EDITED to reflect the state of my life as of December 2015 (at least this isn't as late as my last update)!

I officially declared my LJ to be semi-friends-only (which means that about half of the posts are friend-locked) on May 6, 2009. This was merely formalizing what had been my practice for quite some time... but these days, unlocked posts from me are rare.

In my journal, I post about the following things:

I) RL: This journal was established in early 2002 (when I was a 17-year-old Harvard sophomore) to talk about the events of my life (in a sarcastic, snarky tone), and even now, this is by far its primary purpose. For a brief summary, I was in academia for a long time (PhD earned from UCLA in 2011 followed by 2 years spent in 3 postdocs - with my first having been at the MSRI in Berkeley for fall 2011, my second being eight months in Helsinki in 2012, and my third involving two quarters teaching at UCLA and finishing a research program at IPAM... which marked closing of a long chapter of my life.

After finishing that final postdoc at UCLA in the summer of 2013, I spent a year in London trying to switch gears, ultimately earning a masters in econometrics and mathematical economics from LSE. The DAY after I took the final exam for that degree (pulling a 73 on that particular exam is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life ;)) I finally received a phone call I had awaited for two years: the first post-academic job application I had submitted had finally come through.

So I moved back to Maryland, where I grew up, to start my first non-academic, 'permanent', job as an applied 'mathematician'. My job can be ironically described as 'rent-a-genius', though for a number of reasons I don't go into too much detail about it on this blog. I've been working at this job for over a year, though I moved from Baltimore, MD to Arlington, VA at the end of June (my first move PURELY based on 'where I want to live' in my entire life!)

That said, I am also interested in economics (and the subtle skill of passing actuarial exams) and am not 100% sure which plan will FINALLY end up coming to fruition. I am 31 years old and male. As proud as I am of my physical appearance, I eat very indulgently (and will often talk at length about particularly delicious foods). That said, I learned back in late 2009 that what I thought was 'YES! I'm in shape!' was really 'being kept unnaturally thin by a condition so embarrassing that people refer to it by its initials'.

II) HP fandom: I have been an active member of this fandom since July 23, 2007 (yes, this is the correct date) and am a proud member of two sorting communities. As many of my LJ friends are part of these communities, I will often refer to them from time to time. To be honest, though, the fandom seems to be growing stale; while I HOPE to meet awesome new Slytherins, they seem to be few and far between...

III) Politics: I rarely talk about politics on my LJ, and when I do, it's usually exclusively for the purposes of snark and sarcasm. In general, I am extremely socially liberal (after twelve economics courses including a full year masters, I still lean liberal economically as well ;-)) and generally identify with the Democratic Party.

I will not defriend you merely because you disagree with me; being a douchebag, on the other hand, is a different story...

IV) Religion: I talk about religion even less than I talk about politics on here. I am a mildly observant Jew (in other words, I keep Passover, but do NOT keep kosher). If forced to pick a denomination, I would go with 'Reform', but that doesn't mean I agree with anything that the denomination does...

(Note that my 'defriend' disclaimer for politics also applies for religion; being a douchebag is still prohibited. That being said, my favorite anti-Semite is Eric Cartman.)

NOTE ALSO:
A) I love receiving comments; feel free to comment on any of my entries whenever you think you have anything to say! (In particular, definitely comment to this post when you friend me).
B) The content in my journal, on average, would generally rated BBFC 15, which means the following:
( What does 15 mean? )

Should I feel the need or urge to go far beyond BBFC 15, I will warn you in the subject line.
B1) If you wish to use this journal to send me porn, it had better be done well... and all the characters involved should be ATTRACTIVE!

C) Out of respect to those of my readers who aren't interested in reading about particular topics, everything from II)-IV) (and everything which is long in I)) will be put under LJ-cuts. I also often put lots of topics in single post; this, together with the LJ-cuts, ensures that your list will not be clogged by stuff you don't want to read!

D) Those who want to learn what really makes me tick would probably do best by looking at my sorting questions tag and my Q&A tag (note that the ACTUAL name for the tag is in Finnish. ;))

E) For a more detailed read on some of the things that make me tick, go read this piece and this interview, though they may be a bit dated by now!