User:Olaf Stephanos

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Welcome to my user page.

I am a Finnish university student of cultural history, comparative religion and development studies -- Bachelor of Arts, pursuing a Master of Arts degree.

In addition, I play the piano (and get paid). I study jazz, but lately I've been more interested in Renaissance and Baroque style classical music, especially J.S. Bach's motets, inventions and the prodigious preludes and fugues of Das wohltemperierte Klavier. I also sing basso in two choirs.

Jusqu'à l'été prochain, je demeure dans la charmante ville de Strasbourg pour étudier l'histoire à l'Université Marc Bloch.

Olaf Stephanos is my pseudonym in Wikipedia. It is not my real name, but it's derived from my first and second names.

While I enjoy reading all kinds of Wikipedia articles, my chief interests and contributions are related to the horrendous persecution of Falun Gong, other human rights issues, history, and religions in general. I've been a frequent visitor and contributor since April 2005.

[edit] Trivia

What a freak

I've never had a phobia for snakes, but I used to be terribly afraid of giant hogweeds, garden angelicas and burdocks.

Everybody in my family, including all of my grandparents, have been enthusiastic scouts. After being pressured to attend summer camps and scout meetings as a little misfit boy, I developed an intense repugnance to nationalism and the army style. The first years of my adulthood had a lot to do with processing this trauma. Nowadays I feel that I've gotten closer to a reflective equilibrium.

I think that a lot of the reductionism in contemporary science is just an attempt to sweep the anomalies under the carpet. No conspiracies here, though. On a lighter note, see Hanlon's Razor.

A lotus flower emerges from the mud

Fugue in Ab major from the Well-Tempered Clavier, part II, manuscript

I used to listen to black metal as a young teenager. Slowly I became something like a hippie. Unfortunately, dejected hippies have a tendency to blame the society around them for not playing it cool. After a period of unsightly self-reflection, I thought that I'd better start shoveling my own dunghill. The shovel proved astoundingly good. [1]

Bach is unquestionably my all-time favourite composer, but I relish Beethoven and Debussy as well.

I've owned a modem since 1993, and I operated a BBS in the mid-1990's. The olden days of yore...

My parents have a golden retriever, and I frequently take care of her.

My old upright piano, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, is rumoured to have been bought by Jean Sibelius as a gift to his niece. But its machinery has been renovated.

I'm also a happy owner of a Roland RD-700 SX keyboard. It's really good!

I have a weakness for the Finnish wood sauna.