CURRENT MISSION

...to win over enough followers to support the the cult I shall one day create...

ABOUT ME

I just began my doctoral program in social psychology at Ohio University.

I’m quirky (and just a tad crazy)--but embrace it fully. And I’ve never lost that sense of awe and wonder for the world around me and the extreme improbability and beauty of our existence. I like pretentious semicolons and staccato dashes and adore long, convoluted conversations with wildly unpredictable tangents (and, more so, the people with whom I can retrace these tangential paths). I love to write, have to use my fingers to count, and really like studying foreign languages even if I'll never have any practical use for them.

I'm trying my best to not internalize the values of the materialistic society in which I live--and I derive secret pleasure from having to devise creative ways to stretch my income to exist from paycheck to paycheck.

To be honest, I'm utterly fascinated by my fellow human beings--and crave nothing more intensely than to be exposed to as many different perspectives as possible. However, I abhor being constrained by traditional morality--as I find the assertion of objective ethical truths/standards to be highly dubious. Still, I love discussing and analyzing philosophy and comparing ideas with others. For me, the value of philosophy is not in the answers it provides--but rather, in the multitude of questions it raises.

And as passionately as I might assert/defend/scrutinize my personal convictions, I can NEVER take myself (or others) too seriously. I mean—it's all sort of absurd, isn't it? ...but who would want it any other way?

And did I mention I'm hopelessly, rapturously, shamelessly addicted to movies?

PHILOSOPHY

I question everything--including the legitimacy of my own philosophical/ethical perspective. I have strong convictions, but I try to be as open as possible to being persuaded by different viewpoints (how else does one learn?) Still, I never take myself too seriously--and I appreciate meeting others who can indulge my quirky, random, occasionally offensive sense of humor. No subject matter is so sacred that it cannot be an object of derision!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I CouchSurfed a bit in Europe in 2008, and I then hosted several times while living in Scranton, PA--with universally fantastic experiences. Now that I have the space and accommodations, I'm excited to be able to host again here in Athens.

Interests

Film, Literature, Psychology, Photography, French, Exploration, Vegetarianism, Philosophy/Ethics, Analysis, Deconstruction, Espresso, Observation, Gay Rights, Tea Tree Oil, Neuroscience, Writing, Imported Cheeses, Nietzsche, Sondheim, Kant, 1970s Game Shows, Convoluted Conversational Tangents, Playing Piano, Environmental Sustainability

• writing
• literature
• photography
• beauty
• ethics
• dining
• movies
• piano
• emergency services
• languages
• neuroscience
• psychology

Music, Movies, and Books

MOVIES:
2001: A Space Odyssey, The New World, There Will Be Blood, Talk to Her, Persona, Children of Men, Kill Bill, American Beauty, Chinatown, Pulp Fiction, No Country For Old Men, The English Patient, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 8½, Synecdoche, NY, Breaking the Waves, Mulholland Drive, Fargo, Vertigo, The 400 Blows, Adaptation, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, All About My Mother, Angels in America, Another Woman, Autumn Sonata, Before Sunset, Being John Malkovich, Black Narcissus, Black Swan, Blue Velvet, Boogie Nights, Brokeback Mountain, Cabaret, The Constant Gardener, Cries and Whispers, Dangerous Liaisons, Dear Zachary, Edward Scissorhands, Election, Eyes Wide Shut, Fanny and Alexander, Far from Heaven, The Fountain, Ghost World, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Grey Gardens, Hannah and Her Sisters, Hiroshima Mon Amour, House of Flying Daggers, Howards End, Ikiru, In America, In Bruges, Jules and Jim, The Life Aquatic, The Lives of Others, Magnolia, Million Dollar Baby, Network, Out of Africa, Pan's Labyrinth, Paper Moon, Persepolis, Roman Holiday, Scenes from a Marriage, A Serious Man, Spirited Away, Traffic, The Triplets of Belleville, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, United 93, Volver, Waiting for Guffman, Wild Strawberries, You Can Count on Me, Ingmar Bergman, Frederico Fellini

MUSIC:
Stephen Sondheim, David Bowie, Tori Amos, Dresden Dolls, Björk, Old School Alanis Morissette, Brecht/Weil, Fiona Apple, Rachmaninov, Alexandre Desplat, The Beach Boys, Thomas Newman, Gogol Bordello, Nina Simone, Queen, Belle & Sebastian, Leonard Cohen, AIR, Animal Collective, The Beatles, The Cranberries, Debussy, The Decemberists, Devendra Banhart, DeVotchKa, Donovan, The Doors, Ennio Morricone, Jeffrey Lewis, The Rolling Stones, Sigur Ros, Simon & Garfunkel, Tchaikovsky, The Turtles, Vashti Bunyan

BOOKS:
Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatsby, Sophie's World, 1984, Beloved, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, As I Lay Dying, The Glass Menagerie, Gulliver's Travels, GashlyCrumb Tinies, Hard Times, The Awakening, Cat's Cradle, Ender's Game, Don't Eat This Book, Franny and Zooey, The Sirens of Titan, A History of the Circle, Assassination Vacation

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

SUMMER 2008 - MY (MIS)ADVENTURE IN NEW YORK CITY:

When driving my friend Florence to JFK airport in NYC (so she could visit her fiancé in Mexico), we missed our exit and were re-routed by our GPS navigation system through downtown Manhattan(!). As if that's not stressful enough... right beneath the Empire State Building, I get a flat tire! (...the NYC driver's worst nightmare!) Remarkably, a very gracious New Yorker offers to help us remove the flat tire and replace it with my spare donut... which, it turns out, was defective and dangerously under-inflated.

But determined to reach the airport so Florence doesn't miss her flight, I carefully continue toward the airport on the shaky spare tire... it was the scariest ride of my life. But somehow, we make it to the airport—where I park my car and help carry in Florence's luggage. When I go back outside, I realize my car is missing... why? Because it was impounded!

Standing outside the airport terminal at midnight and almost three hours away from home, I was utterly stranded without any idea how I would get my car back. I approached a random man and earnestly asked him if he knew what I should do in my situation. This altruistic stranger waited with me, helped me to find a police officer (who gave me the address of the towing company where I could pick up my car), and then (totally unprovoked) offered to give me a ride to the impoundment lot!! (He even refused any sort of financial compensation for his troubles).

So I eventually obtain my car, locate a gas station to fill the spare tire with air, and head home—driving 150+ miles on a wheel not meant to be driven for more than 50 miles. As I drive back through Manhattan, the spare tire starts making strange noises and the car keeps veering to the side; I pull to the side of the road and realize the lug-nuts have come loose. I tighten them and continue on through the Lincoln Tunnel. It was terrifying—but I had no choice but to persevere.

At 3:00 a.m., I finally make it out of NYC and onto the New Jersey Turnpike where I stop to refuel at a gas station and grab something to eat. I return to my car about 30 minutes later to discover... ANOTHER flat tire!!! What are the chances?!—two unrelated flat tires in one night! Frustrated yet amused by the absurdity of the situation, I explain my night to a gas station worker and ask if there is anything I can do.

It turns out this random gas station is ALSO a 24-hour service plaza! (How astoundingly lucky I stopped for food!) So the attendant and his co-worker install two new tires on my car—and don't even change me a service/labor fee! I finally head back on the road and make it safely home to Scranton, Pennsylvania.

This experience was—without question—one of most ridiculous, unlikely, hilariously unfortunate yet remarkably fortunate and life-affirming nights of my life. If it were not for the outstanding selflessness of four strangers that night, I would never have made it home. This entire ordeal was so bizarre that I actually made a video documenting the extraordinary events of my night in NYC (featuring many photographs and videos, including all of the Good Samaritans who helped me that night):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UrMqBaWeEY

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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