CURRENT MISSION

escaping my escape: various R&R trips from my work in the middle east.

ABOUT ME

Currently I work overseas with a humanitarian organization. Others would probably cite my odd and eccentric life before I started regularly living abroad an actually finding an emotionally and politically satisfactory niche in professional life - first as an unsuccessful international journalist and now as a more successful humanitarian aid worker.
But in all I have a very mixed and interesting background starting with being a high school nerd to a punk to political guerilla theater and wanna be cook.

Note: for some reason I can't put down that I actually live in Iraq right now. It only registers my permanent address.

PHILOSOPHY

“Bring something incomprehensible into the world!” ― Gilles Deleuze

我为什么加入 Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

As a long time expat, im quite accustomed to showing new comers or visiting friends around including hosting. I've been doing that on and off for 10 years so far. Now that im working in Iraq, the opportunity to host isn't so great though... Go figure. But I travel frequently and love meeting interesting locals or travelers.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None officially yet, but know many members. ive hosted/been hosted many times before couchsurfing usually for friends of friends.

兴趣

World history and politics. Not too exciting, but most of my work in the last 10 years overseas has been glamorous enough (or at least perceived by others as such). I used to live to capture moments. Now I try to live to create them for others. That should be obtuse enough...

• writing
• theater
• cooking
• politics
• traveling
• history
• journalism

音乐、电影和书籍

Books: Tonos of history. Also journalist autobios/memoirs always speak of the life i wish i lived (Kapuczinski, Kaplan, Lloyd, Fisk, etc.); good history is better than fiction. Some philosophy too: Deluze, Foucault, Nietzche, Guy Debord, Sartre... But most of that was during university years when I was less jaded.

Movies: Much foreign or documentaries. I prefer dark comedies or just plain dark films. ill list directors to sound more arrogant: jim jarmusch, gilliam, passolini, dragojevic, gondry, malick, brunel, lynch, coen brothers, cronenberg, almodovar, anderson, von trier, burton, etc.
Plus favorite classics: Secret of NIMH, Better Off Dead, Blade Runner and Repo Man.

Music: 80's, the cure, tom waits, arcade fire, air, eno, bowie, the fall, leonard cohen, pink floyd, interpol, magnetic fields, nick cave, pixies, the smiths, royksopp, NPR, ad nauseam... I used to DJ cheesy late 70s/early 80s eurosynth and minimal wave under an silly moniker.

我做过的一件不可思议的事情

I can list some grim things here Ive seen, but probably shouldn't. The awe factor is usually finding people maintaining a positive nature and good humor in extremely difficult environments and simply wondering how they manage to pull it off day by day. I could list examples from occupations and war zones, but really its the totality that I am always amazed by.

教，学，和分享

I can teach about how to fail in journalism. Talking your way through checkpoints. Writing logical frameworks for grant proposals. Making web pages circa 1997. etc.

我游览过的国家

Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom

我居住过的国家

Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Syrian Arab Republic, United States