CURRENT MISSION

getting through law school, making money to fund further travel ...

ABOUT ME

i'm 23, a straight white Australian male making his way across europe and asia slowly. i'm not religious and have very liberal political views. i'm single. I'm easygoing.

i like to talk and i love company, but i also like spending time alone, so i'm quite selective about how i choose my friends, and i usually don't bother with people who don't hold my interest fairly quickly. plenty of things appeal to me though. as well as the usual australian liking for sport and beer, i'm interested in every type of music there is, politics, theatre, literature, physics and cosmology, swapping jokes and stories, flirting, card and board games, hiking, law, philosophy and language. my favourite things to talk about are probably human nature and the likely future of the human race. one unusual thing is that i enjoy a good word game, and at the moment i'm preparing to play for australia in the world scrabble championships in india in november 2007.

Since writing that, I've returned home to Sydney and I'm currently finishing my second degree.

i value honesty above pretty much anything else and would rather have a dozen close friends than a hundred acquaintances. sometimes i can be naive, but it's getting less frequent. it takes a lot to offend me. i can be arrogant without meaning to be sometimes. i laugh a lot and appreciate wit when i see it. i always finish what i start. i can be romantic but i can also forget to be. when i get angry i'm usually quick to apologise. i'm an only child but I promise I'm not too spoilt. when I'm in sydney i live in a loud student university household that works and plays hard and whose members look after each other like a family.

i go crazy for cats - so dignified and beautiful.

PHILOSOPHY

i work hard to be satisfied with the person that i am. i set some store by what people have accomplished but ultimately i'm more concerned with who they are. i can be strongly sceptical but really i quite like the human race.

Por qué estoy en Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

well, i only just joined. but this seems like a fantastic enterprise. there's so much sociopathic behaviour building up in the world, and any way of encouraging people to talk to each other and trust each other like real human beings is extremely valuable. we need sites like this.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

not a lot, really. i've travelled quite a bit before in america and new zealand, and through the uk on this trip, but mostly stayed in hostels, which are a mixed bag. i much prefer the little communal hostels where you actually get to know the people you're staying with, rather than the big impersonal ones, which is why couchsurfing interests me.

I couchsurfed with two excellent girls in Paris last year - Rachel and Bianca.

Intereses

see above, i guess.

• cats
• writing
• literature
• singing
• beer
• running
• politics
• board games
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• piano
• drums
• a cappella
• hiking
• sports
• olympics
• law
• physics

Música, películas y libros

this list could get quite long. top three films - blade runner, dancer in the dark, citizen kane. music - no possible way to list it all. for classical music bach can't be surpassed and i love arvo part and shostakovich, as well as renaissance church music. my favourite popular musician is bjork although my favourite genre is probably classic rock (least favourite would be american indie or house). i'm also into jazz legends such as miles davis and ella. favourite novels include catch-22 and 1984 but the all-time best piece of english literature has to be shakespeare's hamlet. i'd love to be able to read goethe in the original.

Algo increíble que he hecho

it may not strike everybody as amazing, and i'd certainly value other experiences i've had higher, but singing at the opening ceremony of the sydney olympics in 2000 (in one of the choirs) left a powerful impression on me as a sixteen year old. tangible sensation of the spirit of humanity, all that.

Enseña, aprende, comparte

um, i know a lot about music and scrabble. i arrange and compose choral music and run a cappella groups when i'm at home in sydney. i also typeset music to publishable standards. apart from that i don't know anything you wouldn't expect a reasonably intelligent person who's interested in the world to know.

skills i'd like to acquire include fluency in french and german and the ability to play the drums and guitar (at the moment i only sing and play a bit of piano).

Países que he visitado

France, Germany, Iceland, India, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, United States

Países en los que he vivido

Australia, United Kingdom