CURRENT MISSION

To start the next chapter of my life on the West Coast. You can be part of my journey to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time!

ABOUT ME

I had a difficult time filling this out so I had my friends do it:

"Andy is a Timelord who loves Star Wars references and following local music. He is open-minded about music and goes to a lot of different types of shows. He is politically aware, but not preachy about it. Andy is small so won't take up a lot of space. His appetite is small as well thus there's no danger of him eating all your food. He also will not shed on your couch."

That was probably a bad idea, but the best I could come up with was "laid back". I also like to joke around a lot.

PHILOSOPHY

I think that it's important to be passionate about life. Everyone does it in their own ways. It doesn't mean that you have to be crazy loud, or active, or over-the-top (although it's okay if you are). It means you live in a way that drives you to be critical and better yourself. To question the authority of any status quo and to follow through with change. That's probably why I enjoy traveling so much. Experiencing new places and learning about new people helps further that understanding.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I just joined for the longest trip I've ever made by myself! I'm driving from Chicago to the San Francisco Bay Area with a few stops along the way. The trip will take about five days. My friends have been telling me about this site so I decided to check it out. I don't have a couch to offer right now, but I promise any help offered I will pay forward!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have two big couchsurfing experiences: once I lived in Montreal for three months. I stayed off-and-on at a hostel in exchange for labor and other times on the couches of people I met in my travel.

My second big experience was when I interned for an international non-profit in Amsterdam for also three months. I would stay at the institute, mostly, but also traveled the country a bit with people I would meet.

Other experiences include tours through the Mid-West, Northeast, and the "South"! Looking forward to the West Coast :)

Interests

I do in fact like following local music and checking out record stores. I'm not snobby about it at all. I love hearing about what people are into whether it's classical music, 80s punk, One Direction, what have you (because clearly those are the three most popular choices). I also read/watch a lot of science fiction and horror although most of my actual reading time is non-fiction if we're including the news and geopolitical analysis and whatnot. This makes me sound super boring, but I promise I'm not! Look I have a picture of me as a panda for Halloween. Woohoo!

• books
• dining
• cheese
• technology
• news
• reading
• traveling
• music
• classical music
• science
• software
• tours

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: I pursue science fiction and horror! Also, comedy. Err...and drama. Okay so maybe some examples will help. In the Loop, The Place Beyond the Pines (my opinion one of the top three best movies of 2013), The Thing, Pan's Labyrinth, [REC], totally into the new superhero movies, Pacific Rim (yes, giant robots - can't help myself), Rushmore, Star Trek and Star Wars series, the Trollhunter. This could go on for awhile...

Music: Here's how my music taste works. I find a specific genre, like for example right now I'm hunting slacker rock and 80s/early 90s indie rock, and stock up my music library with it for awhile. I do this until either I get bored or more likely find another genre that inspires me just as much. So I have this huge collection of music which is mostly digital because I don't have space to physically store the literally hundreds of gigabytes worth of music. I don't really know what more else to say. I still listen to the stuff I'm not plugging into the current playlist. Oh, I suppose I could say that a heavy theme is rock and various forms of rock. A runner up is electronic music, mostly trance, IDM, and slow beat.

Books: A vast majority of my books are non-fiction - sociology, political analysis, and history. The other parts are made up of Sci-fi and humor. I like Neil Gaiman.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I had an internship for an international non-profit institute that studied global economic and political issues. It was an amazing experience where I met and bonded with people from all over the world.

Also, to cheat a little and share more than one, I once lifted half a car out of the mud to impress a crush.

Teach, Learn, Share

I don't know if anyone would consider me an 'expert' by high standards, but here are my areas of expertise:

-PC computer technology and Microsoft software
-various histories of the United States Left
-Comic book heroes
-Radical sociological and philosophical perspectives
-Current and recent U.S. and international social movements
-Understanding of current political situations
-How to make macaroni and cheese

Those are things I would feel confident in teaching about. There's a lot of other things I could talk about or participate in a discussion, but these are the areas of which I could give a presentation.