CURRENT MISSION

seeing as much of America in the most American way possible. Not dying in the process.

ABOUT ME

I am at UNC on my year abroad from Nottingham in England, and loving it. Everything is just so wonderfully …American. I am constantly being taken aback (even now) by the sheer size of everything - the cars! Roads! Six-foot gaps between houses! Acres of garden! These are unimaginable luxuries in a place like London where the only way to build is up. I tell people I’m working on my green card marriage so I can stay and they laugh, but its true.

My two favourite days of the year are Halloween and Eurovision (a song contest among the nations of Europe in which performers aim to outdo each other on outfit gimmicks, stage pyrotechnics and backing dancer pizzazz. It lasts for about six hours if you include the tactical voting.)

I enjoy wandering, abandoned places, architecture, art, food and adventuring.

PHILOSOPHY

I try to live in pursuit of adventures, in a way that provides me with good stories afterwards.

Interests

Things I enjoy include:

Knitting (currently engaged in multiple scarf request projects. Straight lines only.)

Baking (when I was about fourteen, I realised there was this amazing thing by which you could have cake in your house whenever you wanted. The obsession began. The best idea my friends and I ever had was Cake Rota - in which school was enlivened weekly by participants’ baking. I am known to my university friends as Cake Lady. I wish I was making this up.)

Reading (everything, all the time. I often lie about my favourite book because I want to jealously hoard it to myself. It doesn’t matter in the end because I’ve never found anyone who’s heard of it anyway. Its Glen David Gold’s Carter Beats the Devil, and is completely perfect. Books I don’t lie about are Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Max Barry’s Jennifer Government, and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.)

Being very enthusiastic about music (‘I thought I’d found it last week, but this – this – is the song that will change everything. I swear.’)

Things I don’t enjoy include:

Tea (this alarms and offends a lot of people).

Being asked what I’m going to do with my life (the answer is ‘no idea’, which is what it has been for approximately my entire lifetime. This is okay though).

Giant squid (hands down, the most unholy creature. Terrifying.)

• arts
• books
• architecture
• dancing
• dining
• baking
• running
• gardening
• reading
• cars
• knitting
• music
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Glen David Gold - Carter Beats the Devil, Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451, Max Barry - Jennifer Government, Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin, Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Isaac Asimov, Walt Whitman, anything I can get my hands on.

Little Miss Sunshine, Amelie, Brick, assorted film noir, Die Hard (a classic for a reason), Memento, Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Volver, Fried Green Tomatoes, All About Eve, No Country for Old Men.

Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor, Kings of Leon, LCD Soundsystem, Los Campesinos!, Patrick Wolf, Bombay Bicycle Club, Ben Folds Five, Neko Case, The Go! Team, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Friendly Fires, The Maccabees, Hot Chip, The Beatles, Annie Lennox, Simon and Garfunkel, Arcade Fire, Phoenix, Lord Huron, Crystal Castles, The Drums, Miike Snow, OK Go, Vampire Weekend. This American Life.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

One of the most glorious views was in NC's Stone Mountain State Park this October. Most of the way up it was autumny woodlands, all reds and yellows and carpets of leaves, then we got out onto the top of the mountain which was just bare rock. It was like the surface of the Moon, with craters made by water running, and you could see for miles. All around were other tree-covered mountains, with maybe one tiny house in the far far distance, totally silent.

Also the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was completely astonishing to me.

Teach, Learn, Share

Never have spaghetti on a first date.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russian Federation, Spain, Switzerland, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United Kingdom, United States