark matter, big bang nucleosynthesis, and higher dimensional physics.
While at university I also did a minor in computer science (not officially recognized though, since there was too much overlap with my math degree) and completed the coursework required for a degree in electrical engineering (though several of the senior courses were not completed for credit, as I audited them for entertainment only). After my graduation I also completed a number of non-credit courses in graduate level electronics engineering, robotics, and computer science, as well as courses in medical imaging, medical physics, and a few medical school classes. I have been a computer programmer for thirty years, publishing several software applications through the 1980s to the 2000s. I have also been an amateur roboticist for more than twenty years, personally building over two dozen robotics systems which I use for on-going research projects into artificial intelligence and automation.
In the 1990s I wrote a dictionary of unusual and obscure words, which I published to the internet in 1998. As of this writing, it has attracted over one million hits, spawned countless spin off projects, hardcover and softcover published versions, and has routinely ranked first place in Google searches for rare word dictionaries.
Also in the 1990s, I started researching my own family history and now have a family tree covering 100,000 individuals back to 800 A.D. and including such notable figures as Robert the Bruce, Lady MacBeth, Emperor Charlemagne, and numerous kings of England and Scotland. Subsets of this tree have been published to various genealogy websites, but I have been forced to quit maintaining them due to overwhelming demand from users and a lack of time to answer them all.
On the more negative side, I also spent fifteen years as an involuntary unpaid caregiver. My father had a stroke in 1998, and although the local hospital promised to get him into a long term carehome within a couple of months, they pressured me into looking after him 24/7 for nearly nine years. During this period of time, he would threaten family and hospital staff with his hunting rifle, committed identity theft on me and others, signed away hundreds of thousands of dollars in pension funds (which I have had to try to partially replace out of my own income so that my mother can at least pay her bills), tampered with my engine and brakes to keep me from leaving, and routinely abused his wife - none of which was sufficient for the hospital system to lock him up. Although he has since died, the problems created by him over this time (and by other family problems) required another five years of full time work to resolve. As of this writing, some of the damage he caused is still not resolved.
It is hard to summarize my life in one page. Over the years of my existence I have tried many new things and pursued many hobbies. I can read and write in French, German, Gaelic, and Latin (or at least I could when I was younger - my skills have declined a bit with lack of use in recent years). I was once part of the Olympic archery program. I have competed in international competitions in mathematics, chemistry and physics. I spent several years studying the art of bonsai, and still maintain a small collection of specimens. I can play guitar, ukulele, piano, and bagpipes, and I am still working on learning the violin and the dizi flute. Over the years I have published a few books, and participated in musical recordings as an instrumentalist. As an artist and photographer I have produced over 100,000 images, some of which have been sold for books and magazines internationally. I am constantly exploring and seeking out new adventures and new challenges, and will likely continue that trend for the rest of my days.
That is my life in a nutshell.
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