CURRENT MISSION

My current mission is to live in the moment with an eye toward being a better human being.

ABOUT ME

Tyler is a high school science teacher who is slightly more introverted than extroverted. He's an excellent listener and loves great conversation about ideas. He never seems to be in a great hurry and strives to be in the moment. He reads more non-fiction than fiction.

PHILOSOPHY

I live in the service of others. However, one must first serve himself before he can serve others. Sometimes this means that I need to play some music on the guitar. Other times this means I need to forget what I'm doing and just get out and chat with others.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm currently updating my profile and hoping to CouchSurf in Ithaca, NY for a snowboarding outing this weekend.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have had two outstanding CouchSurfing (visiting) experiences. Both were in South Africa in 2010, during the World Cup. Those experiences and the opportunities that would not have occurred without having met my hosts were the true highlights of that vacation.

Interests

Tyler likes being out of doors to go running, hiking, biking, or reading and just soaking it up. He really enjoys great diction and can be caught saying some awkward things just to try and get the words right. Words, you might say, are a hobby. Other hobbies include playing piano/guitar/singing, reading, following GT auto racing, watching/playing soccer, volunteering, water-coloring (it's been a while, though) and developing his skills as a science educator in a New York City public high school. He particularly loves playing and listening to music but recently struggles to find the time to satisfy these urges. When away from a preferred musical instrument (piano/guitar) for a couple of days, he may begin to suffer withdrawal.

• singing
• coloring
• running
• boating
• reading
• auto racing
• music
• guitar
• piano
• cycling
• hiking
• snowboarding
• soccer
• world cup
• teaching
• science
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

The Big Lebowski, Donnie Darko, Zoolander, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, anything from the Coen Brothers, indie movies, documentaries, movies that don't use montage; Wilco, Ben Harper, Golden Smog, Calexico, afro-cuban and jazz guitar, Chris Smither, Tom Waits, Frederick Chopin, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones; Catch-22, Kurt Vonnegut, Jared Diamond, Frank J. Sulloway (Born to Rebel)

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Milford Sound, New Zealand: it was a quiet morning, overcast, and I climbed aboard a medium size boat (could handle 100 people maybe). Shortly after pulling away from the dock, dolphins slipped out and back into the water on both sides of our boat. The backdrop of the fjords, tipped with snow from the day prior, seared the moment in memory.
Stepping up out of the Union Square subway station: On a week long visit to the biggest US city to which I had never been, a welcome feeling washed over me that I had not felt since my first weekend as a freshman at college. The din of the crowds, sure of themselves but not aggressively pursuing whatever they fancied, the comfortable late May warmth, and my own sureness that I was unsure of exactly where I was but needed to be exactly there culminated in an exciting feeling of standing at a crossroads that I will never forget.

Teach, Learn, Share

I feel pretty solidly grounded in a scientific understanding of the methods of psychological research. Ask me about it sometime, if you like. I am the assimilator in terms of learning style; this means I like to gather all the information available but don't always move forward beyond this data collection point. Through the lens of science but with rich, necessary human values to boot, I view the world and sometimes have a hard time judging it. (I'm way more of a P than a J on the Myers-Briggs.)

Countries I’ve Visited

New Zealand, South Africa, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

New Zealand, United States

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