CURRENT MISSION

To learn about the past, the present and the human experience, and specifically to understand the cultures of the Peruvian Andes through the holistic study of anthropological archaeology, and hopefully to see a great deal of the world while doing so!

ABOUT ME

Please note: I am not actually in Peterborough anymore!!! I am back in Burlington for the summer and perhaps fall, and then off to London, Ontario to start my Ph.D. in January 2009. Since I am verified I can't change my address without needing another letter, and I don't want to have to order one twice in such a short time. Anyway, on to my profile:

I am an anthropological archaeologist, and am currently writing my M.A. thesis at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. My thesis is on an analysis of the stone tools from four sites associated with the Oracle of Catequil, near the town of Huamachuco in La Libertad, Peru. I spent all of last summer in Peru, mostly in Huamachuco doing my research, and became somewhat familiar with everyday life in a part of Peru which is very much not touristy (I saw seven other gringos (other than a few people who came to visit us in the town) over the ten weeks that I was in town). I will hopefully begin my Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario in September. For that, I will be studying the stone tools from Gallinazo sites in the Viru Valley, on the coast of Peru, about an hour south of Trujillo.

In my rare non-academic life, I enjoy adventure and exploration, though I still waste much time doing nothing. So my free time generally sees me wasting it on the internet, watching movies or playing video games, etc., though I get to the bar with my fellow grad students from time to time, and do other typically-grad student things. But yeah, I quite enjoy travel (and adventure, in general), be it hiking close to home, going on short or long road trips, or jetting off to a country which I have never before seen. I like seeing new things, or favoured old ones. I love big cities and small towns, rolling meadows and thick bush, oceans and mountains...Basically, I enjoy being anywhere where the sky is beautiful, and I find the sky beautiful everywhere I am! Wanna be travel buddies?

PHILOSOPHY

I am compassionate, and want to help people! I am quite left-wing; a socialist, really. And a bit of a hippy. I like post-modern thought, and disagree with many current views, from the roots of terrorism to what different gender roles should be (and I really don't like the typical male macho-bullshit, and try to avoid it). I am rather laid-back, happy and optimistic. I have a wide variety of academic interests, from anthropological archaeology through history to geology, and innumerable general interests. I am an atheist, but one who is very open-minded and tolerant, and who disagrees with most other atheists on many things.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

So far, I have not been very active in the CouchSurfing community, but hopefully that will begin to change. It is an incredible thing, afterall!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

So far, I have none. But I hope to change that soon! I have had a few positive experiences in similar things, though not actually CouchSurfing.

Interests

General: travel and adventure of all sorts, hiking, biking, road trips, history, geology, mountains, etc.

Academic: anthropological archaeology, lithics, complex societies, Andean archaeology, geoarchaeology, landscape archaeology, the role of ritual in society, the role of cities in a state society, the use of lithics in complex societies, the origins and intensification of agriculture, marking...wait...scratch that one and add it to my least favourite activities, etc.

• dogs
• culture
• writing
• beauty
• festivals
• walking
• movies
• video games
• traveling
• cycling
• hiking
• canoeing
• camping
• atheism
• agriculture
• anthropology
• archeology
• geology
• history
• road trips
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

I'm not really a fan of picking favourites. But I will for this. I love many more things from each category than are listed, though. And I will leave out my favourite academic books...

Books: The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings (and all Tolkien), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (in five parts), White Noise, Les Miserables, On The Road, Naked Lunch, 100 Years of Solitude, The Catcher in the Rye, Life of Pi and anything by Kurt Vonnegut, etc.

Music: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Yes, The Doors, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Blood Sweat and Tears, Earth, Wind and Fire, Neil Young, Dire Straits, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Barenaked Ladies, Frente!, Bela Flek, Kimya Dawson, Xavier Rudd, Tchaikovsky, The Velvet Underground, Holst, the Les Miserables soundtrack, Billy Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Chet Baker, etc.

Movies: Waking Life, Baraka, Shawshank Redemption, Contact, Amelie, Gandhi, Donnie Darko, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Dr. Strangelove, all the Indiana Jones, Easy Rider, Monty Python movies, Apocalypse Now, Secondhand Lions, Platoon, Strange Brew, Pi, A Scanner Darkly, Juno, Transformers, The Motorcycle Diaries, all the Back to the Future, Ghostbusters I & II, Adaptation, Fight Club, BEfore Sunrise, etc.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

One! Don't make me choose one! I'm not good at narrowing down choices! I mean, what would it be? Would it be standing at the end of Lake Louise on a crystal clear day, taking in this beautiful site, completely surrounded by mountains?
Would it be the determination to get to one town in Sri Lanka that made me get on three buses, take nine hours, have little idea where I was or where I was going, be the only white guy on the bus, and yet get to see unforgettably amazing scenery, and have one of the greatest nights of my life when I got there?
Or would it be deciding to hike up an Alp in Austria, planning to be back to the hotel by dinner, but taking way more time than I had expected on an absolutely gruelling hike to the top of the mountain, much of which was boring and on a road (though some was neat path hiking), and actually crying when I got to the top, partly out of amazement that my own two legs had carried me there, but mostly out of sheer awe at the incredible beauty which lay before me on the other side of that mountain?
Maybe it be getting to participate in the festival in a traditional Peruvian highland town, where I was living for more than two months doing my research, and where I was welcomed into the town (along with my supervisor, who is one of the most well-respected people in town, even though he's only ever there for three months at a time!).
Or what about getting to experience my lifelong dream, and see Machu Picchu, only to be partly blind to its beauty because I was still awestruck by all the other amazing scenery and archaeological sites which Peru has to offer.
Perhaps it is just my seemingly endless ability to pound the pavement and get lost in a ew city, walking for hours, exploring everywhere (and always somehow making it back to my hotel), be it London, Paris, Vancouver, Prague, Zurich, Lima or Trujillo?
Or maybe it is just the countless times that I have gone for a long, relaxing bike ride through the country near my home, taken the dog for a nice walk, gone canoeing at a favourite childhood Scout camp, did archaeological research all over my own province, or just hopped in the car and exploring my own back yard, vast and beautiful, where I don't have to go far to see amazing things for the first time ever, or visit new places, just minutes from my front door?

See? I'm awful at sticking to just one thing!

Teach, Learn, Share

Cultural Relativism. I am probably preaching to the converted here, but one thing which I learned through anthropology (a basis of it, in fact) is that you can never judge another cultural practice based on your own cultural background and worldview. Another culture's practices aren't "weird" or "backwards" or "savage" or any of that crap. Different cultures are not semi-evolved entities, not somewhere behind on the road to perfection (which Western Society is oftern assumed to be nearing). All people, all societies exist in and of themselves, as integrated wholes, with their own taboos, and morals, and codes of conduct, and they are just as valid as any other. And evolution (cultural or biological) does not have an end goal. There is no "perfect finish" to evolution. All societies exist to do what they do best: have what they consider to be a good life, and get the most out of it that they can.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, Peru

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