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Hi hi, name's Kristel Tan (accent on the "tEl" =)) and I'm a Junior in BMC. If all goes accordingly, I'm going to be a Poli Sci major. I'm Chinese-Filipino, born and raised in the Philippines. 

I do tend to link everything I know/read about/find out about together, and I find it absolutely fascinating to be doing exactly this in class. Trying to come up with three separate questions to explore for the semester is almost impossible for me (because as I've mentioned, they do tend to bunch together in my mind), so I'm going to summarize all those questions into one word: culture. The whole idea of culture and how it links with biology captivates me. I've grown up my entire life in an international school, surrounded by people from all walks of life, many of whom don't have a permanent "home," other than their families and passports. What I want to explore particularly from the overarching question of biology and culture are: 1) language and how it is affected by one's biology (Janice and Maria already mentioned this)--think of the Khoisan languages, and also to take it further, language of non-Homo sapiens. 2) How other people from other cultures think very differently--nature vs. nurture? Are there some things wired specifically in the brains of a certain race of people? Or are we more or less the same at birth, and the conditioning comes from our upbringing? 3) Handwriting. This is a little off topic from culture (but I'm sure we can find some link to that), but the idea that personalities can be read in a person's handwriting has always intrigued me. Is handwriting really a reflection of character traits, or is it learned throughout one's lifetime? I know in local school in the Philippines, they condition you to write a certain way, so some graduates of a school all have the same handwriting.

I could go on and on, but I think I'll leave it to that because there are other very interesting questions that have been posted already. I look forward to a v. stimulating semester.

Cheers!