An introduction (biography?)

["Ian Bicking" <bickiia@earlham.edu>]

I'd be curious to see more people's biographies, since otherwise 
my notions of who other people are will be very vague.

Because it seems appropriate, I'll do my own:

I just graduated from College last December, with a degree in Math 
and Computer Science.  I was feeling pretty unsure about what I 
wanted to do -- thought about graduate school, a programming job, 
maybe volunteering abroad, and finally decided I wanted to go into 
education.  I've thought about it many times in the past, but then 
other interests have distracted me... I guess that's why I don't have 
a teaching degree or certificate :-/

I've been using Linux for a couple years now and love it, but it's 
definately the idealism behind free software which most appeals to 
me, ever since I stumbled upon the GNU Manifesto while I was 
using Emacs back in high school.  And education, both monolithic 
and noncompetitive, seems like the most potentially successful 
area for free software.  Potentially -- but it hasn't even really started 
yet.

Right now I have what is mostly a transitional job in the public 
schools.  "Computer Lab Para III" -- I think it's the III that really 
gives it a spiffy ring.  I hang out with a lot of kids, who use ever-so-
fragile Macs.  The job is more about the kids than the computers, 
and I don't even really have the authority to do anything about the 
computers even if I wanted to... but I understand the computers, it's 
the kids that I'm learning about -- especially how they act in 
numbers...

In the fall I plan to move somewhere else with my girlfriend -- 
Chicago or Boston, I think (opinions welcome :) -- and find a better 
job, stop living with my parents, and all that "independant" stuff :P  
The public schools grow increasingly frustrating, so I might look 
elsewhere.

So how about you?



--
Ian Bicking <bickiia@earlham.edu>