CURRENT MISSION

I'm beginning my DPhil at Oxford this autumn and cannot wait to explore London, the English countryside, and many other staggeringly beautiful and interesting places around the UK.

ABOUT ME

An Introduction, of Sorts:

I'm Canadian. I was born and grew up in the lush Aspen Parklands of central Alberta -- near enough to the Rocky Mountains to have a healthy respect for heights, close enough to the Badlands to know a fossil when I see one. After high school, I moved to the City of Rain and Glass to study Greek and Latin literature. I lived a stone's throw from and down a wicked set of steps to the ocean, walking along its rocky shore at every opportunity. Four years later, I moved a small city known for three things: the military, its prisons, and Sir John A. MacDonald.

I am a student of literature, art, and life. I have a particular interest in deftly parsing situations and interpreting prosodic imagery in poems long and short. I am a Humanities activist and believe everyone could benefit from more art in their lives.

PHILOSOPHY

I believe in leading an active and interesting life, despite my propensity to collect books. I enjoy experimenting in the kitchen, going on day trips to explore cities and the surrounding countryside by bike, visiting museums, and listening to live music. At the same time, my more esoteric interests include compiling concordances to modernist literature, corresponding with friends by handwritten letters, learning new words in different language, and travelling to interesting places.

Interests

INTERESTS: cycling, hiking, painting, photography, walking, friendship, journaling, reading, writing, travelling.

WORDS:
adumbrate, fuscous, luminous, lambent, sidereal, valediction, mossy, stave, thrum, rook, ripcord, jouissance.

AXIOMS AND EPIGRAMS:
"The words sung in the next room are unavoidable/But their passionate intelligence will be studied by you" (John Ashbery).

• arts
• humanities
• writing
• books
• literature
• poetry
• photography
• walking
• reading
• traveling
• painting
• music
• live music
• cycling
• hiking
• rock climbing
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

CINEMA
Midnight Cowboy, Amélie, The Royal Tenenbaums, Marie Antoinette, The Graduate, Driving Lessons, Bande À Parte, Les Chansons d'Amour, The Great Escape, The Last Unicorn.

BRAIN CANDY:
Downton Abbey, the Wire, Doctor Who, Spooks, Life on Mars (UK), News Radio, Black Books, Star Trek (TNG and DS9), Jeeves & Wooster, State of Play, and The Good Wife.

MOOD MUSIC:
Chopin, Feist, Rolling Stones, Adele, Sufjan Stevens, New Pornographers, Joy Division, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Nina Simone, the Gertrudes, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Lou Reed, the Pixies, Philip Glass, REM, Cake, the Arcade Fire, etc.

ON MY BOOKSHELF:
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
L’Étranger by Albert Camus
Salamander by Thomas Wharton
The Culture of Space and Time by Stephen Kern
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys
Republic of Love by Carol Shields
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
Confederacy of Dunces by Jon Kennedy Toole

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I find it hard to choose just one:

1) Going on an archaeological dig to the Torre di Satriano in Italy.
2) Climbing Stawamus Chief (north of Vancouver, BC)
3) Hiking Crypt Lake in Waterton National Park (souther Alberta)
4) Cycling my first metric century!

Countries I’ve Visited

France, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada

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