CURRENT MISSION

Plan an amazing 10 days in Iceland!

ABOUT ME

I grew up in a little town on Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast, have lived in various boats on various rivers in Europe and the Balkans (but only one ocean, the black and wild North Atlantic), taught in the North of France, Barcelona and Zaragoza, and have just moved to Toronto to start an MA in Applied Linguistics (and an experiment in living in Canada). I like working and talking with people, making stuff (mostly with a sewing machine, although re-finishing old furniture is fun too), black coffee, old bicycles, learning languages, sociolinguistics and language politics, language pedagogy, Maritime Schooner history, food from places I'm not (and sitting down for good conversation while eating it), sailing, french cheese, artsy things in general. i don't do anything athletic these days (except if my whole body gets crampy because i've been reading too long, I'll go for a run around the block and then stretch for a bit and it feels SO good) but I used to really like triathlons and 10k races, and even did a half-marathon once. somehow i still identify with runners, although i guess i'm not one anymore. I do like doing stuff in the woods (again, no time these days) like orienteering or looking for mushrooms (they have deliciously edible ones in the Spanish Pyrenees...), also, good, contemporary theatre and dance and puppetry and all combinations of the above.... you know, all the good things life has to offer. oh, and i love love love cities with old crumbly buildings that are pastel colours. and the tiles. okay, now i'm just thinking of lisbon, which was basically my aesthetic heaven. marseille was too. that kind of thing is important to me. canada doesn't really have that, sadly, although sometimes something will surprise you.

PHILOSOPHY

The more, the merrier.

and... i guess i have to admit i was raised on the seven habits, and "seek first to understand" has stuck with me as a pretty simple way to resolve conflict.

There are also a couple of quotes that I really like:

Die Grenzen eure Sprache sind die Grenzen eure Welt.
-Wittgenstein

Il y a des fleurs partout pour qui veut bien voir. -Matisse

and...

"Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen." -Goethe

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Filling up my usb stick with new music. I love to share, too!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

very, very, very good.

Interests

Learning languages, about everywhere in the world, talking, walking around new cities, and sewing lots.

at the moment... planning our wedding!

• dogs
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• cheese
• coffee
• marathon
• running
• walking
• politics
• chess
• reading
• traveling
• music
• sailing
• history
• languages
• rivers

Music, Movies, and Books

Music:
Well, generally I like anything in E- or A-. Specifically, I ADORE Tom Ze, Nina Simone, Alelia Diane, Rufus Wainright, Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Sufjan Stevens, Holy Fuck, The Magnetic Fields, Tom Waits...
Movies:
The Royal Tenenbaums; Le fabuleux destin de Amelie Poulian; Around Cape Horn; I [heart] Huckabees; City of God; Darwin's Nightmare; Amores Perros; Horsedrawn Magic; Rockers; The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys; Die fetten Tagen sind vorbei (The Edukators); Black Cat, White Cat, Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others); Juno; Angst Essen Seele Auf (Fassbinder), Paris Berlin. There are parts of Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn that I really like, too.
Books:
At the moment I only read sociolinguistics and applied linguistics theory, but if i remember back to a time before... I guess the old favourites are Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler, Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Matilda by Rhold Dahl (and mostly everything else he wrote except Switch Bitch, which scared me), The Middle Stories by Shelia Heti, Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger (and everything else he wrote), Race against Time by Stephen Lewis, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bordain, The Inoperative Community by Jean-Luc Nancy, and Papillion.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Hum. Well, it's not amazing like Kilimanjaro amazing, but my friend Laen and I were chased by six dogs in the forest in Romania two summers ago. One of them bit me, and I was ambulance to a tiny tiny hospital (full of frogs) in some little town for rabies shots (I'm okay). It was by far the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me.
Oh! Also, I have made pierogies from scratch for 25 people on more than one occasion. Can't claim not to have made a gigantic mess though.

Teach, Learn, Share

Well... I can usually find a way to do just about anything that needs to be done, and can help out with any of your things too. I'm pretty good at fixing the stuff you thought you had to throw away ;-)

I'd like to learn to play chess.

Tye, my fiancé who I am travelling with, is am AMAZING cook and loves to share.

Countries I’ve Visited

Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Spain

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