--> Where did you grow up? What was your academic path? (e.g. Did you live in the same town all your life or did you move around; and if so, where? Did you go to community college or another school before this one?) I like to think of myself as a French-Canadian, being born in Montreal, but in all honesty I've bounced around quite a bit (especially in terms of school systems!). I moved to the Bay Area at a young age, going to an international school, took off for Paris for a year at a French school, moved back to Montreal for some Canadian school action, and then wound back up in the Bay Area at an all-American high school. Then came Berkeley, at which I have been for 2 years now! My French is a strange combination of the Parisian, American, and Quebecois accents... --> How much programming have you done (and what languages)? I really started enjoying programming Sophomore year of high school, the first year I was back in the States. The ease with which I could use java in those intro classes instantly hooked me, and a summer later I taught myself Objective-C, which I then used to perform some contract jobs and even teach it for a week at my high school! At Berkeley, I learned Scheme (though haven't used that much since 61A), got a lot of C/C++ experience (self-paced course, internship, research, 61c itself... now this TA job too hehe), and even picked up a bit of C# and Python. --> What are your hobbies? I play the Berkeley Campanile (the bells), volunteer at the Open Computing Facility (I cannot recommend this student group enough as an awesome way to learn UNIX and windows adminstration along with a huge amount of other useful technical information, the staff there are super smart and there is always lots to do [we have several thousand student users and host over half of student groups on campus!] long aside ends NOW), I like to play board games (Dominion is good, take a look at Twilight Struggle if you want something really intense), I also like computer games, and I enjoy going on backpacking trips and the like. --> What are some of your talents and skills? I speak French, I think I have a knack for CS, I can spin remarkably obfuscated and meaningless sentences in record time ("refactor key frames of the synergetic medium to further enhance end-point utilization..."), and I can ski very well (it's the Canadian blood). --> Have you done anything remarkable? Has anything really memorable happened to you? (e.g. travel, meeting famous people, 15 min of fame, inventions, overcoming adversity, etc.) For some reason I decided to found a newspaper in middle school. Had a staff of 15 students and got a community service award for that. I was also stranded in the Rockies for a couple days but that's a story for another time. --> What commitments will be consuming your cycles this term? (e.g. classes, jobs, family, commutes, volunteering, sports, student groups, etc.) This class! Along with research and whatever fun side projects I can think up!