CURRENT MISSION

To attain complete self-knowledge in the next two months

ABOUT ME

I was born in New York City on November 5th, 1992. There were some things that happened in the first 18 years of my life, but I gloss over them; then, four years ago, I moved to Chicago. I graduated this year from the University of Chicago, where I studied philosophy. I also had minor concentrations in math and classics. (The common denominator among these three subjects, my three academic interests, is that all are useless.) I'm a bookish person. I love talking to people. I like travelling, but I have the worst sense of orientation of anyone you'll ever meet. I'm told--sigh--that I look like Harry Potter.

PHILOSOPHY

To have articulate values and an articulate conception of the good life, and to express them in one's small and large activities; to be generous and humble; to be spiritedly engaged with the world--these are all, in my opinion, good things.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I just created this account, in anticipation of travelling around Israel and Europe through mid-August. At the moment, my (anticipated) participation is one-sided, since I'm just looking for places to stay. Once I settle in somewhere in the world, I'd look into hosting people as well.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None at all, see above.

Interests

Music, travel, books. Mostly books. I like learning.

• humanities
• books
• traveling
• music
• languages
• mathematics

Music, Movies, and Books

Books--I don't know where to begin. I was a philosophy major, so the Western philosophical canon is close to my heart. Some of it I've read; what I haven't read, I pretend that I've read. I also read a good amount of fiction, as an antidote to all the philosophy that I've read and pretend to have read. (Philosophers are often brilliant people, but often awful writers.) Recently, since I'm in Israel, I've been reading Amos Oz. Other writers I like: Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie, Kingsley Amis, Dickens. I like jazz music, since I used to play the jazz guitar. I'm not much of a movie person.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've had some amazing hummus in the last couple days.

Teach, Learn, Share

I have a strong interest in languages. I speak bad German fluently, broken Italian functionally, and I've mastered the essentials of incoherent Spanish and modern Greek. I'm on friendly terms with Latin, and distantly congenial terms with ancient Greek and Sanskrit as well. I like learning languages and learning about languages. Teach me yours.