CURRENT MISSION

To definitively measure the amount of wood woodchucks could chuck.

ABOUT ME

I was born in Florida and went to college in California. Half of my family lives in Brazil. And I've lived and worked in Tokyo.

Most of my travels are from one of these places to the other, from friends to family and back again. And while I love them and time with them is precious to me, I want to see more of the world and its people.

So here I am on Couchsurfing. It's not like I haven't traveled to other places before, but there were very few places that I felt particularly connected to. This website seems to be a wonderful alternative to the sort of aloof hotel/staying with your own group sort of travel that I've been accustomed to.

PHILOSOPHY

Life is better when you're active.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm only beginning to. Since I joined Couchsurfing, I haven't had a place of my own to offer people. For now, I'm going to surf a bit. And then when I stop in one place for more than a month or two, I'll try hosting.

Interests

Playing sports, but never watching them on TV. (An exception is made for the world cup.) Reading, generally fiction. Warm weather. Hot weather. Any weather above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, really. There's a lot I like about Japanese pop culture - manga, anime, video games. Dancing is fun, mostly latin stuff. Martial arts. Rock in random languages. Fooooood.

• arts
• culture
• books
• dancing
• comics
• anime
• video games
• reading
• tv
• traveling
• sports
• martial arts
• world cup
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Rock in random languages. Popular English music gets played everywhere, so you can probably find it on your own.

Rock in Spanish: Duncan Dhu, Soda Stereo. Don't know any newer bands though, so if you've got any suggestions, great!

Rock in Portuguese: Legião Urbana. Skank. Paralamas do Sucesso. Etc.

Theoretically, I should know more about Japanese rock, but the scene seems so heavily single-oriented and rather difficult to just casually get into.

Suggestions are appreciated. I'm not into metal, though, which is often included in the rock category.

Books: Murakami Haruki. Terry Pratchett. Toni Morrison. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I like most things. I've come to tolerate J.K. Rowling but NOT Stephenie Meyer.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Standing outside during a hurricane. In a protected area, of course. But still.

Teach, Learn, Share

Learn other languages related to ones you know by reading comics. It's not overwhelming or frustrating like books and newspapers, because there's far less text and a lot of the information is conveyed visually, so you can get by even if you don't understand words here and there. This works really, really well within, say, neo-latin languages. I can't say if that's the case for other language families.