Hi! I'm Tom and I live in Melbourne where I run a small web company. Finally got the opportunity to see the world, so I'm spending 7 months bouncing around Europe!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've hosted and met people through Couchsurfing, and hope to meet and Couchsurf myself once I make it to Europe.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Hosted a few times. Once, with a surfer, we ended up walking past a bar at 3am which was closing down. The guy came out and said we could take what we wanted from the place, including quite a lot of beer. Glad to be a part of that surfer's introduction to Melbourne!

Interests

Most of my time is spent absorbing silly amounts of information and hoping some of it sticks. I read a lot, and want to write more. I play guitar when I'm frustrated, listen to music when I'm happy and watch films when I'm sad. I've tried many different things (just long enough to get the hang of them). My learning is becoming gradually more directed. (currently I'm trying to get a hang of French, and metalearning - what's the best way to learn)

• fish
• books
• architecture
• photography
• film making
• sketching
• cooking
• beer
• fitness
• running
• meditation
• walking
• boating
• clothing
• movies
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• fishing
• backpacking
• rock climbing
• economics
• engineering
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Film - I'm a sucker for long, drawn out atmospheric films with perfect, poignant cinematography. Like Tree of Life, the Assassination of Jesse James or the Ghost Writer. I'd love to make films properly one day, but I've only really dabbled.

Best teen angst book for me was Camus' L'Etranger. The aimlessness resonated with me then, and occasionally now. As for sheer perverse beauty, Lolita is brilliant. House of Leaves is the scariest book I've read. To be honest I read a lot more non-fiction.

As for music, I'm always looking for something new and interesting. Tends towards the indie, with seperate passions in Jazz etc. Have a thing for orchestral soundtracks. Please introduce me to some new music if you stay with me/I stay with you!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Did a thing which was famous for a little while and kind of cool called Tramsurance. Google it if you want. Hopefully bigger things to come.

I've seen a lot of cool things and I should really write them down. As a kid, around 12 or so, my Dad took me out on a whale watching expedition outside of Juneau in Alaska. It was actually a professional photography tour, and we felt kind of inadequate with a crappy point-and-shoot compared to the other tourists sporting entire cases of just lenses. We were very lucky to see humpback whales bubblefeeding some 10m from the boat. Bubblefeeding is incredibly rare to witness, and involves the whales working together and blowing bubbles, forcing a school of fish close together and close to the surface. From the boat, you see ring after ring of bubbles until hundreds of fish start churning the water. Then three or four whales break the surface, charging vertically up out of the water to half their length. Pretty damn cool. Especially for a kid.

Teach, Learn, Share

Wow. Um. This is going to be long - especially the "what I want other people to teach me" section.

I get very interested in topics, immerse myself in them for awhile and move onto new ones. Therefore I know a bit about a lot of things, and love to learn about practically anything.

Previously this has included: Guitar, Sketching, Architecture, Lockpicking, 3D modelling, Supplementation + Fitness, programming, language learning, songwriting, film making, cooking, meditation, hypnotism (certified! ha), parkour, krav maga, businesses and startups, anything that breaks the world into analytical models, economics... I'm going to cut that off there - ha. Currently I'm getting interested in personal aesthetics/style, pending my ability to buy clothes.

What I'd like to learn about is essentially all of the above. I'm guilty of dilettantism on a massive scale, so if you're an expert on anything really expect an avid audience.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Turkey, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia