Lire cette première partie. Y la siguiente parte, I si ets prou intel´ligent pot moure a la següent and then you’ll reach Jean Paul’s final language in his quadrilingual repertoire.

Born in New York, Jean Paul moved to Mexico City, then to Barcelona where he graduated from a French high school and then took a trip back across the pond to find himself comfortably in Saint Peter, Minnesota at Gustavus Adolphus College.

“I guess maybe anyone who speaks four languages fluently and has lived all over the world is pretty cool, but JP is even better than that. He’s absolutely brilliant,”Senior Individualized major Catherine Keith said. He offers his multilingual abilities to the Spanish department as a tutor and can also be seen around the psychology department working in the labs.

This semester’s fall theatrical production is On Ego. It focuses on consciousness and identity of self, a theme any Neuroscience Major would thrive on. And to give the actors and director an alternative lens through which to view the text, JP is seen behind the scenes in the production of this play.

While the director handles the blocking and “use soft focus” aspect of creating the scenes, JP provides additional insight on a subject that may be overlooked by actors simply reading the text.

Having focused his studies completely on sciences for the last two years, the arts may come as a bit of a culture shock for anyone, but this opportunity has broadened JP’s spectrum of understanding in his area of study.

“I can’t act at all, but being involved with the play the way I am now allows me to give something useful and also see the whole creative process of theatre,” Jean Paul said.

With a future of research and hypotheses ahead, grad school must make its way onto

the horizon. Yet JP’s plan is to graduate this spring, at which time he will hop over to Europe where he intends to study for a year in the labs of Switzerland.

Speaking two of the four national languages is a valuable asset to possess in embarking into the laboratory studies of consciousness and various branches of metaphysics. With a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in mind, JP will find himself (in years’ time) Professor JP, Ph. D, teaching in a prestigious institution.

JP’s honors project is a continuation on research he began last summer while studying at Yale University, focusing on being meta aware, which in layman’s terms equals out to being aware of where your own awareness is.

“Right now I’m talking to you but at the same time I know that I am talking to you. It’s all about the extra step,” Jean Paul said. This level of third person awareness affects your perception of time elapsed in a certain event.

This semester JP’s project is going to test the last step of his previous hypothesis: the viewing of oneself from the third person. How does one view themselves from the third person?

Well, anyone who has ventured into the world of XBox or any sort of video game involving a person knows how they view their character, with an inexplicable set of eyes positioned conveniently three feet behind and a head above them, so you can see everything you’re doing.

JP plans to apply for a government grant that will allow him access to a pair of goggles equipped with very small screens that will stream live from a camera positioned behind and slightly above the individual, therefore creating a third-person experience.

“Having spent quality time with JP both in the library and on a semester in India, I realize how awesome it is to have such an amiable, scholarly and intelligent friend, making a mark on the Gustavus community,” Senior English Major Wade Underwood said. JP spent last fall on the Gustavus semester in India which helped shape the passion he has in social justice.

Gustavus offers a multitude of departments in which to be involved and Jean Paul finds himself comfortably positioned in Psychology and Neuroscience occasionally bumping over to the International Center and Spanish Culpepper Lab to tutor Spanish students.

Jean Paul hopes to tackle his Ph. D and lifelong research and teach his students as a professor to speak his four languages at leisure.

“I am so impressed that he took the risk to come to a completely unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people–he’s a Gustie now, and he always will be,” Senior Math Major Chloe Radcliffe said.