The Short Story
My name is Nilus Klingel. I am 17 years old, and will be a high school
senior come September at Sachem High School North. I don't have much of a
physics or math background, my main scientific concentration having
been marine science. However, I am interested in lots of stuff, like
architecture, photography, music, current events, and of course,
technology. I hope to use those interests to my advantage here this
summer when as I develop a research project.
The Long Story
My name is Nilus Klingel. I am 17 years old, and will be a high school
senior come September. I attend one of the largest schools in the state,
Sachem, specifically at Sachem High School North, where I am student body
president. I have had a great experience there, and have gotten a very
interesting and diverse education on a great deal of subjects, save
physics and calculus... a difficulty I will have to overcome here at the
Lab this summer, by learning as much new material as I can, and
incorperating related interests that I understand already.
I have many interests unrelated (or at least, seemingly unrelated) to
optics, particularly architecture, in which I hope to persue a career down
the road. Some schools of architecture that I would love to study at are
Columbia University, Pratt Institute, MIT, and of course, the reknowned
Cooper Union. My preferences in archtecture tend towards the
contemporary, possibly even the post-modern. I really admire the work of
architects of the bauhaus, like Mies van der Rohe. However, I am
sometimes startled by that architectural ethos' starkness or sometimes
plain ugliness; many times, it is uninspiring, as I see in the work of
Philip Johnson, which is very hit-or-miss in its artistic effectiveness.
In my own architectural musings, I tend to take components of this form,
and combine them into an ecclectic style, to try and prevent that
uninspiring result. Oh, and I also like Frank Gehry's work; who
doesn't?
I am also very interested in photography, and spend much of my spare
time
with camera in hand. I use a Nikon D70 digital SLR, and have 3 lenses: a
60mm f2.8 for close-ups, an 18-70 mm f4.5-5.8G DX Zoom-Nikkor for
semi-wide angle and general shots, and most heavily, a 70-300 mm Nikkor
super-telephoto. I find the artistic process to (and intellectual
approach of) photography as fascinating as the equipment (and the science
behind it). I think that fascination is partly why I'm here this summer,
and I hope to use it in developing a good project.
In the past, I have dabbled in cartooning, taking classes at Hofstra
University on traditional cartooning, as well as computer animation. I
also did a great deal of webdesign, having at one time gathered together
several similarly-interested peers into a design collective, first called
Tier7 (there were seven of us) and then Myriad Publishing, when I tried to
turn the idea into a viable commerical project. I learned a lot about
working not just with websites, but also with people, but I see with the
advantage of retrospection that my efforts where very naive, and, in a lot
of ways, childlishly unsophisticated. To be fair, I was a child.
Nowadays, I find I don't have the same time as I did then to learn the
latest internet conventions, or do my own modifications on my computer,
and have since fallen out of the loop when it comes to technology. Having
once been able to slave harddrives or draw up websites quickly, I find
that I've lost that knowledge, and even if I hadn't, it'd be obsolete
anyway. However, I'm inclined to play-catch up, and I even still run my
church's website, and am working with a liturgical vestment maker in
Toronto on a new online catalogue.
Other things I've been keeping myself busy with lately include
participation in Sachem's marching band (I play the bari sax), as well as
a whole range of other groups in my school, from competing in DECA (a
business-type club... I won 1st in the state with my partner Katie
Kanakos, in their E-Commerce competition this past winter) to being
secretary of our school's BLT (an administrator/teacher/parent/student
group involved in bettering the quality of school life... kinda). I play
the piano, as well as conduct my church's choir when a substitute's needed
(I'll be filling in for the rest of the summer) I also publish its
bi-monthly newsletter. There's always something to do, to be sure.
Now the obligatory paragraph on personal preferences: in terms of
music, I have an ecclectic taste, but that's the state of affairs in the
iPod era. It's got a heavy concentration of classic rock, more in the
ilk of the Eagles and Led Zeppelin, not quite the Beatles. As far as
classical music, I'm more drawn to Rachmaninoff and the Russian school, as
opposed to Bach and the Western European crew. However, most of all, I
think my favorite music is by the contemporary 'classical ' composers like
Philip Glass and Arvo Part. In terms of movies, I'm somewhat ecclectic
there too; I like anywhere from Miyazaki to Monty Python, but in general,
I tend to like what some might call 'art house' films, in that tight,
disapproving way of 'theirs'. TV? Well, I pretty much don't watch TV,
save the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Otherwise I listen to, and many times
get frustrated with, NPR.
In terms of future goals, I'd like to go to college and study
architecture, and then go to seminary, getting a masters of divinity, and
hopefully being ordained a priest (it is not uncommon for priests of my
denomination to be married, as well as to hold secular employment) In the
mean time, I hope to have a fruitful stay at the Laser Center this
summer... I enjoy having a very diverse range of experiences, and gaining
a better understanding of all things through having a broad view of the
world. I hope to better that understanding and knowledge this summer
through working on my project.
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