My name is Shane, and depending on the circumstance, may either answer to my birth surname which occupied the majority of my life or my married surname for the past 10 years.

I was born with a rare systemic severe rheumatoid arthritis where my ability to even walk or be independent beyond the age of 15 was highly unlikely. Even though I was able to push through this prophetic threshold through my 15th year of age, I chose to front load my life with everything I could physically do, including travel, rock climbing, spelunking, underwater scuba, regular hikes, mountain biking, and much more. These more adventure experiences meant less time for other pursuits like focusing on career, money, and the social-familial benefits of living more local to family and childhood friends.

After living in 16 states, 3 countries, and well over 100 addresses (with even more travel), I landed and have thus far remained in New York City area now for the past 12 years. It is here where I met my husband, and where I find a greater variety of people and cultures than in most areas I have ever been.

Currently, I am a freelance technology business consultant, a career I continued from what started as an interim adjustment from a director level role at a small company over 20 years ago. Considering my undergraduate education in Psychology was from earlier than that, I have done fairly well without having to consider a graduate level education. However, even with all of my experience, I have come to a career plateau where having a master’s level degree will help open more doors, or minimally not close them, than a bachelor’s degree can maintain.

My hope is to use this MBA to refresh my collegiate mind and expand to higher senior level and even executive roles, as well as springboard me to the next level of my life experiences. (Occasionally shaking things up has proven most beneficial in all my life cross-roads).

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I am a social being. :) My best memories of all my travels thus far have been the ones where I got to travel not as a tourist, rather a guest. I enjoy the humanity connection with a vast variety of people.
I am also an excellent sociable host, if NYC did not let the hotels lobby for laws only friendly to hotels and not personal BnB, you would be able to read 5 years of reviews where we were always Super Host with a near perfect 5* rating.
My husband of 10 years, Shreshth, is also a good co-host :P
We often travel together, but occasionally travel apart, as my work and his schooling schedules and destinations do not always match up.

Interests

Nature

• writing
• technology
• video games
• board games
• reading
• travel
• sci-fi
• gayfriendly

Music, Movies, and Books

I decided long long ago, in my early childhood, that if I was to have best experiences of life for whatever it had to offer, I could not pick any one "favorite" of anything, as in so doing, I would at that point experience life more narrowly.

So I will list a random few...
"The Power of One" (both a book and a movie).
Atlas Shrugged
Most Star Wars movies
Encyclopedia Brown (a childhood book series)
Harry Potter series (books first then the movies)
The Railway Children
and many more..

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Outside of what I included in the about me... hmm...

I wrote and published a book (currently off the shelves while we are working on completing two other books, then a relaunch marketing plan).

Spent 6 months in the French countryside waking up every morning to the "tune" of 16-40 antique pianos, each with their own unique tone, feel, and energy.

Turned a 10-day vacation into a 6-month part-time volunteer sabbatical on the big island of Hawaii...
...

What I Can Share with Hosts

A friendly, open, social, youthful energy, nomadic soul, clean and respectful guest and perchance friend, or in the least a humanity connection and experience.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, England, India, Ireland, Mexico

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Ireland, United States