CURRENT MISSION

Traveling, meeting new people, writing a novel, trying to get over an irrational fear of insects

ABOUT ME

I'm an Ethiopian-American, trying to make it as a writer after having been a student for my entire life. I moved to Paris in October from New York, and spend my days reading, writing, watching movies, walking, and trying to gain the impossible: true fluency in French. I love words and languages and meeting new people, all three of which often go together. I am unable to wiggle my ears or touch my nose with my tongue or pat my head while rubbing my stomach. I once fell off of a camel in Jerusalem when I was ten years old. I don't like Mel Brooks movies as much as people think I should.

PHILOSOPHY

I know it's lame to use someone else's quote as opposed to generating one of my own, and I know that this isn't an obscure observation from a one-eyed philosopher of the 4th century who lived in a cave in Asia Minor, but if I do have a personal philosophy, this is it:

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind. (Kurt Vonnegut)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've always wanted to try couchsurfing, but for some reason never joined up until now, and am really excited about hosting and staying at different places around the world.

Interests

Reading
Writing
Watching Movies
Cities
Walking Around in Cities
Coffee
Cheese
Wine
Talking

• insects
• writing
• books
• wine
• cheese
• coffee
• walking
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• languages
• philosophy

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Withnail & I, Almodovar (but especially Volver and All About My Mother and Talk To Her), Delicatessen, Being John Malkovich (this is a good time to mention how dearly I love all that is the insane genius of Charlie Kaufman), Un Prophete, Mean Streets, The Purple Rose of Cairo (this is an excellent time to make note of my forever admiration of Woody Allen, personal choices and inexplicable love of Scarlett Johansson notwithstanding)
Music: The Beatles, The Avett Brothers, Alemayehu Eshete, The Rolling Stones, Motown, Serge Gainsbourg
Books: Never Let Me Go, The Third Policeman, Giovanni's Room, Murakami, Bleak House, Jernigan, The Savage Detectives (this is a good time to mention my deep and abiding love for all that is Roberto Bolano), One Hundred Years of Solitue (the same goes for Gabriel Garcia Marquez, be still my heart)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

For a week, I stayed in a trailer called "The Green Zucchini" in Polebridge, Montana and on my last day, I saw two deer with a foal and they were so beautiful and somehow suspended in time as they looked at me calmly and warily, that I've never been able to forget about them.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, United States