CURRENT MISSION

to fill my mind, body, and soul with the wonders of this universe!

ABOUT ME

The older I get the harder I find it to fill out a profile like this, to answer questions directly without delving into a story or painting a contradiction! In terms of traits (I recently taught a class on the psychology of personality, so I guess that's why I'm starting there), I would say that I am very curious, especially about anything regarding human relationships and interactions, but also about what's out there beyond our earthly existence! I am fairly extroverted, and at times drawn to colorful, all night "underground" dance parties, but just as often I find myself immersed in in-depth one-on-one discussions (sometimes in the middle of a wild party!). I have been described as bubbly and enthusiastic, but in the last year or two people have been calling me "chill" and laid back, so I guess it just depends on where I am, who I'm with, and what I'm doing.

Here is just a little bit about me (hopefully I can tell you more if we ever meet in person!): I was born in Moldova and grew up speaking Russian. My parents, brother and sister (who are twins), and I immigrated to the US when I was 9, and my first glimpse of the Manhattan skyline left me dizzy and thirsting for more. Since then I have lived in NJ, VA, and some more exotic places (Ecuador and Morocco) before moving back to NYC for graduate school. I am now working on my dissertation. I've lived in the Big Apple for quite a while now, but the city keeps unfolding before me, revealing fascinating new facets to me, often when I least expect it. My whole life I've longed to be a foreigner, exploring the winding streets of some unfamiliar city or finding a path through a remote forest, stumbling on characters and adventure...and so far, New York, with all of its multiple personalities, is the only city where I've been able to fulfill that side of me without having to jump on a plane every week!

Still, wanderlust has raged inside me since I had legs to wander with, and it was getting harder and harder to stay in one place! This summer I am traveling around the world in 84 days! I have been in Peru for about 2 weeks, and every day has been filled with magic and adventure. This trip is going to be unbelievable -- I am making up for lost time, feeling like I'm coming home as I hit the road, recovering languages I've forgotten, learning new ways to live and relate everywhere I go, and go on life-changing adventures with amazing new friends...

visited 22 states (9.77%)Create your own visited map of The World or jurisdische veraling duits?

PHILOSOPHY

Hard to encapsulate in a few words, but I have always deeply valued equality. I find big power differences uncomfortable, whether I am the one with the power or not! I put a lot of effort into understanding different people's perspectives and on being understood. I also do research on the psychology underlying creative thinking and novelty-seeking and how it relates to the diversity of people's experiences with different kinds of people and places. I think that an educational system that emphasizes traveling and opening yourself up to experiences that may at first feel uncomfortable can do wonders for our collective intelligence, empathy, and well-being (and maybe even the well-being of our planet...except for that darned carbon footprint). I'm hoping to develop that idea through my experiences with CouchSurfing...

Some beautiful quotes from Einstein help flesh it out:

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.

Warum ich bei Couchsurfing bin

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I am pretty new to CouchSurfing...I surfed once in Colorado, which was a wonderful experience, and I'm hoping to surf and discover amazing people and places on my current journey in Peru, Brazil, India, Thailand, and Bali. Once my living situation in NYC changes (right now I live in a tiny studio), I look forward to hosting as well. Now that Peru has brought out my artistic side, I hope to make beautiful souvenirs for the people who are nice enough to open up their doors to me.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

See above.

Interessen

thinking, feeling, playing, dancing (aside from just letting loose, i've done tribal belly dance, hip hop, salsa, and west african fusion, and taking a dancehall class next week), traveling, exploring, pretending to be a local, paradigm-shifting art, things that are byzantine or art deco, drawing and painting, writing songs and poetry, anthropology, social and socialist critique, philosophy, linguistics and foreign languages, other social sciences and science in general (though I do have a few bones to pick), spirituality and indigenous medicine, evolution of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, non-ordinary states of reality, hyperspace, lucid dreaming, cooking (and watching iron chef), cats, snowboarding (after a long hiatus), scuba diving, flow

• cats
• arts
• writing
• poetry
• dancing
• cooking
• partying
• drinking
• traveling
• painting
• drawing
• magic
• music
• piano
• violin
• scuba diving
• snowboarding
• sports
• anthropology
• languages
• medicine
• physics
• psychology
• science
• social science

Musik, Filme und Bücher

some favorite artists at the moment: air, apparat, arcade fire, bluetech, booka shade, caribou, cat power, caribou, cocteau twins, daelelus, lorn, and flying lotus (and other artists from brainfeeder, a cool experimental electronica label based in LA), the doors, elliott smith, emily haines, fever ray, iamamiwhoami, flaming lips, interpol, the kinks, the knife, lcd soundsystem, mimosa, nicolas jaar, philip glass, pretty lights, radiohead, ratatat, sparklehorse, spoon, trentemoller, white stripes..

I love everything from beethoven and classic and psychedelic rock to gangsta rap, techno, and West African drums, but I am pretty selective. I've figured out that I tend to be attracted to minor tonality, complex melodies, layers, and cerebral lyrics, but sometimes an energizing beat is all it takes to get me moving (or ready to do some dissertation work).

Wow...there are too many amazing books to remember...how many to include?? Lately I've been reading psychology-related books more than anything, but missing novels. I'm finally reading (and really feeling) Castaneda's trilogy. I will come back to this one. Anna Karenina, Manuel Puig, Nabokov...(to be continued)

A few movies I remember loving: Royal Tenenbaums, Lord of the Rings, Pulp Fiction, City of God, The Matrix, Memento, American History X, Requiem for a Dream, Spirited Away, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, Once upon a Time in America, Pan's Labyrinth, Kill Bill, Donnie Darko, Diving Bell and Butterfly, Persepolis, Gloomy Sunday, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (I had no idea I would love this one!), but I want to watch explore classic, independent, and arthouse films so please feel free to make suggestions :)

Eine tolle Erfahrung, die ich gemacht habe

Drinking Mother Vine in the virgin Jungle (if you know what this means, we could probably talk for hours about our experiences....and if you're curious about what it means, please ask me -- it's nothing short of unbelievable, and i would love to share it with you in person sometime)

Lehren, lernen, teilen

Would love to learn a bit of a new language, teach you some phrases in one i know, or practice one we have in common...eager to learn anything about music (I used to play the piano and violin when I was young, and I miss it terribly), or try a crazy adventure sport, anything new and interesting, really. I'd also enjoy sharing a culinary experiment or a discussion of the many meanings of life, from ice cream to quantum physics...oh, and i've been practicing hypnosis, which i can share with you if you'd like ;)

Länder, die ich besucht habe

Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Panama, Russian Federation, Spain, Turkey, Virgin Islands, U.S.

Länder, in denen ich gelebt habe

Ecuador, Moldova, Morocco, United States