CURRENT MISSION

To have a biography worth reading

ABOUT ME

My name is John. I used to go to college at USC, I decided I didn't like it there, and so now I'm in Des Moines, spending a lot of time reading. My quest so far has been to find cool things to do in Des Moines, but unfortunately so far I have failed. New ideas excite me more than anything else in my life. I go crazy when the right song hits me in the right mood. 90% of the people that I know will get to know me, and then after about 2 months of us being acquaintances will suddenly exclaim "My goodness you're tall!"; I have no idea why this is, seeing as I haven't grown any for about a year, and I rarely carry sets of mirrors for the purpose of creating an optical illusion with me.

PHILOSOPHY

I believe youth, vitality, and life are awful things to waste, so I want to get as much out of them as I can. Epiphanies are the greatest things ever. Pretense sucks. Learning is the most humanistic activity, in my opinion; it's what sets us apart from the rest of animalkind. Thus someone who lacks a desire to know and understand the world in which he resides is rejecting a part of his humanity.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I don't have much at the moment, simply because the occasion to utilize CS hasn't arisen yet for me. But I heartily support the idea; spending 70+ dollars a night on a hotel is goofy and boring.

Interests

Hiking, soccer, beauty, being open minded, mountaintops, silences which would be ruined by words, oceans of various types, learning

• beauty
• running
• trivia
• reading
• hiking
• soccer

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: i need to read more. But cat's cradle is crazy good. Also anything by Bill Bryson (who is an alumnus of my elementary, middle, and high schools, in a happy coincidence), dostoevsky, the economist
Movies: the last king of scotland, american beauty, royal tennenbaums, requiem for a dream, shawshank redemption, deer hunter, atonement
Music:

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

One time I almost hugged Scarlett Johansson, but she got away from me before I could catch her.

Also I went to Australia when I was 16 for this program run through my school called Global Youth Institute. It probably was the coolest experience of my life; you should ask me about that.

Teach, Learn, Share

I would like to think that I have interesting philosophies, but of course to tell people that I have interesting philosophies presents a paradox where I risk being pretentious. So I won't mention that.
Otherwise, I know a ton of random facts about kind of everything. This hasn't helped me much since I did Quiz Bowl in high school, but if you're one of the rare people turned on by trivia I can offer that, I suppose.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States