About Me
Hi! My name is John Paul Helveston. I am currently a senior at Virginia Tech studying Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM), Chinese, and Music Performance. Home for me is Carrollton, VA, but Blacksburg is home while I’m in school.
As a senior, it is difficult to imagine where I will take my career next. I have a bad case of multiple interest disorder. I am interested in subjects ranging from renewable energy technology and energy policy to China to the arts. I see a need for technical minds in typically non-technical positions, such as government or public service positions, and am interested in starting a career there. I will graduate in May, 2010 with my undergraduate degree, then probably either go on to graduate school, find work in the States, or go back to China.
I took up Chinese at the beginning of my sophomore year in the fall of 2006. The next spring, I won the Horton Scholarhip, which provided me a unique opportunity to travel to China and complete a project of my own design. I chose to travel to Dalian in the summer to study language and culture at Liaoning Normal University, then to Shanghai in the fall to gain international engineering experience as an intern for General Electric. This project opened my eyes to a much larger world and was my first introduction to China (photos and blog posts from this trip can be found my China Page). After returning to the US, I applied for and was awarded a Critical Language Scholarship by the Dept. of State to study Chinese in Harbin, China during the summer of 2009. 
The experience made me fall back in love with the country and its people, prompting me to seek opportunities there after graduation.
Besides engineering and Chinese, I am also an accomplished musician. I have been playing piano since age 5. At the age of 11, I began
studying the violin, which quickly became my primary instrument. I have studied with the legendary Dora Marshall Mullins of Virginia Beach, VA, and I have played in multiple ensembles, including the Virginia Beach Symphony Orchestra (now “Symphonicity”) and the New River Valley Symphony, where I am currently seated at the first stand. Beyond the violin, I am also a self-taught guitarist and mandolinist.
My most recent interest is swing dancing. In the fall of 2006, I attended several swing dances hosted by the Virginia Tech Swing Club Soley Swing. I was quickly hooked, and by the end of the next semester was taking student-taught classes. 
Over the following summer of 2007, I traveled all over the south east U.S. going to workshops and dances every weekend while I interned with General Electric in Greenville, SC. By the end of the summer, swing had become a major part of my life. I now teach with Solely Swing at Virginia Tech and continue to travel to dances all over the country and the world. I primarily dance lindy hop, blues, charleston, and balboa. My latest swing dancing endeavors are going international, which include participating in the first ever Hong Kong Lindy Exchange in November 2008, and participating in the Pusan Summer Swing Festival and Jeju Swing Camp in South Korea in August 2009.
I hope to continually update this website as I travel around the world and encounter new experiences. Please enjoy my site and I would love to hear any feedback you may have (see my contact page). Cheers!
-John
About This Site
This website was built so the rest of the world could take a glimpse into my world; so friends can keep in touch and strangers can say hello. All visitors please feel free to send feedback or contact me any time!
That being said, I must pay my respects to those who unknowingly helped me create this site through their online tutorials and advice on web design.
First of all, this site was built using Wordpress, one of the most powerful and simple web design platforms out there. Many thanks to all contributors and designers who put this software together.
The site layout and design was built using Ian Stewart’s Wordpress Theme Framework Thematic, a truly remarkable open source Wordpress theme. With his documentation on Child Themes, I was able to completely customize his super flexible theme into what you see here. Thanks to Ian and all those using Thematic.
For added functionality, I used the following Wordpress plugins:
Askimet – An anti-spam plugin
Homepage Excerpts – Makes all but the most recent blog entry a short teaser
wordTube – A great video player plugin that uses the famous open source flash media player by Jeroen Wijering
Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form – Creates the cool contact form found on my Contact page
Last but not least, here are a few articles that made this site really become what it is:
How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The Smart Way, By Ian Stewart
Sliding Doors of CSS, by Douglas Bowman
