I haven't couch surfed in about a decade, and that makes me sad-- but most of my travel in the last 10 years has been with students, sometimes as many as 70 high schoolers, so couch surfing wouldn't have been an option! (I'm leaving my 'about me' from 10 years ago so people can see what I was up to then.) I'm still teaching high school, although for 5 years I was a principal instead. In fact, just this year I missed teaching so much that I left administration and came back into the classroom!

I absolutely love traveling with my students and witnessing them seeing the world open up, but I want to get back to a bit of traveling myself as well, so I'm back on Couchsurfing and looking forward to meeting some more cool people!

I am a high school teacher, but took this year off to work on a volunteer project in Romania. I came back to the US to rest for a little while before the next school year in August, and was literally filling out a job application for Starbucks a few nights ago, read a short piece in my copy of Transitions Abroad magazine about couchsurfing.com, threw my application away and started packing...

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I was hitching through South Africa's Northern Province, and a young couple picked me up. They were hesitant at first, I could tell, but eventually offered me their car and house to look after while they went on vacation for 2 weeks!!! All because I needed a lift and they decided to help out a stranger on a dusty road.... I have stayed with strangers who became friends in several countries, and my own past couches have been host to countless travellers. Fun!!!

Now I have surfed Houston, New Orleans, St. Augustine, Melbourne, Savannah, Atlanta, Stone Mountain, Asheville, Charlotte, DC, Baltimore, NYC, Columbus, Chicago, Madrid, and Pretoria-- all in the last 3 months!

Interests

Theater, film, literature, conversation, coffee, and of course... travel. Duh.

• literature
• theater
• coffee
• traveling
• skydiving
• teaching
• volunteering
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Favorite radio show: This American Life. Books: Anything by Sedaris. The best book I have read in a long while was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Also Interpeter of Maladies, Namesake, Kite Runner... so many books... I love movies too. LOVE LOVE LOVE them. Bottle Rocket, Casablanca, Capote, 13 Going on 30... wait, did I just admit that? Music... U2, Black Star, Coldplay, Tom Waits, BEP, TKZee, REM, Radiohead, Mos Def... like a lot of spoken word, poetry slams, etc...
This week so far saw Capote, Tsotsi, Good Night and Good Luck, and V for Vendetta. Four really diverse and really amazing movies....

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Skydiving one day to face my fear of heights. The mountains in Sinaia. Seeing my students finally understand something for the first time. Peace Corps was pretty amazing too.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, China, England, France, Gambia, Ghana, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe

•