CURRENT MISSION

Getting through my final year of studying ;)

ABOUT ME

I tend to see myself as a slightly wacky, compassionate and uncomplicated person, whose biggest passion is travelling, seeing new places and meeting new people. Since I can remember my parents have brought me to the most amazing places, from living in Tanzania for 2 years to buying an old-timer car and driving it through the sahara to sell it in The Gambia, and since I've started living by myself I've tried to live up to the travelling-pace I'd grown used to. In the last few years I've gone to South and Central America, had some amazing trips to Asia, discovered Australia and New Zealand, and since I started studying I try to also see a lot within Europe.

Other things I love include music, whether it's going to festivals and concerts or making it myself; I sing (might actually be one of the first things you notice about me, I tend to sing without noticing it, which often leads to really funny, friendly conversations with strangers on the street), play the piano and guitar, and I'm always planning to learn to play more instruments. For the rest I like to keep myself busy with getting completely into some new hobby every few months. This time it's wall climbing, kayaking and going on long nightly city walks - there's something deeply wonderous about being alone on the streets at night that I really got addicted to.

PHILOSOPHY

A thing I'm really passionate about is how to stay mentally sane and happy in our current super busy and complex society. I often feel like we're surrounded by so many social norms, capitalistic ideas and endless potential sources of stress that a main task for anyone nowadays is figuring out what among all these things is worth adhering to and believing and investing in.

Simply put, if you'd try to follow all the advice, advertisements and norms around us you'd go crazy trying to maintain the perfect diet, appearance, possessions, friend group, relationship, job, etc., and I also think that the reason that so many people are experiencing mental problems such as burnout and depression is them having trouble living up to all these ideals. That's why I think it's not only super interesting but also crucial to a happy and healthy life to find out what actually makes you and the people around you happy, what gives you the most energy and makes you most open to meaningful relationships with others.

For me this means learning to let go of a lot of things; letting go of trying to change my appearance for the better and instead just accepting how I look, letting go of traditional ideas on for instance relationships and careers to instead develop my own, letting go of the fear that I'm not living up to my potential and the fear of missing out on things - basically just trying to take a step back to figure out what life might really be about.

It might be a bit utopian but I really do hope that more people - definitely including myself because I'm still learning every day - can slowly stop stressing about so many things that really shouldn't matter, and can start just living, experiencing, and caring for each other :)

我为什么加入 Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've hosted some people when I was at my parents place for a while and met some really cool people that way, and for the rest I keep myself busy with meeting CSers for games nights, jam sessions, etc.

兴趣

Hmm.. might have accidentally already wrote all that in the introduction part. Ah well, to sum up: travelling, anything that has to do with music, having deep and meaningful conversations with people, dancing weirdly, and most of all just finding ways to feel alive and happy, that's what it's all about in the end :)

• writing
• singing
• concerts
• festivals
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• piano
• hiking
• sports
• beaches
• mountains

音乐、电影和书籍

I honestly read anything, as long as it's not scary - although I often end up liking science fiction and fantasy the most (e.g. Ursula le Guin, Eragon, Mortal Instruments, Hunger Games).

With movies I´m more or less the same; I love all kinds of movies, from more easy-going movies such as Amelie, Pride and Prejudice and the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to movies that really make you think such as Fight Club, District 9 and Shutter Island.

For the rest I listen to music almost non-stop; when I'm alone the only time I'm not listening to music is when I'm singing or playing the piano/guitar :) All time favourite band stays the Offspring, I love to put the volume on max at my parents place (hooray for having no neighbours) to Radiohead, the Prodigy and Nero, and I also listen to a lot of quieter music like Damien Rice, Ingrid Michaelson, Coldplay, Saybia, Bastille and Ane Brun.

我做过的一件不可思议的事情

Oh, so many! Driving motorcycle in Thailand and Vietnam and discovering amazing old ruins and beautiful beaches on the way; driving over the beach in Mauretania with an old non-4X4 car because there weren't any roads we could take without getting stuck; jamming at night with people I'd only just met in a dark park with a breathtaking view of the complete skyline of Brisbane in Australia; spending hours sitting on hills in New Zealand just being completely baffled by the ridiculously beautiful landscape and sky; travelling through the mainland of Tanzania over a 'road' where everyone kept telling us that it was really not possible to get to the other side of the country this way and after 3 days of getting stuck in the mud and getting lost repeatedly actually making it anyway... haha, writing this makes me nostalgic, I want to travel again now! :)

我游览过的国家

Australia, Burundi, Colombia, Ecuador, Gambia, Jordan, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Senegal, Singapore, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, United States, Viet Nam

我居住过的国家

Australia, Netherlands, Tanzania