Other hobbies and interests

As you already know a lot about my IT related hobbies, a short note here concerning my other interests so that you don't think I'm a total geek (I bet you do either way).

• Economics (finance), law and a bit of mathematics
  • This is quite straightforward. I'm passionate about finance, this is my job, my studies and a big part of my life. Hard not to like it (otherwise there would be something wrong with my career path, I suppose). My strongest point is all around financial markets, though I think I have a decent base in general economics too (apart from macroeconomics, which I just can't grasp in a way I would like to).
  • I enjoy sailing into the waters of law related problems (not always connected with finance), mostly out of sheer curiosity, but in the end I'm no lawyer.
  • The same goes about maths - by "a bit" I mean more than bare minimum for economics (maybe towards quant in the future, who knows?), but way less than for an engineer. Though, when I look at mathoverlow.net, I think my math education ended at primary school level.
• Learning foreign languages
  • I've spent a lot of time on this, and I always liked it. ASP, Java and the like can pass, real world languages won't (talking about the big ones, right?).
  • More about my skills in this area at the bottom of this page. At the moment I'm in the defensive - trying not to forget what I've already learned.
  • Someday, I would like to grasp enough Mandarin to read a newspaper, but for the time being it's too big a time investment to spare.
• Books
  • Well, I like books in general. Reading, collecting - looking at my shelf it's probably the other way round. Now it's the boring (for a passer-by) professional stuff that mostly gets into my hands, in the past of course more technical. For fun I like reading fantasy, a bit of sci-fi and technothrillers.
  • More thorough information can be found in my goodreads profile.
• Music
  • Passive side: first of all - instrumental and electronic music. Plus a big portion of soundtracks. I won't say no to some good pop or 80's either.
  • There's not much sense in wrting too much here, just check out my Last.fm profile for detailed stats.
  • Active side: I used to play keyboard/piano in primary school. Let's be honest, not always passionate about it. Long ago, lack of formal training, so there's a lot to catch up, but once again - in small doses - it can be quite enjoyable. I'm occasionally fiddling with Reaper/NI KORE with no audible effects so far. Hopefully this will change.
• Sport
  • When it comes to team-oriented recreation, volleyball is the game. Active and passive.
  • Individually: recreational running at medium distances and skiing (a bit clumsy mix of carving and classic technique, no snowboard).
• Dancing
  • I had a very pleasant episode with ballroom dancing (amateur, purely for fun) and elementary salsa. Not dancing any longer, maybe sometime in the future.
• Photography
  • Unfortunately, it's more of a theoretic hobby. I really like to fathom the ins and outs of photography, but I lack the time and motivation for some decent scenery shooting. At least I will have something to do when I retire. ;-)