CURRENT MISSION

Befriending you and your couch (you can befriend inanimate objects, right?)

ABOUT ME

Working as a news analyst/editor in the DC Metro region, enjoying life in the Eastern Market/Capitol Hill area.

PHILOSOPHY

Religion-wise, I'm a Pastafarian, as I've been touched by His Noodly Appendage: http://www.venganza.org/

That should tell you humor is central to my philosophy- you've got to laugh at most things, especially yourself. Aside from that, it's not that difficult, just help people when you can and don't be an asshole.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm hoping to meet many wonderful people and inanimate couch-like objects through offering advice, meeting and traveling!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

During the summer of 2009 I couched from Dublin up to Sweden, down to Germany and back over with stops along the way, meeting a lot of cool people. I also couch surfed in Baltimore during a linguistics conference in 2010, another great CouchSurfing experience.

Interests

These are many, varied, and scattered. Some include: awkward situations (really people-watching in general), random adventures, sociolinguistics, language and gender, learning other languages, travel, photography (check out my cameras- http://www.flickr.com/photos/65353932@N00/2749878905/), cooking, music (playing instruments and collecting records), reading, making crafts and gifting them, figuring out life.

• photography
• cooking
• crafts
• news
• reading
• traveling
• music
• violin
• languages
• religion

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: "Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable, or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"-John Cusack, Hi Fidelity

http://lastfm.com/user/NUGurl84

I have a particular weakness for Jens Lekman, Morrissey, Elliott Smith, Arab Strap, Tindersticks, Of Montreal, The Divine Comedy, Belle & Sebastian, all Steven Merritt groups, Blueboy, and all Field Mice offshoots. But when I'm not listening to sad mopers, I'm listening to ass-shakers like Cut Copy, The Presets, Pet Shop Boys, Studio, !!!, etc.

Movies: Great films make you think about life and challenge your assumptions, they don't entertain you into complacency or reinforce stereotypes. I think the most moving film I've ever seen was Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage. But I've also been known to enjoy comedies (Big Lebowski) and sci-fi stuff (huge X-Files and MST3K fan!) a lot too.

Books: "There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more."-Morrissey

I love a random assortment of works. I really like Harukami's works as far as fiction goes. However, my childhood favorite was probably Arthur C. Clarke, I spent one summer reading all his works and dreaming about distant planets. Generally, I enjoy reading about subjects-science, music, humor, food, linguistics, psychology, sociology, gender.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I played at Carnegie Hall in New York City with my high school orchestra. Haven't topped that yet.

Teach, Learn, Share

If you happen to have a violin or keyboard laying around I could teach you to play and maybe we could jam.

Also, I can teach you the International Phonetic Alphabet, which linguists use to transcribe stuff they hear in any language, so basically if you use this you end up being able to pronounce any word in a language, even though you have NO idea what you're saying. Pretty useful, huh? ;)

And I can regale you with stories about the strange people who come into the record store where I work.

Countries I’ve Visited

Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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