Hey there! I'm a graduate student currently doing an MA Philosophy at the University of Ottawa. I was born in Tallinn, Estonia, and moved to Vancouver, BC with my family when I was two, where I grew up before going off to Ottawa for my BA back in 2013. I'm still here, but intend to leave for more European pastures once I graduate. Alongside the master's degree, I'm also a teaching assistant at the university and a research assistant for the SSHRC-funded project "La philosophie à l'Académie de Berlin, 1745-1804". As you might imagine, the above is what takes up virtually all of my time--I tend to spend more of my waking hours in my office than anywhere else, and it's not unusual for me to not go out for weeks at a time.

While I used to travel quite extensively (hitchhiking being my favourite method), these days I'm more of a homebody and a scholar focused on his long-term goals, and my life revolves largely around doing work relating to my philosophical interests, making music (I play guitar), and cooking. While I am comfortable with putting travel on the back burner for a little while, I do miss the interactions with incredibly varied kinds of people, and so I've been wanting to become a more active host to let the travel come to me, as it were.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I started couchsurfing back in 2015 during my year abroad in Brussels. Time and time again, throughout all my travels in Europe, the kindness of strangers got me out of many jams and allowed me to do things and see places that otherwise I wouldn't have been able to due to financial restrictions, and have a better time than staying in hostels to boot. Once I came back to Canada I started to host people (sparse as they are in a town like Ottawa) and it's always been a great experience and memory. Once you get a few drinks in me I will no doubt start going off about how my couchsurfing activity has a serious philosophical undertone which revolves around breaking down the cold distance created between people by modern liberal individualism and late capitalist consumer culture.

Interests

My big passion in life is philosophy. My influences range from more or less every tradition and period; some of the philosophers who have strongly influenced my own thought include Plato, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Foucault, and Camus, as well as mysticism and Eastern philosophy, though with respect to my thesis the names always on my lips are Martial Gueroult, Charles Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre. My thesis (I'm glad you asked) consists in trying to forge a new definition for philosophy rooted in an analysis of its history.

Beyond that, I like to read in general (literature, poetry, history, etc.), cook, listen to and play music, and box. I'm also a fan of stand-up comedy; I used to perform but these days I'm too occupied with my other work to find the time to write jokes. I love film, and dabbled in it for a little while, but these days I simply don't even watch as many movies as I'd like to.

• writing
• literature
• cooking
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• boxing
• history
• philosophy
• hitchhiking
• film
• stand-up comedy

Music, Movies, and Books

I'm a really big fan of prog rock, folk, jazz, vaporwave, and classical, although I listen to pretty much everything. My favourite musicians include Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler, Leonard Cohen, and Counting Crows, among others.

As for films, I'm a huge fan of Jim Jarmusch, Richard Linklater, Noah Baumbach, Wes Anderson, and the Coen Brothers. I've also been getting into French New Wave cinema recently.

Some of my favourite authors include Italo Calvino, Kurt Vonnegut, JD Salinger, David Foster Wallace, and George Orwell. I've also taken a recent penchant to poetry, especially Rilke.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've done a fair bit of hitchhiking; during my Erasmus year in Europe back in 2015-2016 I hitchhiked over 3,700km around the continent, and I hitchhiked over 5,000km across Canada in the summer of 2018. I'd love to try trainhopping but haven't been able to find someone to show me the ropes yet.

I've also survived four winters in Ottawa, where the temperature frequently drops to -40°C with the windchill.

Teach, Learn, Share

I'm in academia for a reason--I love what I do, and I love talking about it. I'm an open book when it comes to teaching philosophy of any kind. Likewise, I love learning about other peoples' disciplines and passions, as I believe in the values of humanistic education and believe it's important to learn things in all domains of human knowledge--my weak spot is the hard sciences. But I don't care if you smash particles together, repair internal combustion engines, build houses, or deliver takeout: there's something valuable to pull out of every way of life. I figured this out in the year between my BA and MA when I bartended to save up money for school.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I'm always happy to cook a meal for a host. I'm really good with Italian and Mexican cuisine in particular, though I can honestly do more or less anything.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Russian Federation, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Belgium, Canada