CURRENT MISSION

now a PhD student. not so sure about more travel!

ABOUT ME

Basically a goofball overachiever who secretly wants to save the world. Also makes a mean batch of fudge and knows what Red Riding Hood was really all about.

PHILOSOPHY

Now that I'm living and able to make a difference, I feel that I should. I chose to major in chemical engineering because I loved chemistry and math, but also because I was told it had a lot of application. Now that I've beaten about the lines a bit, I see that there is a desperate need for engineering if we are to make our lives more sustainable. It's not even about climate change, or politics, or what's in my backyard. It's about the 1.1 billion people without access to clean water, 2 billion without access to adequate sanitation, and, on the flip side, 5% of the world population consuming 25% of the world oil production. It's about this, and it's about going from six to nine billion people by 2042. Part of the reason I want to travel and couchsurf is so I can talk to locals about what they know is happening locally and learn about other cultures. Someday I hope to help with some of these problems; before I dive into research or a job, I want to get out and see what's happening first.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

While on a cross country trip, my family stayed with a distant aunt of ours in the outskirts of San Francisco. I slept on the couch for the first time since I was the size of a cushion. Instead of being weird, when I woke up, not only as I fine but a I saw a deer family was munching on fruit in the backyard. The ma was on her hind legs, which was something I'd never seen before, and certainly not something I would have seen otherwise. Since then I've snuggled up to couches of people I know in DE, NJ, NY, and CT.

Interests

sustainable energy & food, photography, sleeping

• photography
• dining
• cooking
• politics
• traveling
• chemistry
• engineering
• mathematics

Music, Movies, and Books

Things that are shown on a screen: Planet Earth series, Firefly, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, k-pax, the muppet movie, the thin man

Things that are aural: caroline’s spine, explosions in the sky, hoots & hellmouth, incubus, john butler trio, led zeppelin, pinback, the beatles, tower of power, weezer, west indian girl

Things that are written: Armageddon Summer, Briar Rose, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, etc

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

My family drove cross-country, from Delaware to California and back, in the summer of 2006. Along the way we ran into quite a few interesting and amazing sights, but in the middle of July, we also ran into a snowbank. After thousands of miles of hot road, we had taken a detour into Yosemite and drove the '71 Cyclone (painted to look like a race car - that we never got pulled over is another amazing story entirely) through the park and up a mountain. It was the first time I had thrown a snowball in July, and after the whole trip, the experience sort of intersected not just seasons but feelings of how close everything is connected. People in 80F+ a few miles away are affected by the snow up there. It was a neat moment, and the view was absolutely gorgeous.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can go on about a few things, mostly connected to engineering, energy, sustainability, cooking, photography, and, curiously, the evolution of fairy tales.

Countries I’ve Visited

France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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