CURRENT MISSION

My goal in life is to the THE book on the history of the love letter.

ABOUT ME

I teach American history and culture at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

PHILOSOPHY

Be happy, for this moment is your life.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

During the five years of research and writing it took to complete my dissertation, I traveled to over 30 different places all across the U.S. The people on Couchsurfing hosted me on various occasions. A part of my dissertation is dedicated to these wonderful people who made it possible to carry out my research on a student budget.

Interests

Salsa and tango dancing, English country dancing, Jane Austen, cooking, gardening, movies, residential architecture and home design, urban planning, woodworking and carpentry.

• arts
• writing
• books
• architecture
• design
• dancing
• tango
• cooking
• gardening
• movies
• woodworking
• emergency services
• history
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

All the Jane Austen movie adaptations, the Star Wars and Star Trek movies, the Shawshank Redemption, Up and Wall-E, the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies. Music: Elvis, oldies, 80's pop, classical. Books: well, the classics like Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, Bronte - but I do like some of the modern writers: E. B. White, Dr. Seuss, Ishiguro, O. Henry,

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

My worst subject in high school was foreign languages. Since high school, I've picked up and mangled 5 languages: Spanish, Hungarian, German, Danish, and Italian. Talk about life being full of surprises, huh?

Also, I've been around the world twice now, in both directions.

Odd bit: I was a wilderness firefighter once, and I happen to know an obscene amount about wedding registries because I used to temp in a department store.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine

Countries I’ve Lived In

Hungary, Israel, United States