Hello, I'm Scott. I'm an itinerant linguist which means I travel around learning languages and teaching English to pay the bills. Right now I am in Mongolia finishing up a year-long teaching contract.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I used to be active on here but that was years ago. I'm trying to get back into it.

Interests

Languages (the more obscure the better). I do warn you that if you give me even the minutest opportunity I will talk your ear off about languages.

For some reason I can't add these to my languages but I also have basic conversational proficiency in PNG Tok Pisin. That is, mi tokim liklik tu long Tok Pisin, olsem mi wanem lainim na tokim mo long manmeri bilong PNG. I also speak a little Ket, which is an indigenous language of Central Siberia that may have a distant geneological relationship with the Na-Dene family of North America. Aat ostyganna ej disiragavet, aenago seel disqansiga!

I also am a big fan of the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland, however I certainly don't speak it. If you speak Shaetlan, however, please do contact me as I would love if you taught me!

So my favorite hobby is language! My other hobbies are studying religion and culture, and reading/writing poetry. I play a little piano too but haven't had access to one for the last two years.

I'm also kind of a history (esp. Byzantine Empire and ancient China) and paleoanthropology buff.

• culture
• writing
• poetry
• cooking
• reading
• traveling
• piano
• history
• languages
• religion
• hitchhiking

Music, Movies, and Books

In terms of music I like classic rock, heavy metal and hip-hop. I would like to get more into classical but don't know where to start. I like very much a few world music traditions, namely Khoomii (check out the band Hanggai), Chinese (esp. Yue and Guangdong) opera, and Faroese kvaeði.

I'm not much of a tv/movie person but my favorite movie is probably a tie between Satoshi Kon's "Millennium Actress" and Kim Yong-gyun's "The Sword With No Name". As far as TV goes, I like a lot of Japanimation. Some of my personal favorites are Gurenn Lagann, Cromartie High School, and Golden Boy. City Hunter's pretty good too.

My favorite single book, far and away, is the collected poems of Ossian. I'm currently reading Alexander Pope's translation of Homer, which is pretty good too. I also really like the genre of medieval chivalric romance and troubadour poetry. In my opinion there is no literary genre whatever that can even come close to courtly romance poetry in sheer lyrical and thematic beauty.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Got arrested under suspicion of being a spy while hitchhiking across the Gobi in Inner Mongolia. Proceeded to talk my way out of it with my horrible Mongolian.

Teach, Learn, Share

If you want to learn Ket, the coolest language ever, I would love to have a conversation partner.

What I Can Share with Hosts

I can cook a little. I can also provide excellent linguistic data if you like that sort of thing. I'm an extremely friendly and extroverted person so I'm easy to talk to.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, England, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Mongolia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Czech Republic, Mongolia, Taiwan, United States