Meet James Fredericksen, our Summer Intern

Hi, my name is James Fredericksen, I currently attend Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and am probably going to major in History, and minor in Art History, but as of now I am undeclared. I went to Menlo-Atherton High School, and grew up in Menlo Park. I played quite a variety of sports growing up, everything from soccer and basketball, to fencing and water polo. The sport I played the longest was tennis, although I never really was very good.

Perhaps my worst habit is reading, I only sometimes read a book during the day time, but at night, I will pick up a book and lay down and suddenly its 2 or 3 in the morning, and I have to know what is going to happen in the next chapter. My favorite book genre is Sci-fi and Fantasy, especially the Dresden Files, the Belgariad, and Mortal Engines, along with quite a few others unmentioned. My love of reading is due, in part, to having read too many of the Redwall series as a child. As a result of all of this reading, I found myself landed in an internship at Kepler’s Books.

In my free time, I find myself either reading, or with friends doing a wide variety of things that can only be described as “hanging out”, or, admittedly, playing computer games. Other things I like doing are hiking and juggling, although regrettably not at the same time.

Another love of mine is listening to music, everything from country to electronic to metal. I was raised on rock and a bit of country with artists like Warren Zevon, John Prine, and Bruce Springsteen. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone keeps switching songs halfway through the song, which kills the experience of the music. As Shakespeare said, “If music be the food of love, play on”. Once I find a song or a band that I really like, I have a habit of listening to that one song or band for sometimes weeks at a time until I either find a new band, for example Mad World, by Gary Jules. Some of my favorite bands are The Cat Empire, Counting Crows, Dark Tranquility, Coultan, Kamelot, Nightwish, and Pendulum with a wide range of other bands and songs.

I hope you enjoyed hearing just this little bit about me!