Brooknite living in Zurich, Switzerland. As a PhD student I'm fortunate enough to enjoy scientific conversations with animated colleagues as part of my daily work. I'm an avid banjo player and lover of true vine and homemade music from all over the world. After almost three years in Zurich, I'm starting to feel like Europe is home.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I've had some amazing experiences on Couchsurfing back in 2010 or so and I'm back for two reasons. One is that I've had a lingering feeling that I should be giving back to the community that did so much for me in my previous travels. The second is that I'm about to embark on a new adventure to Dresden (my city if you haven't had a chance to see my name) and would love to meet and hopefully stay with some local people.

Interests

languages (both human and machine compiled!), math, philosophy (Wittgenstein and Marx), biking, Chinese and China, ukulele, jazz, martial arts (xing yi), canoes, woods, lakes where you can stick your head in and drink the water.
Old-time/true vine music: fiddle tunes, sing songs, ballads, and all the rest. Master banjoists.
I love the lindy hop.

• arts
• traveling
• jazz
• cycling
• canoeing
• biology
• teaching
• languages
• mathematics
• lakes
• machine learning
• banjo
• harmony
• sacred harp

Music, Movies, and Books

Taraf de Haidouks, Aguirre Wrath of God, xu san guan mai xue ji, The Philosophical Investigations, Joseph and His Brothers, Studs' Working, Book of Five Rings, Slavic Soul Party, John Zorn, Sonny Stitt, Bob Dylan, Kaveret, A Tribe Called Quest, The Brothers Karamazov, The Second Sex, Das Kapital via Moishe Postone, Jules et Jim, Les 400 Coups, Fern Gully, Katool Ta'alool (Hebrew), La Sirène du Mississippi

About to finish the Secret History. What suspense!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The Himalayas.

Teach, Learn, Share

- Rudiments of clawhammer, two finger thumb lead and index style banjo picking
- Shape note singing, esp. the Sacred Harp.
- Flat water canoeing and portaging
- Computer programming, especially data science and machine learning related.
- I have some knowledge of Bayesian inference, convex optimization, and neural networks / generative models.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Songs and dances.
A solid dinner meal.
A place to stay in Zurich when the time comes around.

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Israel, Switzerland, United States

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