CURRENT MISSION

To get a job in ecological restoration, at the intersection of social, environmental and economic issues

ABOUT ME

I've been traveling pretty much all my life. I moved away from British Columbia to Mexico as a child, then grew up in the Bay Area, California. I like people and I like adapting to new cultures and thoughts. I also like learning languages and am conversational in a five of them. Aside from languages, two things really get me going: environmental sustainability and physical fitness. (Funny combo, huh?) I'm looking at a return to grad school to study resource management. For fitness, I lift weights daily, ski, snowboard, swim, run marathons, hike, and do all manner of these personal endurance-type sports.

In short, as I just wrote in a CS request, I'm a bicyclist (currently cycling from the north to south tip of South Korea), one-time English teacher, journalist, non-profitist (worked at the Jane Goodall Institute), dancer (swing, salsa, ballroom), foodie (will cook for a couch!), and language magnet (I can't seem to stop learning new languages!)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'd like to host people and travel around meeting people and seeing new places around the world through the eyes of people who live there.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

This summer (July-September 2010), Young Min (my girlfriend) and I are coming to Europe. We'd like to couch surf through Europe, meeting great people along the way! We're arriving in London, traveling to Amsterdam and then Duisburg Germany for the Love Parade, then through France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzagovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and then flying out of Istanbul Turkey. It's going to be some trip! Please be a part of it with us! :)

Interests

Here are a few of my favorite things I've found so far in life.
Cities: San Francisco and Montreal
Towns: New Denver Canada, Trento Italy, and Gagnneung South Korea.
Sports: swimming, skiing/snowboarding, weightlifting, marathon running.
Foods: spicy
Hobbies: cooking, writing, bicycling, gardening, trying new foods, dancing, singing
Interests: environmentalism

• writing
• singing
• concerts
• festivals
• dancing
• cooking
• fitness
• marathon
• running
• flying
• gardening
• traveling
• restoration
• socializing
• cycling
• hiking
• scuba diving
• skiing
• snowboarding
• sports
• swimming
• teaching
• journalism
• languages
• beaches
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

If I had a theme song, it might be Moon River.
Favorite musical genre: folk
Favorite musicians: Cat Stevens, Fabrizio de Andre, Silvio Rodriguez, Niko Case, Nick Drake
Favorite Movies I've seen recently: Welcome to Dongmakgol, Kaos, The King and the Clown, 3 Idiots
Favorite books: Buddha's Little Finger, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Lord Jim, The Nevereding Story, Collapse

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I've seen some pretty excellent places:
1. The world's tallest waterfall, called Angel Falls in Venezuela
2. My brother's organic farm in the Andes of Venezuela
3. Bay to Breakers race, San Francisco, USA (wild!)
4. Barcelona's beaches in summer at night (you know if you've been there at that time)
5.Le Festival Juste Pour Rire, Montreal, Canada
6. Penis Park, South Korea (hilarity in sculptures)
7. New Year's in Vienna, Austria (led a block of people in dancing the Macarana, and not ashamed of that!)
8. 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) up the Colorado Rocky Mountains hiking (America's Alps - beautiful!)
9. Slocan Lake, BC Canada (I have a special attachment to my birthplace)

The most amazing things I've done, again in no order:
1. Cleaned up an oil spill
2. Ran two marathons
3. Danced in a 25 foot tall tree puppet costume at a concert
4. Helped care for hurt and sick seals and sea lions
5. Interviewed people about various environmental issues as a journalist and worked as an editor to coordinate the journalism of writers on all 7 continents.
6. Fire danced
7. Gone whale watching with Jane Goodall
8. Worked as a research assistant collecting data from high-elevation plants to interpret the effects of climate change
9. Currently bicycling the length of the South Koream peninsula!
9. Helped to start an organic community garden
10. Took a train across Canada after high school and hitch-hiked across the Eastern maritime provinces
11. SCUBA diving in Belize

Teach, Learn, Share

I would be happy to teach what I know of environmental issues / policies, especially those from Korea since I've spent a lot of time researching this area as a journalist. Any of my languages are also fair pickings, although I might be rusty here and there. I'm kind of a grammar nerd, so throw me writing/editing/grammar questions and I'll bat them back for you.

On learning/sharing, I'm looking to move into resource management and ecological restoration, so I'd love to make connections with people in environmental fields in the corporate world, non-profit or government.

Countries I’ve Visited

Andorra, Austria, Belize, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, United States