Hobbies
Violin, guitar, cooking, table tennis

Clubs
Physics team, Quiz Bowl Team, Science Bowl Team, Orchestra, Choir

Experience
Micron Science and Technology Scholar, Intel Science Talent Search Semifinalist, US Physics Team 2004, Research Science Institute Scholar, National Science Bowl Champion, All State Academic Team Member, and a few others less important and even less concise

Biography
Born in Honolulu in 1987, I have lived in Germany, Central Virginia, and Northern Virginia, where my family's peregrinations have come to an end. I don't remember all that much about my childhood, that dark and blurry time before I could read English or employ even differential calculus, but it included one event that commenced my longstanding relationship with that most elegant of the sciences, physics. Sometime around the age of six, I saw the movie Top Gun (a consummate work of modern cinema, I might add), and was very much impressed by the sound track, the loud noises, the jet engines, the trash talking, and the cool call signs (Goose was my favorite, may he rest in peace). I was, in fact, so impressed that I decided then and there that I wanted to become a fighter pilot. My parents told me that my height at adulthood might exclude me from such an occupation (a wise deception), and thoughtfully suggested I consider a career in aerospace engineering instead. I bought that, and knowing such work would involve physics, checked out a children's book on relativity (perhaps I was subconsciously looking toward work in interstellar travel, or perhaps just found the book jacket visually appealing). Several well illustrated thought experiments and a graphic of the rubber sheet model later, I was hooked. Since then I have undergone a physics metamorphosis of which I scarcely thought I was capable. It has helped me pay for college, and has landed me in some of my life's most intense and amazing experiences at last year's physics camp and RSI. A small measure of modesty and a greater dearth of impressive achievements require that I not rattle off a string of awards and honors, but rather list here those things that I care about and enjoy: my school's well-traveled quiz bowl team, of which I am co-captain and tournament director; the violin, of which I am a semi-mediocre student; classical music, of which Bach and Mozart are my favorite composers; the glorious popular music of the 60s and early 70s that has driven me to pick up the guitar and learn to sing; American cinema, be it plebeian (Top Gun) or slightly more cultured (Casablanca); table tennis, in which I play a basement-owning, but relatively uncompetitive two-winged looping game; poetry, of which I enjoy Frost, Pope, Eliot, and Verlaine; drama, of which I prefer Wilder and O'Neill; cooking, in which classic French and Southern Italian are my favorite cuisines; and not the least physics, especially as explained by Richard Feynman, David Griffiths and my teacher, Dr. John Dell. I am looking forward to this camp—the pristine chalk-ready slates of the University of Maryland, the satisfaction of handing in artfully presented exam solutions, the sublime coherence of laser light in a dim room—and to semesters upon semesters spent studying this beautiful subject.