What defines me best remains my 4 years of studying languages and linguistics in Canada, in addition to 5 years of blogging about literature, reading and talking with living Canadian poets from all across the nation, British Columbia to Newfoundland! With my sempiternally good humour, joy for celebrating language, and portable typewriter in-hand, I am ready to travel for the first time overseas.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To meet new friends from around the globe and take part in travelling, as well as hosting people in Canada upon returning from my hopeful maiden voyage as an early bird couchsurfer.

Interests

My interests include, above all, writing, adventures and keeping good company. I also enjoy going out to cafés, bars and art venues and bookshops, cooking, studying foreign languages and literatures, practicing Chinese and Arabic calligraphy, geocaching and hiking, chess, watching Jeopardy and hockey; and finally, enjoying anything to do with math, science, computer programming and video games, since video game culture is so rich in Canada, especially in Montréal, and because outer space interests me so profoundly, I used to study piloting for a brief stint when I was younger so that I could one day become an astronaut (and even piloted a small, two-passenger vessel once or twice!).

• arts
• culture
• writing
• books
• literature
• cooking
• video games
• chess
• reading
• traveling
• blogging
• hiking
• hockey
• calligraphy
• languages
• mathematics
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Some of my all-time favourite musicians are Canadian hip-hop artists such as K-OS, Buck 65, Loco Locass, Radio Radio, and the beatboxing poet-pianist-cowboy C. R. Avery. Similarly, some of my favourite movies are Canadian, including La Guerre des Tuques and McLuhan's Wake.

And at last, I would love to boast about some of my favourite authors in a brief list containing each writer whose works I've found particular happiness in reading: Mark Twain, Richard Brautigan, Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Isaac Asimov, Boris Vian, André Gide, Montesquieu, Molière, Stendhal, Réjean Ducharme, Marguerite Duras, Virginia Woolf, Anthony Burgess, Malcolm Lowry, Jonathan Swift, Lawrence Sterne, Oscar Wilde, Yeats, James Joyce, Borges, Bolaño, Enrique Vila-Matas, César Aira, Ortega y Gasset, Novalis, Kleist, Freud, Celan, Elias Canetti, Hesse, Yoko Tawada, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, and Mariama Bâ, to name a few!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I have sought and found various courses, private tutors and books to study French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Hindi, Russian and Mongolian (Сайн байна уу?!) in the last 4 years at university and while working summers in Montréal, because I love learning about other cultures by being able to speak foreign languages. I'm just as happy to pick up conversation as to quietly focus my attention on my books as an autodidact in order to get a better grasp on speaking in tongues.

Teach, Learn, Share

Something I read once that I still remember every day is that the purpose of birth is learning. I also find peace in beautiful phrases like omnea mea mecum porto, meaning everything I have I carry with me, a phrase that one of my favourite Canadian poets has tattooed on her wrist. I also pretty much enjoy any sentence written by Roberto Bolaño, the following excerpt being something which I liken to the Latin above, I found from reading Los detectives salvajes (The Savage Detectives): No hay nada como viajar para ensanchar la cultura. Pero también para afinar la sensibilidad. Conocí Israel, Egipto, Túnez, Marruecos. Al final de mis viajes volví con un solo convencimiento : no somos nada.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Stories and smiles :-)

Countries I’ve Visited

France