A Thought About Me

I'd like to welcome you to "A Thought for Your Yen", where I will take your Yen (that you got from "A Yen for Your Thoughts") in order to give you my thoughts. Don't worry though, a Yen has about the same worth as a penny so you will not be losing much.

My name is Kyle Nichols, I am 22 years old and this is my 5th year at GCC (yeah I've been here quite a while), I'll be writing about a number a topics here throughout the semester and relating them to my personal experiences or ideas. Since that is the case, I feel obligated to share some of my interests and opinions here so you can better understand my interpretations of certain subjects.

My major is currently linguistics. I am very interested in eastern Asian languages, especially Japanese. My interest in Japanese started with music, then anime, and finally grew to encompass the history and culture of Japan. One reason I was enamored with Japanese music was a technology called "Vocaloid", a vocal synthesizer made using samples from a singer's voice, and they also make cuter personas for each "Vocaloid." This is Hatsune Miku, one such "Vocaloid:"

I am currently learning Japanese and plan to travel to Japan to teach English. Maybe I'll come back to America, or maybe I won't. After I become fluent in Japanese I plan to learn Korean as well as Chinese.

My major wasn't always linguistics, I actually have an Associates of Science degree already. I was originally studying astrophysics, but after 3 years I decided that it was not a match for me. I decided to try learning a language because it was something that I had always wanted to try, so I decided to jump right into one of the hardest languages in the world. After a terrifying first week where everyone in the class seemed to know more than I did, I found out how much I enjoyed studying a new language.

I work at a bookstore and enjoy hearing about books other people have read as well as telling people about books I have read. I mostly read science fiction and fantasy books. My favorite book is The Martian by Andy Weir (yes, they also made it into a movie), it is about a man getting trapped on Mars.

Outside of work and studies, I enjoy playing video games and tabletop games. I play multiple games ranging from Dungeons & Dragons, to Battletech. I love painting miniatures (even though I'm not too artistically inclined). There is nothing that compares to settling down to a nice game of "kill everything your opponent owns" (read as Battletech or Warhammer: 40,000) when you've had a week of work and school assignments.

Now that I have shared a little bit about myself, I hope that my interpretations and opinions on matters discussed in the blog will be clear and relatable.