Puella Nivis
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Girl of the Snow
- Snowgirl was already taken, and I have a special place in my heart for Latin, which I don't speak too well. My name is Cassondra, that's pronounced /kɑ-sɔn-drɑ/ in case you're wondering. (Yes, I'm aware that my American ears are ill-equipped to hear the difference in English, but I am still allowed to dictate the proper pronunciation of my name!)
- My last name is quite uncommon in the US, and from Germanic origin, which is apparent from the "oe" in it. I often get asked how I pronounce it, and I tell them that the vowel is /oː/ not /eɪ/ like my parents say (it's a division in my family.) It is supposed to be pronounced: /ø/, which I occasionally tell people, and I've had an easier time getting Americans to produce /ø/ close enough that I can hear it correctly, than getting them to recognize the difference between /ɑ/ and /ɔ/
Linguistics
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Cognitive Linguistics
- What is language? How do we learn our native languages? Why are children so special that they can aquire languages so easily?
- Language Aquisition
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Comparative Linguistics
- Well, I'm a polyglot, of course it's cool to think about, and study how languages are different. Perhaps this is the most interesting part about languages. Why does Polish use the instrumental case for the predicate in a copula sentence, instead of the nominative (especially when English Grammar Nazis are so insistent upon saying that since "am/are/is" is an equal sign, they should match case on both sides)? How do German genders for various words vary from Romantic genders? (el Sol, but die Sonne, and la Luna but der Mond, are the most apparent answers I have so far.)
Computers
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Computational Linguistics
- Were there any doubt? I love compilers, and all sorts of linguistic details in Computers. It facinates me. I've primarily used computers as an extension of my linguistic endeavors even though my degree is actually in Computers, and not in Linguistics. Just more money in Computers. ;)
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Compiler Design/Implementation
- I work a lot with compilers and parsers, and retrieving data, I'm not very much so interested in moving natural language processing closer, but yet in pushing the boundaries of regularized instructional languages. (Often known as programming languages) I've invented a few languages here and there, and written parsers for a great number of languages, scripts and assemblies, and each generation gets more and more advanced.
- My primary interests are in the area of context-sensitivity, error recovery, etc. My biggest pet-peeve is "semicolon was expected." Well, if you expected it, and you knew where it was supposed to go, then why didn't you just warn me that it's not there, and continue on?
Biology
- My interest in biology is very recent. I was never particularly interested in biology, until I came to the point where it were obvious that my biological anatomy does not match my internal identity. I'm now in the process of transitioning to be a female to the world, and while it has been, is, and will be a difficult road, I'm very much up for the challenge, mostly because I just totally didn't fit right in my "original" state.
- Right now, I'm looking into the sexual hormones in humans, animals, and plants. I've been invited to contribute to the Estrogen articles, and I think I should be able to provide some good information there. :)
- I've also been on anti-depressants for most of my life, and learned a lot about male Anorgasmia for a Sexual Health college class. Not just from research, but also from personal experience from the drug Zoloft (which I hear works great, but I had too many side-effects).
- I have since developed latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, and have been on insulin therapy since 2016. It seems that perhaps during a particularly stressful moment of my life, it triggered an immune response, and my body picked up insulin as the target. I didn’t find out until a few months later, but I had the typical “cannot drink enough” symptom with accompanying high urine output that is not just characteristic of diabetes, but the actual named characteristic. My small foray into biology has helped me here identify a lot of details and mechanics behind how insulin-deficient diabetes works and affects the body.