CURRENT MISSION

Motivating unmotivated Turkish students to learn English. Find a way to spend the summer in Europe productively. Get accepted to study Religion in the Netherlands.

ABOUT ME

How should I describe myself? If you're looking for me, I've got long, red hair and a beard at the moment and will probably be smiling about something if I'm traveling. I studied religion in college and am interested in asking real questions in order to get real discussions going, as opposed to typical 'how's the weather?' talk. I like to play guitar, but only started this year, so it's a rather new hobby, but music certainly isn't. If there is a festival, a concert, or even a small gathering in a backyard or dimly lit bar with one dude and a guitar, I'm there. Music fills my ears from more or less the moment I wake up to the time I go to sleep and sometimes even then. I'm not too critical of the genre so long as it suits the mood. I've never Couchsurfed before, but I'm hoping that this is the beginning of a long relationship of crashing on couches and inviting you to stay on mine, wherever I may live. Cheers.

PHILOSOPHY

I don't have a philosophy, per se, but I believe that everyone in the world has something to say that is worth hearing. Put simply, I can learn something from everyone. With all of that knowledge and wisdom floating out there, I consider it my responsibility to meet people from all over who have something to teach me. Maybe I have learned a few things that I can teach too.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None with this website, but I have definitely spent my time on couches traveling through Europe in the Winter/Spring of 2012. I'm in Turkey at the moment, but will hopefully be moving to Central Europe in the coming year to start my Master's degree. Then, I could prove a little more useful to the 'hosting' part of this site.

Interests

Music. Playing guitar badly. Biking everywhere. Photography. Reading. Traveling. Writing poetry, prose, and whatever else. Watching movies on occasion. Hiking or backpacking all alone in the wilderness. Being a beer snob when the time is right, but being able to enjoy anything with the right company. Teaching in any sense of the word. Talking about everything.

• writing
• books
• poetry
• photography
• concerts
• festivals
• beer
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• music
• guitar
• cycling
• hiking
• backpacking
• religion

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: Watchmen, Anchorman, The Boat That Rocked, The Big Lebowski, A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream, SLC Punk
Music: There's too much, but I'll give it a go. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Blink-182, Incubus, Tyler, The Creator, Bassnectar, Alabama Shakes, White Stripes, the Black Keys, Aerosmith, Andrew Bird, James Taylor, Arctic Monkeys, Beastie Boys, the Beatles, JIMI HENDRIX, Black Angels, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Bon Iver, Cake, The Cat Empire, Coldplay, Cris Cab, Daft Punk, Dave Matthews Band, Deadmau5, Diplo, Dropkick Murphys, The Eagles, Flume, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Fratellis, Modest Mouse, Grateful Dead, Gorillaz, Jay Z, JET, Kings of Leon. I'm tired. I'll add more later.
Books: Harry Potter, anything by Christopher Moore, Stephen King, David Sedaris, Haruki Murakami, Dan Brown, and many more.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I went back to Welschensteinach, Germany where my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather lived. I stopped for lunch and, as it turned out, my server was Dutch and I, as it turned out, had been studying Dutch for a semester. She called the town's genealogist, who came and had lunch with me and showed my my family's name in a textbook! He had studied my family extensively before they moved to what would become the U.S. Shivers were sent down my spine as he drove me to the house of my 7x great grandfather and where his wife's family lived as well.