I'm an introverted but very easy-going, friendly, down to earth sort of person, with a healthy (and often silly) sense of humor. I often like to think deeply on various subjects, and have a lot of curiosity about the world around me.

CURRENT MISSION

To never give up on trying to make the world a better place or finding new ways to expand my life.

PHILOSOPHY

I often gravitate to the idea of balance, particularly between thought and emotion. For example, the ability to think critically and logically is immensely important to me, but so is the capacity for compassion and empathy.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Mostly because I want to meet interesting new people and learn things about their home/culture/experiences -- and share things about my own.

Interests

• culture
• books
• theater
• performing arts
• cooking
• walking
• traveling
• coding
• music
• electronic music
• violin
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

I like a variety of stuff, and especially so if it's immersive/tells a good story, isn't afraid to experiment/break free of the norm, defies easy categorization, or really makes me think and feel. Here's a sampling of my favorites.

Music:
Pain of Salvation
Explosions in the Sky
Vienna Teng
Christopher Tin
A Silver Mt. Zion

Books:
Atonement
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Lord of the Rings

Movies:
The Visitor
Koyaanisqatsi
Wendy and Lucy
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Going to a dark, intense play called Sleep No More. It's performed as interactive theater, in which the stage is a 90-room building that each audience member explores however they want to, perhaps moving with particular actors (who almost never speak) from place to place, or even looking through the desk drawers and books found in various rooms for clues as to what exactly is going on. The whole experience is like walking through a dream, and is at once deeply unsettling, brain-addling, beautiful, bizarre, and electrifying. I have never been more in awe of a theatrical performance.

Teach, Learn, Share

Here are a few things that I know about:

- How to cook and bake
- How to write code (in Java, C, and various other languages) and make web pages
- Russian and Japanese (the languages as well as the cultures and histories, to some extent). And English, of course!
- How to play the violin/viola (if I'm hosting you, since I don't generally travel with my viola)
- How to create electronic music on a computer

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Jamaica, Norway, Russian Federation, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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