CURRENT MISSION

Taking over the world one couch at a time

ABOUT ME

I occupy very little space, about 65L for me and 50L for my backpack. I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in December and am travelling the world for a year while doing freelance consulting work, I'm always interested in making new friends and learning new languages.

PHILOSOPHY

Probably best talked about in person, but if I had to pick one favorite philosopher it would be Voltaire, and a close second would be Marcus Aurelius. Third would be Camus.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm really good at fluffing pillows. Especially couch pillows.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've met plenty of CouchSurfers while travelling who recommended it to me so I'm looking forward to trying it out myself.

Interests

Rock climbing, scuba diving(Divemaster), martial arts, languages, software and web technologies, dancing...not necessarily in that order. Also, that's not a bijection with the set of my interests, but a moderately inclusive subset.

• arts
• writing
• dancing
• traveling
• backpacking
• scuba diving
• sports
• martial arts
• rock climbing
• freelancing
• languages
• philosophy
• software

Music, Movies, and Books

Hmm, I read a lot so this is hard, but I can give a few favorites. The 4 Hour Work Week, because it helped me design a lifestyle where I do get to travel a lot. The Vim User Manual because it has to be the best book ever written about a text editor, which you wouldn't think would even be a category that you could even qualify a best book in. The Godfather since that has got to be the best guide on how to live your life that was ever written. Except for possibly Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which is a great collection of proverbs and platitudes from one of the most powerful men in history. Siddhartha is up there, for inspiring a deep wanderlust.

As far as movies go, I'm not even sure how many times I've watched The Big Lebowski, but 12 is the number of times I've watched it while chugging White Russians in a bathrobe and sunglasses.

I listen to all kinds of music, but when I really need to buckle down and get stuff done I put on Lupe Fiasco's The Cool. I don't know what it is with that album, but I just go into this superhuman flow and wake up at the end of it with every item on my RememberTheMilk task-list completed satisfactorily. Also, if I ever need motivation I just put on Juicy by The Notorious B.I.G. and am suddenly ultra-motivated to do whatever I need to.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Hmm, I'm pretty easily amazed and enjoy the wonders of everyday life(telephones), but I have done some things that judging from conversations with friends are more amazing then the fact that humans can have conversations with other humans ACROSS AN OCEAN.

-I rock climb regularly, and believe that no sport has a more beautiful arena, although the most painful experience(s) of my life have involved mistakes incurred while climbing(unsafely, only had to learn twice though).
-I have fought a professional muay thai fight in Thailand, video available here: http://www.vimeo.com/20754658?ab (I lost)
-I had the chance to enjoy a traditional Hmong New Year celebration, which enjoyed lots of moonshine (which I'm pretty sure was actually nail-polish remover) and lots of raw cow with seasoning(not as bad as it sounds(kind of)).
-Scuba diving never fails to amaze me, and the inner peace that I find while under 30m of water at night is unparalleled.

Teach, Learn, Share

Apparently not English, as I noticed that I dangled about 7 prepositions while writing this profile. I am pretty handy with a Ruby interpreter though, and I cut a pretty mean rug while two-stepping. So I guess if you want to say you learned to two-step from a Texan while writing web scrapers, hit me up for some lessons. Also, I am a Divemaster, so if you want to do a bit of scuba diving we could totally make that happen...I'm used to cold weather and bad visibility too, so that offer is valid anywhere in the world.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Mexico, Myanmar, Thailand, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Thailand, United States

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