CURRENT MISSION

To live every week like it's shark week.

ABOUT ME

Intense and genuine seem to be the consensus.

My name is pronounced with a hard "G" sound. Not like "Jen."

PHILOSOPHY

What good are possessions if you don't share them?

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Spending time with the locals is the best way to experience a place, and CS is the best way to do that.

As a host, I'm hands off. Meeting travelers helps me to keep my head out of the work grind, and having international guests is always a memorable experience.

Interests

I love reading, tweeting, discussing the big issues of politics, and writing letters.

• writing
• politics
• reading
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Queen, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass.

Dune, Brothers Karamazov, Cryptonomicon.

Fight Club, Seven Samurai.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Climbed Mt. Fuji to watch the sunrise

Teach, Learn, Share

You may have heard that Japanese has three writing systems. The three are Chinese characters and two different Japanese "alphabets" (actually syllabaries).

Here's how Japanese uses Chinese characters: In many cases, characters have a root meaning, but their specific meaning and the way you pronounce them change depending on the context. It's very similar to the way we use numbers in English. For example, think of the number "1" as though it were a Chinese character:

1 - "one"
1st - "first"
11 - "eleven"
1/11 - "January eleventh"

下 - "shita" (down)
下る - "kudaru" (descend)
下げる - "sageru" (to lower)

I cannot imagine two languages more different than English and Japanese.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, China, Greece, Israel, Italy, Palestine, South Korea, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Japan, United States