CURRENT MISSION

To fill my insatiable wanderlust, meet people from a variety of backgrounds and opinions, and to live each day as happily as possible.

ABOUT ME

Hello! My name is Maggie. I'm a recently graduated English/French major from Canada whose main interests are travel, language, literature, and culture. One of my favourite things above all of this is the experience of meeting new people and making new friends from all over the world, whose connection will last for years to come -- and I hope that CS will be able to do just that for me!

PHILOSOPHY

The world isn't perfect. But it's there for us, doing the best it can. And that's what makes it so beautiful.

BLOG: http://maggiesmusings.tumblr.com/

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Unfortunately, I can't quite allow people to stay on my couch as I am a university student living at home with her family. As for my current student residence in France, it is extremely tiny and only has enough room for my roommate and myself currently living in it. However, should any traveller be in my neck of the woods at a given time, I would be more than willing to hang out with them and show them around!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None yet!

Interests

My passions are language and travel; I yearn to learn as many languages as I can and hope to travel to world someday. Currently, I speak English and Cantonese (a dialect of Chinese) fluently and have a working knowledge of French. I also speak an elementary level of Spanish, having previously au paired in Madrid and having studied it in high school. I hope to add Mandarin, German, Korean, or Italian one day to those! I also enjoy reading, film, history, and culture. I love reading classic literature, talking about contemporary films and discussing history and world affairs. In terms of sports, I play tennis and badminton and enjoy them both very much!

• culture
• literature
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• blogging
• hiking
• sports
• tennis
• badminton
• history
• languages
• au-pair

Music, Movies, and Books

I LOVE reading classic literature! As an English AND French major, my life consists of literature and analyzing/writing about it everyday. I've read a general amount of famous works in both languages; I hold a particular love for the Romantics and Modernist writers. In addition, I've just started recently getting into Russian literature with the the works of Chekhov and Dostoyevsky. In terms of contemporary books, I LOVE the Harry Potter series and I love chick lit and young adult fiction.

As for movies, I'm a HUGE cinephile. I love classic black-and-white films, anything with Audrey Hepburn, foreign films (any language really, because subtitles are ever so handy) and any movie that can advertise an interesting plotline and an interesting cast. I especially enjoy Studio Ghibli animated films.

As for music, I like anything that sounds good, really, regardless of language. Most of my music is in the genre of alternative, contemporary rock, pop, mainstream Top 40 stuff, French and Spanish Top 40 stuff, anime OSTS, Bollywood tracks, and Korean pop music.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

When I au paired in Spain, it was my first-ever venture to Europe -- that feat has remained with me ever since with all my subsequent travels, and that was when I really came to realize the love and passion I have for exploring new places at my own pace.

When I was in Nicaragua for a service trip building a classroom, one of our off day activities involved volcano boarding -- essentially tobogganing off the side of a volcano! It was an exhilarating experience to hike up the entire volcano, crawl into its craters, and then slide down its side. It was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done!

Teach, Learn, Share

TEACH: I'm more than willing to help you with your English if you'd like, as I am a native English speaker.

LEARN: I would love to meet people whom I can practice speaking with in French or Spanish! Those are the languages I'm really working on right now and would love for more conversational exposure for it.

SHARE: I'm more than happy to share with you about my life in Canada and North American culture if you're interested in how life is here. In addition, I enjoy intellectually stimulating conversations with people about literature, film, history, or general topics of interest along those lines.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, China, England, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, France