CURRENT MISSION

to completely, and irrevocably, exhaust my life

ABOUT ME

my friends would probably say i was born from the colour red. a touch of weirdness to a (tea)cup of awesomeness. i have a constantly renewing thirst for life born from a time when i wanted to give up on life. the world is so beautiful and as the quote goes, in my meek rephrasing - if you've only stayed in one place, you've only read one page of the book.

PHILOSOPHY

let the chips fall where they may. ergo, don't plan too much. your plans are going to change anyways. the most fun things in life aren't planned, and i'm glad it's that way.

love yourself, love others. if not, you'll be really unhappy.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

i haven't actually surfed or hosted anyone yet. but i am taking a trip around lower b.c. in early august, so maybe that will change. :D

11 aug 2012 EDIT: i have just returned from my early summer backpacking trip around the okanagan and IT WAS BLOODY FANTASTIC! couchsurfed almost every night and had the best experiences with my hosts. all of them were so accommodating. loved them!

20 aug 2012 EDIT: will be going off on another backpacking trip tonight. getting back on september 2nd. going around the neighbouring three provinces - can't wait!! :DD

2 sept 2012 EDIT: just came back from my second backpacking trip today and i feel accomplished! traveled solo across four provinces, in 12 days. saw the major cities, loved some, hated calgary. it's always great getting away and forgetting all the stupid drama back home. i feel like i become a much happier version of myself out on the road. :)

boxing day update (26 dec 2012): am happy to announce that i am going on a tiny asian adventure. by tiny, i mean i'm only visiting hong kong and japan, maybe indonesia, during my three-month vacation back home. i'm going to be visiting family in malaysia and singapore. stopping over in hong kong on the first leg of the trip in january; hopping onto japan on the way back. this is really exciting (and TERRIFYING) for me because i've never backpacked internationally by myself before. okay, i guess you could call backpacking in canada backpacking internationally, but i've been based in canada for a year before that so it doesn't really count. i've only transited in hong kong and japan before so they are completely different realms of this universe to me, haha. EXCITED, a bit panicked about planning the trips, but you know, no matter how much you plan, you gotta wing some to most of it in the end. CHEERS!

4 march 2013: forgot to update this earlier. anyways, i was in hong kong for three days, but i stayed in a hostel at night instead of couchsurfing, 'cause i wanted to see what all the fuss about hosteling was. hong kong was nice, i was quite taken with the city when i first got off the bus. it's one of those cities where the lives of the locals just hit you in the face the moment you get off the bus. nice country.

10 july 2014: I have been traveling in Europe since the 1st of May and I am unstoppable! I've couchsurfed in London, Glasgow, Bratislava, Berlin, Copenhagen, Krakow, Cieszyn thus far, and I've been to the UK, the Czech Republic (was studying in Prague for two months), Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and am now in Lithuania! Ten countries so far. Looking forward to seeing more of this beautiful, diverse, incredible world. Stuns me every day. :))

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

2-10aug 2012: went backpacking around the okanagan area and couchsurfed 8 nights out of 9. awesome experience. :)) went out sea-dooing with my awesome hosts in vernon; steered a boat for the first time in my life; camped out on chute lake under the prettiest stars and with someone i could spend hours talking to... the greatest experiences ever.

21aug-1sept2012: went backpacking across four provinces, met the coolest people - while couchsurfing and while on those disastrously long greyhound rides and on the street -, had some great conversations and got away from it all. =)

EDIT: as of the 18th of June 2014, I have been to quite a few new cities in Europe! Starting in May, spent about two weeks in the UK, visiting London, Stonehenge in Salisbury/Amesbury, Shrewsbury, Glasgow and Edinburgh - so much fun, I've completely fallen in love with the UK. Am in my second to last week of field school in Prague, an epically beautiful city that I will miss dearly when I depart. I've gotten used to jetting off for the weekend and then coming back to Prague to just relax and lay low, and Prague has always been there for me... It will be sad to leave it. On the weekends, I've been to Bratislava, Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen (did the Helsingor-Helsingborg-Malmo circuit, so both Denmark and Sweden) and been to quite a number of Bohemian towns. Life has been amazingly epic so far, and will continue to be for the next two months!

Some highlights - understanding homelessness for one night in Helsingor when I couldn't find either a hostel or a couch host and slept on a ferry and got kicked off the ferry and subsequently slept on a bench by the ocean. Another highlight was spending four hours standing at the side of the road, just thumbing it to Berlin. Took a long time to get a ride, surprisingly. But I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world - they've made me proud to be myself. :)

EDIT as of 27 Sept 2015: I'm about to move across the country! I'll be leaving Vancouver, my beautiful home for the last 4 years, and heading across the mountains, spending two weeks for the Dark Sky Festival in Jasper, to arrive in Toronto in time for Halloween. The plan is to wwoof in Eastern Ontario, hopefully getting to check out the Thousand Islands, and then hopefully get a job at a ski lodge over the winter before heading to Toronto or Montreal for an editorial internship (if I get one, haha). I'm excited! The world is full of infinite possibilities. :D

EDIT as of 4 August 2016: Wow, the last year really didn't go as planned. Four days into my Jasper 'retreat', I met a guy that derailed me off my tracks, and took me on an adventure. That's when I learned that sometimes the adventure lies not in a place, but in a person. We road-tripped around the states for 2 months, then dipped down to Chile and Argentina for three months (he went to Antarctica; I went cycling solo through the pampa lands of Tierra del Fuego for three weeks). We thought that was the end of our adventures together, that it was the last time we'd ever see each other. He flew off to Europe and I worked on an island in Canada, but things happened and he came back into my life again. Funny how things happen. Now, I'm finally in Toronto, to live there, after a year of 'moving'. 2016 has been crazy so far. It's honestly been a wild roller coaster ride.

visited 28 states (12.4%)Create your own visited map of The World or Amsterdam travel guide for Android

visited 4 states (30.7%)Create your own visited map of Canada or another interesting project

visited 7 states (14%)Create your own visited map of The United States or another interesting project

Interests

i love nature. love standing at the precipice of a mountain and seeing the tiny details of a sprawling valley/town/lake. i love endless, aimless drives down a scenic highway. i love looking up at the stars and the moon, lying on a blanket with some hot chocolate. i love anything that makes life seem worth it, that increases the amazing beauty of the world. i like talking to new people and meeting new friends and putting myself out of my comfort zone and being ALIVE.

• books
• beauty
• festivals
• chocolate
• walking
• boating
• traveling
• drawing
• piano
• backpacking
• skiing
• boxing
• tourism
• volunteering
• wwoof
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Too many, man. Too many. And when asked, I can never answer.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

i recently went to mount tzouhalem, located in the small town of duncan on vancouver island, canada. it's a mountain relatively untouched by humans, with little evidence that people have gone up there besides a cross at the precipice and a barren path leading up. the view from the top is AMAZING. my breath was taken away. and we had climbed up when sunset was approaching, which only bathed the view in even more vigorous colour and shading. i LOVED it.

Teach, Learn, Share

my special talents include:
how to draw really ugly pictures
playing the piano
failing epically at rapping
facebook spamming people's pages
being a walking contradiction

What I Can Share with Hosts

I'm super energetic (most of the time anyways) and I'm good at listening. I'm funny (or at least, as people have told me, I like to think I'm funny, haha) and I'm interested in anything you could say, no judgments at all. I used to volunteer at a crisis/distress centre, talking with people who were suicidal or depressed, so I kind of have a ear for things. Yeah.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Singapore, United States

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