zhai mentioned a rating community to me called and said I might fit in with the group; the only other rating community I’ve experienced is . So I figured I’d give it a try; what follows is my application (including pictures), which was well-received. I’m sharing it here, though, because it’s surprisingly well-written and detailed; it took me a couple of hours this morning, mixed in with other stuff. So if you’ve ever wanted to know about Meredith the Geek, here she is. (Just in case the previous entry wasn’t enough, y’know.)

I’m Meredith, 24 years old, and I live in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. I am a certified sign language interpreter, which brings me to my first piece of geek cred: I interpret for Star Trek conventions. I do two a year - Farpoint and Shore Leave, both held at the same hotel near Baltimore. I’m there the whole weekend, and I’m not ashamed to tell my co-workers about it: I have fun at these conventions! I think a lot of interpreters would be mortified to be caught working a Star Trek convention, but I enjoy it. In order, my favorite Star Treks are: TNG, Voyager, TOS, DS9, and Enterprise. (I can come up with the title of pretty much any TNG episode after seeing just the teaser.) I am also big on Stargate, but not Stargate Atlantis.

I am a huge web geek - huge. On an average day I spend about six or seven hours a day on the web at work, and another four or five at home. A significant portion of this is spent tweaking, updating, and otherwise fiddling with my website; I used Movable Type for a couple of years and then about four months ago switched to WordPress. Most of my daily applications - to-do list, calendar, etc. - are maintained on my own website, and although I didn’t write most of them I know enough PHP to break them! Seriously, I am still learning PHP, but I have a very good command of HTML and CSS, and basic knowledge of XML. I am hoping to create a skin for the CSS Zen Garden soon, even though I’m not a particularly good graphic artist.

My feed reader contains the usual suspects - Engadget, Popgadget (hey, I’m a girl), TechCrunch, eHub, Metafilter, etc. I am turning into a big fan of Web 2.0; I like websites that help me do things while looking snazzy and adding cool features. I am a meta editor at the Open Directory Project, and I occasionally contribute to Everything2 and Wikipedia. I will sign up for just about any cool website I find that offers registration!

click to enlarge

I have never really gotten into downloading music and filesharing; music just isn’t a very large part of my life so I was never interested in downloading it. Gaming-wise, I am mostly a builder rather than a fighter or a commander - for example, my favorite parts of RollerCoaster Tycoon and the Sims are creating coasters, parks, and houses. Console gaming is limited to my PS2; favorite games are Tony Hawk, Katamari, and the Sonic Collection - I loved playing all the old Sega games and it’s great to have them on my PS2! Other old-school interests include vintage computers like the Apple IIe, games like Jill of the Jungle and Commander Keen, and the NES I used to have before I sold it to my brother-in-law.

In high school, I was on the It’s Academic (locally televised quiz show) team for all four years, and captain of the TV team (three students per team) for two years. I usually do quite well yelling out answers while watching Jeopardy at home, although I didn’t pass the preliminary test when they came to the area. Also in high school, I was the literary magazine editor, yearbook copy editor and (for one year) photo editor, and on both the math and debate teams. In both high school and college I played the double bass, and I love seeing female double bassists because we’re in the minority. In addition to fluency in ASL, I am pretty good in French and I have taken classes in Russian and Japanese; I also have done self-study of Italian and Esperanto.

A bit more on employment - I worked as a tech support specialist for three years before going crazy. Half of that time was for a private company where I did phone support; the other half was for a gov’t contractor and was about 50/50 phone and desk visits.

I also have specific topics about which I like to geek out. These include subways (particularly NYC), roller coasters, queer and trans history, Mount Everest, deafness and Deaf culture (of course), corsetry, and gymnastics. I can spend hours at a time looking at websites and absorbing information about these things. I am a licensed ham radio operator.

click to enlarge
larger version NSFW

Oh, one more thing - I dig emulating old gaming consoles/computers, playing Ultima IV, and things like that.