CURRENT MISSION

To be very literal, my current mission is to not be a creeper so you host me this weekend on my first couch request!

ABOUT ME

I have always worked for small non-profits and it's likely I always will. I like to travel but don't get nearly enough opportunities for big travel. Most of what I manage right now are mini-trips but hey, better than nothing! It's also hard to travel because Pittsburgh has so many amazing things to offer all the time! There are many places I know I could be happy living, but right now I am really loving my adopted City. Every place has it's pros & cons and those of Pittsburgh suit me very well. Everyone should come here and visit! (Or, I highly recommend moving here. It's really sweet!) When I came to check it out I expected to see smoke stacks everywhere but it is a MARVELOUS place! And being here right now you can feel the momentum as the community changes and evolves. Especially because it is not a top-down shift, it is a mix of big leaders committing to change and collaborating on shared vision, combined with grassroots change on a neighborhood and individual scale. I feel very lucky to be here now and be a part of it!

PHILOSOPHY

I want to leave the world a better place than I found it (or at least do my best on that front). And I want to enjoy my life as I go, not work hard and save the good times up for later - if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I want to feel like I did my best with the time I had. Balance of good work/creating impact, personal exploration/fulfillment and la dolce far niente. It's too easy to miss out on that last one, but it's so sweet!

我为什么加入 Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

This will be my first time. I'm very excited!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

never through CouchSurfing, but throughout college we did many, many home-stays on choir tours, including 3 nights in a village in Nicaragua. I like getting to know people and the places they live. I loved the home-stay parts of the trips because you get to know the people in the community you stay in. I also am more likely to stay in B&Bs for that reason than hotels, even on business trips. I'd rather get local flavor & good breakfast than have a gym & spa services!

兴趣

opera, baroque music, modern dance, old movies, love to read, love flowers, going to the zoo, wandering through museums (art, natural history, science... you name it!).
LOVE food! Love cooking new recipes and working with ingredients I've never used before. Will try anything, but not really excited about bugs (texture issue - whether they crunch or squish it gives me the heebie jeebies)
And I'll choose outdoors over indoors any day.

• arts
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• recipes
• breakfast
• flowers
• movies
• traveling
• cars
• music
• opera
• outdoor activities
• business
• history
• science
• tours

音乐、电影和书籍

fav movies: Sunset Boulevard, Lawrence of Arabia, Oklahoma, Pride & Prejudice (A&E miniseries)
current authors I'm enjoying: PG Wodehouse, Margaret Atwood, ee cummings, Dorothy Sayers, GL Chesterton, Agatha Christie (I just love that Miss Marple, and they are such fast reads it's like a literary version of snacking! Perfect airport read.)
music: corny but I DO like almost everything. But I am def more of a radio/pandora listener. I'm lazy & it's too much work to figure out who sang something and find it later when there are so many other things I enjoy, and so much music I enjoy.

我做过的一件不可思议的事情

Whatever is in the future will always be more amazing.
Also, how do you pick just one? There are the big "once in a lifetime" ones, but if you take the time to stop and notice, you can have little pockets of amazing in your everyday. I think one of my favorites was sitting in front of the library on a grassy knoll & watching life. Then I laid dodwn and stared at the grass for a little while adn it all looks so different! And you see the way the wind blows the grass, and all the organisms moving around at that scale. Then I turned and looked at the road, park, drove of trees and fountain sideways and all the cars on the twisty road were up & down instead of to & fro. It sounds stupid to tell but it was wonderfully refreshing to do! 10 minutes to travel to another world and back. And I ran across a Robert Frost poem afterwards that described the experience much better than I ever could, "The Vantage Point."

教，学，和分享

Busy season for programs. Will return to this January - April.

我游览过的国家

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua

我居住过的国家

United States

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