CURRENT MISSION

Do as much as I can and Learn even more!

ABOUT ME

I am friendly and introspective. I see travel experience and idea-experience as a type of calling for my life. I'm in grad school for psychotherapy right now and have a background in all sorts of things: women's studies and cultural criticism, film, pastry, and now psychoanalysis as well. So I like to talk about a lot of different things! I love listening to people's stories and figuring out what makes them unique.

PHILOSOPHY

I feel like I've been working at making myself into an interesting person for at least the past eight years or so. So for me, that means, lots of books, lots of films, lots of jobs, some traveling (I hope to do much more of that) and lots of conversations. Not that I didn't have thoughts before of course, its just that I am a very curious person who is interested in so so many different things, and I simply cannot seem to choose just one to focus my entire life towards.

I try to never waste an opportunity to read or learn or think about something--but this can get a little mentally exhausting, so sometimes I just stare out the window of the El and drift.

I have a strong sense of the absurd and it forms the basis for most of my humor and sense of delight; however, I also have a strong sense of justice and some of the things that I get most angry about is our world's current state of affairs and the inability of us all to do very much about it.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Someday when I get a better couch maybe I can host. For right now though, my first venture into this world is figuring out how to travel through Europe cheaply and meeting new people.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

This is my first time. I'm attempting to travel all through Central and Eastern Europe and meeting new and interesting and thoughtful people around the world.

Interests

All of my free time is allocated. Generally practicing my violin, learning something via NPR or TED, writing in my journal or reading about neuroscience/psychoanalysis. I practice yoga regularly and ride my bike around Chicago as soon as the weather turns warm but I also like to sit and think my way through my experience in the world quite a lot.

• writing
• books
• yoga
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• violin
• cycling
• neuroscience

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Closer, Moulin Rouge!, The Hours, Shopgirl, Stranger than Fiction, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Being John Malkovich, Synedoche NY, Moonrise Kingdom, The Darjeeling Limited.

Television: Boardwalk Empire, Arrested Development, House, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, Mad Men.

Radio: This American Life and Radiolab!

Books: ANYTHING by Milan Kundera (but my favorites are "Unbearable Lightness of Being," "Ignorance" and the non-fiction essays), Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Mrs. Dalloway, The Hours, The Wasteland, e.e. cummings, White Noise, almost anything by Jose Saramago, A Man Without Qualities, Dr. Seuss, Borges, A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing and I just finished Cloud Atlas and I totally loved it.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I'm not quite sure what counts on that quite yet. I need to travel more. I know that.

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