CURRENT MISSION

I am planning a trip to Croatia and Bosnia later this year, and maybe a couple of other places in the region. I'm not looking for a couch, just looking for information!

ABOUT ME

What more can I say? Oh, I was diagnosed with very advanced colon cancer last year and given a 5% chance or survival, but I am now in complete remission. I guess I'm invincible!

PHILOSOPHY

Since I have been diagnosed with, and then recovered from, a potentially deadly disease, I do not want to waste any more time. You owe it to yourself to live each day as fully as possible.

Interests

I used to work as a video engineer until the recession in the USA. Then I was unemployed, and during my unemployment I taught English to people from Eastern European countries (mainly Croatia, Bosnia, and Russia) as a volunteer at a literacy agency. I loved doing this so I decided not to go back to my old career and instead get a masters in ESL and become a "real" teacher. From the volunteer work and the people that I met, I developed an interest in E. European cultures and languages. This is why I want to visit Croatia and Turkey this year, and eventually Russia.

• volunteer work
• survival
• teaching
• engineering
• languages
• volunteering

Music, Movies, and Books

I like mostly independent, small budget movies. Living in the USA, I grew up with American big-budget movies so that the thrill is gone. I like watching movies from other countries. My musical tastes tend to lean towards garage rock that is influenced by British invasion music from the 1960s (Kinks probably my favorite of that lot), also I like new wave music from the 1980s and newer music influenced from that era. Lately I've been so immersed in my books for graduate school that I haven't had much time for leisure reading, but I did just buy a book on the Serbo-Croatian language.

I am entirely bored, and slightly repulsed by, sports and religion.