CURRENT MISSION

Raising awareness about OCD with my project (www.ocdletmego.com) and linguistic research.

ABOUT ME

I am a very easy going person, very friendly and open minded. I just love to meet new people from all over the world. The experience of living abroad (Montana, USA) for a year was just amazing and so life changing. I just want to explore the world now!

I'm currently a graduate student at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) in English Linguistics. I'm doing my Master thesis about how people suffering from Sexual Orientation OCD (or also called HOCD) construct their sexual identity linguistically and how it differs from people who are simple sexually confused but don't label themselves as mentally ill.

PHILOSOPHY

Have you ever heard about the butterfly effect? Basically it's this theory that one action influences another, which influences another one and so on. At the end you have this huge network of actions.
I believe that the human being needs to be connected. It's how one experiences life at its best. When I meet somebody new, I'm changing her/his life. They might not notice that, but maybe tomorrow or in one year, they will do something or think something that was because of me. It can be a huge thing or a little thing.
The importance is to be connected.

I'm also very much into Jacques Derrida and poststructuralism. His way of deconstructing dichotomies really influenced my world view.

I'm also a feminist and against all sorts of descrimination!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I crashed at two places in California and both hosts were so friendly and they trusted me completely (I was so surprised with that). After this experience I just want to give it back to other people in need for a couch.

Interests

I'm really passionate about film in general (I can talk about it for days) but I'm also an amateur musician. I've been playing guitar for 8 years now and I also write my own songs.
You can check my channel on Youtube: www.youtube.com/elvisgomes

• music
• guitar
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

I don't like these "What's your favorite..." type of questions. I find it really hard to point to what my favorite is, because I love diverse stuff! Let's just talk about it and you'll discover what my tastes are :P

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I think Yellowstone was this big experience where I realized how small the human being is. Practically, my stay in the USA has been really life changing. Coming from a little country like Switzerland, you are not aware of the immensity of the world.

I participated on SWITZERLAND'S GOT TALENT and started my fundraising project #OCDletmego (www.ocdletmego.com) to support the research and people suffering from OCD. It was a huge experience that showed me what I really want to do in life.

Teach, Learn, Share

Well, even if I grew up in Switzerland, I am not Swiss. I am Portuguese. So I spent my whole life joggling between those two cultures. Furthermore I can speak 5 languages (English, Portuguese, French, German and Swiss-german) and would love to share my knowledge with other people.

What I Can Share with Hosts

My passion for knowledge and life in general and some of my culinary skills ;)

Countries I’ve Visited

Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Switzerland, United States