CURRENT MISSION

survive grad school (again)…travel as much as I can in the process

ABOUT ME

For reasons I sometimes can't remember, I've returned to the grind of grad school after a number of years working and teaching in the peace studies field. I live to explore, to learn, to wonder (often by wandering). I've grown up surrounded by people from all corners of the globe, by parents who made it their mission to "bring the world home", and who instilled in me an endless appetite for travel and encountering new people, new stories, and different ways of living. When not wandering foreign cities or studying, I can often be found in a canoe in the wilds of Northern Ontario, exploring the lakes and rivers and forests and skies of the wondrous Canadian Shield.

PHILOSOPHY

"Not all those who wander are lost" ~J.R.R. Tolkien

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a deeper light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after truth." ~M.K. Gandhi

Pourquoi je suis sur Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I host people when I'm not moving, and enjoy staying with others when I am! And also try to spread the word about CS whenever I can

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've spent quite a few years travelling and studying abroad, and stayed with people all over Europe and Asia, hosted plenty of road-tripping Americans passing through the mid-West, and met up with lots of fellow passers-by in South Africa. Best foreign sleeping experiences: a couch in an apartment on the Asian side of Istanbul, overlooking the Bosphorus sunset. Most memorable experience: sleeping in a tent on a concrete floor (sorry, not a couch) with two 12 year olds after driving in a cop car through a washed out road somewhere in the middle of Sichuan province, China.

Centres d'intérêt

Reading, writing, making music, exploring the endless Canadian wilderness by canoe, community living, cooking vegetarian food, wandering foreign cities.

• writing
• dining
• cooking
• vegetarian
• reading
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• piano
• canoeing
• lakes
• rivers

Morceaux de musique, films et livres

Books: Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell top the list for all-time favourites, also read a lot of foreign, historical fiction (lately a lot of African writers -- Nurrudin Farah, Nadifa Mohamed, Chimemanda Adichie). Always a fan of Russian literature, Orhan Pamuk.
Music: oh... where to begin. Listen to a lot of indie rock, acoustic guitar, smaller Canadian artists that no one's heard of, just discovered and fell in love with the quebecois music scene. Also listen to a lot of a capella choral music

Une aventure extraordinaire que j'ai vécue

Oh this is a tricky one. Olkhon Island probably tops the list. If you don't know where that is, I highly advise looking it up.

Enseignez, apprenez, partagez

Exploring Ontario by canoe
piano, guitar
I will read anything you want to share and let you read anything I've written

Pays que j'ai visités

Chile, China, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Kenya, Lesotho, Mongolia, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom

Pays dans lesquels j'ai vécu

Brazil, Canada, Russian Federation, Somalia, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States

• 

•