Avid debater ever since highschool, I love having cool conversations and meeting people and understanding as many viewpoints as possible from as many cultures as possible. I spend most of my time as an undergraduate economics student traveling at debating competitions and training highschoolers debate. Tech enthusiast and ultimate geek, a couple of years ago I started a small game development studio with a few friends with the mission to make socially responsible video games. Now as a sleep-deprived but still enthusiastic with life political sciences masters student I find myself traveling a lot at game-developer conferences and making friends in that community as well from all over the world :D

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I love meeting new people and I believe no traveling experience can truly reveal the culture of that country without it being centered around interacting in a meaningful way with locals. I also love Bucharest, where I am living now, and I hope to get to show the wonders of this city to as many people as possible.

Interests

• culture
• politics
• technology
• comics
• movies
• board games
• economics
• teaching
• international relations
• world politics
• cultures
• videogames
• gaming
• different cultures
• computer games
• games
• roleplaying games
• game development
• old movies
• debating
• larp
• training
• debate
• international trade
• international politics
• behavioral economics

Music, Movies, and Books

I love all music genres, from techno to pop commercial to rock&roll, metal, country, ethno, rap etc. I hold dear in my heart my middle-school favorite artist (can't say I have one now), Eminem, together with all other old-school rappers (NWA, Ice Cube, Dre etc.)

In terms of movies, La Vita e Bella is perhaps at this moment in time my favorite movie, but I love all types of movies, from superhero flicks (Deadpool ftw) to old-school art-house movies (Kubrik and Takovsky movies in particular).

I spent most of my time in school reading books like other kids ate candy. I have many authors that I hold dear and I read all sorts of books, but I find myself again and again drawn towards sci-fi novels. Asimov, K. Dick, C. Clark, Scott Card, Herbert and all the other greats are my heroes.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Besides Critique Gaming, the game-development studio that is my baby right now (but has yet to grow and flourish), the thing that I am perhaps most proud in my life is perhaps all the work that I did in teaching high-schoolers how to debate. In Romania formal education is very bad and many kids finish school being apathetic towards learning and without many skills. Academic debating is a cool activity that for me was a life-changer, as a high-school student it completely changed the way I viewed the world and my life path. When I became an undergraduate student I started training high-schoolers myself, giving back to the community that helped me so much, getting to even be part of the team of coaches that help the kids that are part of Romania's National Team for the Worlds School Debating Championship, a sort of World Cup for debaters. After being part of this team myself in high-school, it was extremly rewarding to get to help those kids grow and truly discover themselves and teir passions whilst putting in a lot of hours of hard work for the championship.

Teach, Learn, Share

Perhaps the most important thing I ever learned, which I also talked about in the TedX talk I held in the spring of 2017, is that every person is different, thinks in a different way and acts in a different way, but all deserve to find out as much as possible about themselves, to decide who they want to be and to actually be allowed to be who they want to be.

What I Can Share with Hosts

- many interesting discussions and laughs
- my overly-specific opinions on anything that is out-there
- the little piece of Romania and Romanian culture that I hold within me
- my enthusiasm for debating, public speaking and civilized arguments
- my absurd amount of knowledge of video-games pop-culture

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey

Countries I’ve Lived In

Romania