Introduce yourself: Your nerdiest/geekiest interests

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Reply with your name, what you prefer to be called, and one or more of your nerdiest/geekiest interests or hobbies.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

I’m Jeff Salbato (your teacher), but I prefer Jeff. You only need to introduce yourself in one of these sub-topics, but, because I’m the supposed leader here, I’ll post in all of them…

My nerdiest interests are philosophy, psychology, political theory, history, books, and languages. My geekiest interests are video games and board games.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.

[Autumn Snyder]

Hello, you may all address me as Autumn. I would say my geek side stems mostly from psychology and psychopathology. It is not what I am studying for school, which is Project Management, but knowing how the brain works and how it is formed, as opposed to shaped by reality as well as perspectives, is very interesting to me. I wouldn’t call myself a geek about it, but perhaps nerdy. Another interest I have is learning the types of coding languages. I wouldn’t consider myself to be actively learning the languages; however, the difference in commands within the functions vividly scratches the part of my brain’s dopamine receptors.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Autumn,

For years I used to teach a seminar called, “Understanding Evil”, and, over the years, it tended to focus on the more mundane causes of cruelty than the psychopathology. Studying things like Milgram’s experiment and the Holocaust, which we will study in this class this semester, makes you think that normal people are far more scary than the rare psychopaths.

My favorite book on neuropsych is Ramachandran’s “Phantom’s in the Brain”. But if you want one that is just really fun, try Sacks’ “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”.

Jeff

[Jerred]

Hey, call me jerred. My nerdiest interest is controversial nutrition. My favorite one is that you should eat a lot more salt.

[Tatyana Quintana]

Hi everyone my name is Tatyana, you can call me Taty for short if you want. Some hobbies I have that I guess you can call nerdy are gaming, reading, and art, mostly horror, mystery and fantasy genres of anything. I also like to shoot, my dad taught me since I was little how to use knives and guns so, that’s a little hobby I have too. Anything that involves or allows me to be creative I really enjoy.

[Destinee]

Hi, I am Destinee, Destinee is fine or you can call me Des for short if you want. Some of my nerdy/geeky hoobies or interests are: drawing, reading, psychology, music, and nutrition.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Hi Des,

Nice… I’ve got you on 2 of your 4: There is some good reading and psychology in this class.

I studied nutrition for a couple of years and my conclusion was that it is both easy and complicated at the same time. No one understands it well enough to know exactly which nutrients a person truly needs, but, luckily, simple food has everything you need. The best book, hands down, was the simplest one, and it is the only book that most health nerds have agreed on for years and years, as all the fads and new research keep changing: Pollan’s “In Defense of Food”. If anyone wants a preview of it, email me, and I can send you some excerpts.

Jeff

[Jose Ortega]

Hi Class, I’m Jose but I go by Joseph. I am studying Computer Information Systems here at CNM. I also work full time and am a parent. I love to cook, to travel, and love sports. I think it’s important to be able to try to take the time try to see other’s points of views. I look forward to learning lots in this class!

[Alexis Reyes]

Hey guys! My name is Alexis, though I go by Alex. I’m currently studying Physics at CNM with plans to transfer to UNM and pivot toward Astronomy. My interest naturaly lie in the cosmos. If I were to share a favorite concept, it would have to be about cosmic time scales and what thy reveal about the nature of existence. When we observe galaxies, we are seeing the light that left them millions or even billions of years ago, meaning we are literally looking back in time. The Andromeda Galaxy, for instance, appears to us as it existed roughly 2.5 million years ago. This makes me wonder what it even means for something to exist if we can only ever see it as it was, never as it is. And if we can never truly observe the present state of the cosmos, what does that do to our understanding of reality? I don’t think there’s a clean answer to this. To me, the uncertainty is what makes studying the cosmos fun!

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Alex,
Please recommend a good beginners astronomy book. I have Tyson’s “Starry Messenger” on my book list…is that a good one?
As for physics, my favorite book is written by a total weirdo who knew nothing about physics before he wrote it: Zukav’s “Dancing Wu Li Masters”.

[Alina Christensen]

Hi everyone,

My name is Alina. I like a lot of things. I didn’t consider myself a nerd until I started college. Before that, I was just a dweeb, but I have evolved into my final form: nerd, and I’m happy about it. I’m going to CNM for the physical therapist assistant program, but surprisingly, I’m having way more fun being a student than I could have guessed. I like the academic study of religion. I took intro to world religions and intro to ancient religions here at CNM and loved both classes. I think religion is fascinating because people are fascination and religion is the glitter of history: it’s everywhere. It’s in art and music and stories in beautiful ways, but it’s also in war and the darker parts of history of how humans have treated each other. It’s both. And it’s so important to people and means different things to every individual person. The first thing we did in intro to world religions class was to try to define the word religion. It’s difficult because you have to come up with a definition that includes and encompasses so many ideas and doesn’t exclude entire groups of people, but your definition can’t be so broad that you aren’t actually saying anything. My favorite youtube channel for learning more about religion from an academic and objective point of view is a channel called “Religion for Breakfast”. The video topics vary and go into some really interesting cultural ideas while always remaining respectful. Highly recommend checking that channel out. If I could take all the religion classes forever and be a forever student just learning as much as I can about various religious ideas people have had, I’d be very happy.

Other things I nerd out over are any kind of arts (I love learning more about different ways people create things), stories throughout history, mythology, biology and animals, human anatomy, and science. I love games, and food, and I’m a movie enjoyer. I also love musicals.

~Alina

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Alina,
My history is the same. Turning into a nerd as soon as you start college is perfect timing. Nerds have way better lives. There is no payoff for being cool in your 30s and 40s. While nerds have fun jobs and get to tell the cool kids what to do.
And I also studied religion for several years in my early career.

[Sarah Chaara]

Hi everyone, my name is Sarah, and Sarah is perfectly fine.

I am a returning student to CNM and to academia after nearly two decades away, which makes me feel a little like a geriatric freshman, but in the best possible way. I actually took a course with Professor Salbato, or Jeff, back in Spring 2007, and after many degrees and over 100 courses, his class still lands in my top ten courses of all time. That course helped instill a real love of philosophy, so even though I am returning to school as a career changer in tech, I decided to complete my Associate of Philosophy this term too. I wanted a space outside of the tech domain where I could keep asking bigger human questions.

I guess one of my main hobbies is learning. I hold degrees in Psychology, Marketing Management, Sociology, Criminology, Communication, Liberal Arts, and Political Science. This fall, I will be finishing Cybersecurity and Cloud Computing & Systems Administration, along with Pre-Law and Philosophy. One thing I will say is that as you get older, coming back to school feels like a wonderfully chaotic luxury.

Aside from collecting degrees like infinity stones, I have a lot of hobbies: gardening, cooking, cultures, history, art history, gaming, writing, music, film, photography, and languages. One of my long-term goals is to become fluent in at least five languages plus ASL, because apparently my brain looked at regular hobbies and said, “No, let’s make this a lifelong quest!”

My geekiest hobby is probably genealogy. I love tracing lineage and finding ancestral documents and in a strange twist, that research recently led me to discover that I apparently have Canadian citizenship through my ancestors who settled in Québec from France in the early 1600s.

I’m looking forward to the class and to reading everyone’s introductions! Wishing everyone an amazing semester!

[Alina]

Wow! That’s so cool, Sarah! I’m also a student returning to school, although this is my first experience in college. I’m 31 and didn’t know college was going to be way more fun than high school. I had no idea how much of a nerd I was going to become. I’m working towards an associates in physical therapy to become a PT assistant but I’m side questing my way though college and having a blast! Other side quests I’ve done so far have been world music appreciation, intro to world religions, intro to ancient religions, and now I’m side-questing intro philosophy whilst taking intro to psychology. I wanted to pair those two classes together. But now I’ve got a lot of reading planned for my summer. Should be fun!

[Sarah Chaara]

Hi Alina, nice to “meet” you!

I read your intro too, and I think we might be kindred spirits, though I imagine philosophy courses tend to attract the inquisitive side-quest people. I took World Religions a long time ago and loved it as well. I’ve always been especially interested in Eastern religions, partly because there is so much overlap between religion and philosophy, but lately I’ve also been learning more about traditions from African and South American cultures. I love trying to understand people, cultures, and the systems that shape how communities make meaning.

If you decide to take more academic side quests, I recently took COMM 2170 Intercultural Communication with Professor Lian Kim at CNM, and it was a really great course. If you ever wander over to UNM, I also loved World Literature I and II with Professor Breanna Sue Griego-Schmitt, Movies of the Middle East with Professor Heather Sweetser, and anything in Classics with Professor Monica Cyrino. I have mostly been in tech courses at CNM lately, so my recent humanities recommendations lean UNM, but CNM has honestly been one of my favorite places to take classes because so many professors still seem to genuinely love what they teach.

I also would not mind being a professional student. I think my family suspects that is basically what I am doing now because I have the next ten years of things I want to study swirling around in my head. As I get older, I may move more into auditing courses or taking free open university courses online. Have you ever tried those? If not, I definitely recommend them.

I’m glad you’re enjoying college, and I think experiencing it for the first time at 30 is actually a great time. I don’t think I valued the journey of learning as much when I was younger. I still care about grades, but not quite in the same soul-crushing way. During the final exam for Jeff’s course in 2007, I actually burst into tears because I was so stressed, so clearly I have grown… somewhat. :D

I’m excited to learn alongside you this semester!

[Author]

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