CURRENT MISSION

Cut down the largest tree in the world and replace it with a statue of myself cutting down the tree

ABOUT ME

I might well have ended up in some more artistically focused profession, but I got tricked into Electrical Engineering / Computer Science since I'm good at math and there are large sums of money being disbursed to the mathematically inclined**. After 12 total years of undergrad+grad school, I finished my PhD at UC Berkeley, and I'm now teaching Computer Science at Princeton. Though, I really enjoyed my time in grad school, but my new entirely-teaching based job is totally amazing and the best,

My favorite activity is probably talking to strangers and trying to get a good bidirectional joke avalanche going, though I'll settle with good conversation of the non-joking variety.

The downside of this is that if I go to a major event of any kind, my experience often feels incomplete unless I meet at least one new person. Consequently, I've spent a lot of time cold approaching interesting looking strangers and trying to get a good conversation going. It is a harrowing task, but one that I love.

Two Anecdotes:

Recently, when we were headed to Morocco, we heard that children like to accost every foreigner in sight, asking for money or candy. In preparation, we drew a number of mythical animals of our own invention, and whenever said Moroccan children would ask us for something, we'd give them a drawing. They were very confused.

During the new student orientation at the beginning of the year, we took over the official Barnes and Noble table since nobody was using it, and put up our signs for our own organization. We claimed that we were trying to restore student's medical marijuana privileges, and distributed fliers which explained that:

1. Student IDs used to work a California medical marijuana card
2. Students were allowed to grow one plant per person
3. Medical marijuana had been available to students during finals week
4. All of these privileges had been revoked the month before due to political pressure

We got over 200 signatures, and a number of people very excitedly set off on their own to gather more for forwarding on to the UC Board of Regents.

**: Note: I have heard a rumor that from a stationary observer's perspective, grass has a more greenish hue from a distance than up close.

PHILOSOPHY

Do awesome shit.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Hosting is tricky, but I really like showing people around.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Stayed with a dude in Berlin. I forget his name but it was awesome. Stayed with a daughter of a judge in Istanbul in a high rise building filled only with judges.
Met a lot of Moroccans in Morocco.
Had a Danish stay with us one time, and she was the best.

Interests

Unexpected public performances (particular ones that take a ton of work for a very small audience), absurdist art, random adventures, meeting people who are massively idiosyncratic, science

• animals
• arts
• socializing
• drawing
• computer science
• engineering
• mathematics
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Royal Tenenbaums, Annie Hall, Wet Hot American Summer, The Darjeeling Limited

Music: Justice Bieber

Books: Black hawk DOwn the book by Milan Kundera. The adventures of Jorge Luis Borges. Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. Don DeLillo.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Falling off a 4.5m to 6m cliff, luckily I did not die.

Being surprised by a wave on one of the Mokulua islands and getting dragged across a bunch of sharp volcanic rocks. Then having two of this waves big brothers knock me further down the rocks. Miraculously did not die.

Waimea during the 2009 Eddie.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you how to burrow. Together we can build an underground civilization.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belize, Cambodia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States