CURRENT MISSION

I've got to write, to write well I've got to SEE and EXPERIENCE

ABOUT ME

I really love four things (besides my friends and family, but I'm not trying to get sappy): my dogs, (ice) hockey, Slavic languages, and writing. After living in the lovely little city of Durham, NC for my whole childhood, I went to school just outside of Chicago at Northwestern University, met a bunch of internationally-minded people, picked up Russian and Czech, and I've got this urge to live abroad, which brought me first to Gurjaani, Georgia, and now to Liberec, Czech Republic. Who knows what's next!

PHILOSOPHY

"Sometimes you have to throw into the ocean the puppy . . . and see if it will survive." -- Arturs Irbe

Or, phrased differently:

"Fortune favors she who dares."

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I want to see (and eventually show) the places that most people forget about. To me, it seems like that's where the real experiences are.

Interests

languages, hockey, writing, anything Czech, other Slavic things, the former Eastern Bloc, traveling, baking, contemporary literature (plus some classics), astronomy in a totally non-scientist way, NCAA basketball (any Duke fans out there?)

• dogs
• humanities
• writing
• literature
• baking
• traveling
• basketball
• hockey
• astronomy
• languages
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (and almost everything Milan Kundera's ever written), Everything is Illuminated, All the Pretty Horses, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Silmarillion, Midnight's Children, Oscar Wilde in general. I figure only my favorites are important to list here.

Movies: Love Actually, Wet Hot American Summer, Shakespeare in Love, the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice. Plenty of other ones too . . . some are pretty embarrassing. Like The Cutting Edge. Which I love.

Music: The New Pornographers, Arcade Fire, The Shins, Belle and Sebastian, The Weepies, The Beatles, Lady GaGa, Kanye West, the Traveling Wilburys, whatever else my friends tell me that I'll like. I'm not so picky, really.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I scalped a ticket at face value (why am I so proud of that?) to get into Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals in Raleigh, North Carolina, to see my beloved Carolina Hurricanes (they're an ice hockey team) defeat the Edmonton Oilers and win the Stanley Cup. I definitely cried when the buzzer sounded.

Teach, Learn, Share

In Czech, "na zdravi" is "cheers," and "nadrazi" is "train station." Use with care.

Countries I’ve Visited

Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Czech Republic, Georgia, United States