CURRENT MISSION

Going wholly mad while thinking about holy madness

ABOUT ME

For the last 10 years or so, I've been roaming the world to find wisdom and love. Having found the latter, I'm not so sure about the wisdom part... :-)

One could say that my life is somehow evolving between an x and a y axis, x being philosophy and y being traveling. I finished graduate school a few months ago, but I still don't have enough so I'm going back to school in the fall. I'm mostly interested in comparative philosophy, oral philosophy and philosophy of religion, and I think of myself as a wild philosopher who thinks not only in the library but also in nature on bikes, in canoes or on foot, on mountain tops or in the water, by talking to people and figuring out what they think.

I left Germany after having graduated from High School and spent a couple of years volunteering in the US. Then I went back to Germany to take advantage of the back then free higher education, but spent almost half the time somewhere else in the world. Indonesia has become my second home in Asia, and right now I am doing research on Javanese ethics.

I just started my PhD in Religions of Asia at UW-Madison this fall. Now that I finally have plenty of room I can host guests so please do stop by. :-)

PHILOSOPHY

Embrace the paradox and go.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

My first CS experience was in Jakarta. I arrived there to begin my year of studying and research and didn't know a soul. Right on the first night I felt like I had so many friends in Jakarta already, and it was the beginning of a great year.
After having moved back to Germany I hosted a number of people which was great fun! Unfortunately not as many as I would have liked to, because my room mates didn't like the idea so much...
I hosted a bit in Denpasar and met some great people there. For the last half year I haven't been particularly active as studying in Oxford has a way of taking all your time. Now at Madison I hope to find my way fully back into the CS world.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have surfed numerous couches (floors, hamacs, rice mats) in Southeast Asia and Europe. I hosted a number of people when I lived in Germany and I found my two present flat mates in the Oxford group.

Interests

Traveling, obviously. Biking, climbing mountains, jungle trekking and scavenging through cities. Reading, both fiction and non-fiction. Thinking about it, I probably spend most of my waking hours reading. Game nights, pub crawls, dinner parties and live music, photography.

• fish
• photography
• education
• ethics
• chocolate
• partying
• pub crawls
• reading
• traveling
• bouldering
• music
• live music
• cycling
• fishing
• rock climbing
• teaching
• philosophy
• religion
• hitchhiking
• volunteering
• mountains

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Among my top ten are sleeping on a floating fish farm in Singapore, experiencing sunrise on the peak of Mt. Kinabalu, hitchhiking Timor Leste's bumpy roads and biking several thousand km in Finland and Russia over several weeks.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can bake really good cakes and cookies and I can tell you a lot about philosophy. I can prepare some German dishes and I usually have some chocolate in my baggage which I am happy to share.
Some of the things which I would like to learn or improve are: riding a unicycle, playing the ukulele, felting and bouldering.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor), Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Indonesia, United States

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