Curiosity and openness. Student hailing from Manchester. I did my undergrad in Bristol and grad in Oxford. I have worked in Michigan, New York, North Carolina, London, Oklahoma, and Riyadh. I love new ideas and perspectives. Moved to Innsbruck, Austria in September 2019.

HOSTING: I can only host over the weekend and I don't have a spare bed, but we can make it work. Ideally you'd be a thoughtful, pseudo-intellectual who wants to ski/hike/run and cook good food

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

A mixture of wanting to meet new people and some vague sense of bed-karma. Over the years I've stayed on various couches or spare beds and I feel like I'm in debt. Particularly to couchsurfing hosts in China and warmshowers (CS for cyclists) hosts in California while cycling from San Fran to LA.

Interests

When I started my PhD, I wanted to approach everyday life like being in a new place. And I have loved the past four years. I experienced some cool places and institutions like living in Oklahoma for 6 months, teaching in Saudi Arabia, and working part-time for a start up. But most of all i have loved hearing the perspectives of all the people I met along the way. We are hard wired to tell and hear stories.

• books
• exercise
• reading
• ideas
• perspectives

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Guitar music from when I was a teenager trying to build an identity, minimal electronic music that i have never listened to socially, hiphop that I have inexplicably liked since 9 y/o Daniel asked for an Obie Trice album for christmas.

Movies: I dislike historical films, superhero films, and kids films which means I tend to watch films alone. I like crime films if they don't focus on violence, dramas if they focus on characters, and sentimental films that all too often star Will Smith.

Books: For non-fiction I care about the quality of writing and research above the content. Robert Sapolsky, Joseph Henrich, Tony Judt, Jill Lapore and Steven Pinker are good recent examples. I love the phenomenon of Tyler Cowen. For fiction, I like character driven books. I had a very cliched obsession with Haruki Murakami. I have also read a lot of Milan Kundera, JM Coetzee, Donna Tartt etc.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

One summer I was sent to a Salvation Army summer camp in Detroit by error. I am not a Christian but I pretended to be. I had to buy a bible the day before I left and read it on the plane. Most of my duties were essentially secular like cajoling a seven year old to brush his teeth but I did have to lead a 15 minute devotional, reflecting on God and the campers' lives. It was an unbelievably intense summer. The most amazing part was being hugged by a 350lb American man in tears, thanking me for leading his son to accepting Jesus into his heart, "we finally got through to him, man". Yeah.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, Croatia, Cuba, Finland, France, Gambia, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Netherlands, Palestine, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, United Kingdom, United States