CURRENT MISSION

World domination or world peace, whichever comes first.

ABOUT ME

I'm a PhD student in political science at UBC, studying cognitive science and democratic theory. I'm also a freelance writer and the founding editor of the online magazine Thought Out Loud (www.thoughtoutloud.org).

PHILOSOPHY

A butterfly is not a mole; but that is not something any butterfly should regret.
- Albert Einstein

I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

All great art should make you want to lick it.
- Me

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Always free for a coffee or drink with a fellow CSer! I've also had a chance to meet some fantastic members throughout the world -- from Europe, Africa, North America, and Asia.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Fantastic!

I've had nothing but excellent experiences couchsurfing. My hosts have been kind, trusting, and trustworthy. They have served as guides, interlocutors, chefs, and -- most importantly -- friends.

Interests

Reading, playing guitar, writing, soccer, fine art, canoeing, climbing, camping, cooking, politics and philosophy, languages (English, French, Spanish), music, coffee and wine, and so on...

• animals
• arts
• writing
• education
• cooking
• wine
• coffee
• drinking
• politics
• reading
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• canoeing
• camping
• rock climbing
• soccer
• biology
• chemistry
• teaching
• freelancing
• languages
• physics
• political science
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: From Bach to Beck, with much in-between. For example: the Shins, Vampire Weekend, Weezer, Vampire Weekend, Band of Horses, Mother Mother, the Decemberists, Van Morrison, Vivaldi, the Smashing Pumpkins, Warren Zevon, Decemberists, Miles Davis, Coltrane, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Rachmaninoff, the Beatles!, Chopin...

Books, there are far too many to list in totality, but recently enjoyed:

War and Peace, by Tolstoy
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Headlong, by Michael Frayn
Stevenson Under the Palm Trees, by Alberto Manguel
Einstein: A Life, by Denis Brian
The Human Condition, by Hannah Arendt
Yeats is Dead, by 15 brilliant Irish writers
A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking
The Three Musketeers - Dumas

All-time Favourites:
A Man for All Seasons;Dracula; Frankenstein; All of the Sherlock Holmes; The Brothers Karamazov; One-Hundred Years of Solitude; The Unbearable Lightness of Being (I believe that you can tell a lot about a person by which of the characters they sympathize with the most); The Lion in Winter; Don Quixote.

And for a good flick: The Lion in Winter; What the Bleep do we Know; Napoleon; The Life Aquatic; The Royal Tenenbaums; The Darjeeling Limited; Rushmore; I Heart Huckabees...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Before my trip to Australia/New Zealand I attempted a 'no-sleep' competition. I made it nearly 48 hours, before falling asleep on the plane, and losing the competition.

During that flight to Auckland we experienced terrible turbulence (so I was told), causing passengers (including grown-adults) to cry and to pray.

I slept through the whole thing, not having slept for nearly two days; but when I woke up the next day, my friend next to me showed me the bruises on her arms that had been caused by my body being thrown around during the turbulence.

So, good advice for those worried about turbulence: try not sleeping for a few days before your trip. Worked for me.

Teach, Learn, Share

We break down knowledge for the purpose of making our education and job system a bit more tangible and straight forward, but knowledge exists in a totality: everything is connected (which you can see quite literally if you understand the basic physics, biology, and chemistry behind us and our universe). From this, we abstract and categorize. Yes, of course, humans are set apart from other animals by this ability, which is fine; but what we do with this ability is what matters. It's not obvious that we've done ourselves an unmitigated favour by the way we've used this special talent.

If we connect it all back together, and use that first idea as the foundation of our subsequent ideas, I suspect that we will be in a much better situation when it comes to approaching and dealing with many of the problems that we face collectively.

As for the details of how we could do this...that comes later. First, travel.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, South Korea

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