CURRENT MISSION

My aim in life is to become a wise old lady one day and to have a lot of fun acquiring that wisdom along the way

ABOUT ME

I'm 24, I'm an aspiring writer and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet to survive financially and invest in my creative half, but I'm enjoying the journey. I'm very friendly and enthusiastic and I love meeting new people and hearing their stories.

PHILOSOPHY

I think life is about learning and sharing what you've learnt with other people. And I think we all have a responsibility of care towards the world and the people in it. Let's see where we can get to together.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm new here, so for the next fews months I'm hoping to do a lot of surfing and to pay back any hospitality when I get back to the UK.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I once cooked for my keep in an Austrian monastery in the centre of Rome. No girls were allowed so I had a very elaborate story about how I was the cousin of one of the guys, and every evening I cooked for about 10 training priests - it was very unexpected but it ended up being one of the most fantastic few weeks meeting people I definitely wouldn't normally have the chance to meet!

Interests

All kinds of literature, especially poetry and short fiction; Film, art and generally talking about ideas and the world; Food and cooking (I would be very happy to repay couch-giving with a home-cooked meal). I think I make a damn good English roast dinner but I also love cooking and eating Italian and Asian cuisine; Listening to music, dancing with no inhibitions and singing with friends - we had a year without a television and went back to 1950s style entertainment with singing to a guitar in the evenings and it was lovely.

• arts
• writing
• literature
• poetry
• singing
• performing arts
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• running
• socializing
• investing
• music
• guitar
• spoken word
• surfing

Music, Movies, and Books

Rachel Kushner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera, Alasdair Gray, Eleanor Catton, John Steinbeck, Michel Houellebecq, Italo Calvino, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Patience Agbabi, T.S.Eliot, John Ashbery, Simon Armitage, Adrienne Rich, Kate Tempest, Derek Walcott, Slavoj Zizek, Walter Benjamin

Nicholas Jaar, Bonobo, James Blake, FourTet, Anushka, Gilles Peterson, Portico Quartet, Zara McFarlane, Joni Mitchell, Cyril Hahn, Banks, Danay Suarez, Fat Freddy's Drop, Caribou, Burial, Radiohead, Mala, Maya Jane Coles... But I really do like a lot of other music too - I was brought up on Rock and Prog Rock by my Dad, Jazz and Soul by my Mum and totally discovered Classical music as studying/cooking music when I was at University.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

When I was ten I went to Turkey with my family and we went to a place where there was an underwater city. I remember that day so clearly - I could see spires coming up out of the sea, and gold leaf under the water, and glints of colour from old mosaics. Ten years later I went back to that place, and saw some crumbling white steps running into the water, and the vague shapes of buildings below, but no colour, no gold, no temple spires. I never knew if it had all been plundered, or if my imagination had just gone wild when I was a kid. I think it was the latter :)

Teach, Learn, Share

I think this might be the best thing that couchsurfing has to offer. Sharing knowledge and skills is what life is all about. Generally, I'd say I enjoy learning from other people's attitudes towards life. I would personally love to teach people about food, cooking, how to eat well on a budget, how to write/perform spoken word poetry and to give voice to your ideas. Most of all, I'm trying to teach myself to be a poet (for the page) so I would love to exchange what I've learnt for what any poets/aspiring poets have learnt out there.