CURRENT MISSION

I am a graduate student studying epidemiology at UC Davis in California. I live with three other people, including my girlfriend, Megan, who recently finished a Master's degree in biology and will soon enter a PhD program at UC Berkeley.

ABOUT ME

I'm 32 and I recently came to Davis for graduate school. I've been a full-time student (and a part-time lab tech) for several years and I've mostly forgotten the meaning of leisure, but I try to find time for running and backpacking. I'm a biology nerd. I generally get around town by bike and I join friends for potlucks or movie nights on a pretty regular basis. I have been playing the pipes (bagpipes) since childhood but I don't find much time for it lately.

PHILOSOPHY

My maternal grandmother influenced me quite a bit. She was a devout secular humanist and she would have been very enthusiastic about the couchsurfing community. My philosophies contain a lot of ideas akin to hers.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

My girlfriend and I have been surfers but we have not yet had our first hosting experience. We're looking forward to this. The couchsurfing community made it possible for me to economically visit graduate schools when I was choosing a program, and we would like to provide this to others.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have done some couch surfing (among friends outside of this network) in the U.S. and in Japan. I have stayed on couches of both old friends and new acquaintances on a trip to the upper East Coast (Washington DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York), a trip to the upper Midwest (Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin), and several trips to the lower Midwest (Missouri, Alabama). I also spent three weeks on two couches in Japan (in Gunma and Nagano prefectures). I have hosted traveling friends on my couch (or floor) on several occasions.

Interests

Megan and I are interested in microbiology, epidemiology, biology in general, and just about anything sciency for that matter.

• running
• walking
• drinking
• technology
• traveling
• socializing
• cycling
• backpacking
• surfing
• biology

Music, Movies, and Books

The Stranger (Camus), Siddhartha (Hess), Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky), The Cell (Alberts, et al.), The Idiot (Dostoevsky), Don Quixote (Cervantes)...

Documentaries, TED talks, Tampopo Ramen...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I spent one New Year's Day with a family in Saitama, Japan. Their home is three-hundred years old and has paper walls. We made soba noodles from buckwheat grown in their yard and mochi (with an enormous mortar and mallet) from sweet rice grown by their neighbors. We spent all night walking to shrines and temples, socializing, and drinking otoso. The entire community was outside in the moonlight until morning.

Countries I’ve Visited

Japan, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

•