I'm a recent alumnus of the Nanotechnology Engineering program at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and I'm planning to start my Master's at the University of Toronto in the fall. Therefore, I'm taking advantage of my break during the summer to do some traveling around Europe since I've never been. My research is in nanomedicine: basically I make nanoparticles (small "spheres" about 0.00000001 metres across) to either diagnose or treat conditions on the surface of the eye.

When I'm not making or designing nanoparticles, I'm a big baseball fan (Blue Jays in particular) and played pretty competitively throughout high school (1st base and pitcher, in case you were curious). I'm also very interested in learning about different cultures and languages. During my undergraduate program, I had the chance to live and work in Suzhou, China for 8 months which was life-changing and really opened my eyes to the rest of the world. When I wasn't working on characterizing biomaterials at Soochow University, I spent the bulk of my spare time learning to speak and read Mandarin Chinese and absorbing as much of the Chinese culture as I could (...largely by way of food). It was my first international experience and in combination with the trips we did in and around China during that time, I fell in love with traveling and couldn't wait to do it again. I'm always interested in trying local foods and making an effort to respect the customs of that region instead of being an obnoxious tourist.

I also really love movies - pretty much all kinds except horror because I get really invested in movies and I'd rather not be scared out of my mind - and spoken word. I fell in love with hip-hop at a young age and kind of pivoted towards writing and performing spoken word (still love hip-hop, don't get it twisted). I've participated and placed in competitions in Toronto, although I haven't performed in awhile.

I can have some introverted tendencies but overall, I really just want to be everyone's friend. When I settle down and have my own place (hopefully in Toronto), I plan to host people as well.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I'm going on a 4-week solo trip around Europe from June 20th to July 18th and I really want to experience things from the point of view as a local instead of just the big tourist attractions. For example, underappreciated parts of a city or a small family-run restaurant that serves really good local food you can't get anywhere else. Additionally, since this is a solo trip, I'm hoping to meet some new people, expand my comfort zone, and exchange experiences and ideas.

Interests

• spoken word
• baseball
• american football
• cultural studies
• history
• science
• linguistics
• nanotechnology

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:
Hip-hop (Kendrick Lamar, Tech N9ne, J. Cole, Ab-Soul, Brother Ali, Logic, and like 100 more)
R&B (Daniel Caesar, John Legend, Akon, Kali Uchis)
Afrobeat (Antibalas, Fela Kuti)
open to pretty much anything, to be honest

Movies:
Inglorious Basterds
Interstellar
A Taxi Driver (Korean)
To Live (Chinese)

TV Shows:
Bob's Burgers
Marvel Netflix shows (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Punisher)
The Last Kingdom
Dear White People
The Get Down

Books:
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Love in the Time of Cholera
Lord of the Rings + The Hobbit + basically anything by J.R.R. Tolkien
Captain Underpants (you already know)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I hiked up a mountain (Huangshan) in a blizzard with some weak crampons. That was a pretty cool experience, although very nerve-racking too.

...and hopefully by the end of the summer, I'll be able to say I planned and executed a month-long solo trip around Europe!

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach/Learn:
- I'm well versed in nanotechnology (specifically nanomedicine and nanomaterials) if anyone is interested in learning more about that!
- I'm also very willing to be a conversation buddy for either French or Mandarin Chinese (my French is much better than my Chinese, admittedly), or English of course. Always down to learn new languages as well.

Share:
- Living, working, and traveling in China (and Southeast Asia) for 8 months without any previous international or linguistic experience. I owned a motorized scooter, conversed with locals, and had some really interesting cross-cultural experiences.
- Life in Canada, if you're interested! Tim Horton's, poutine, beaver tails, you name it...I just realized that's all food. We have other stuff too.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Dinner, drinks, good company, and maybe some Canadian memorabilia.

Countries I’ve Visited

Cambodia, China, Thailand, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, China