other meaningful things

current loves & learning

  • Madame Bovary: Flaubert (current read)

  • Learning the cello with no prior musical experience

  • Keeping up with competitive volleyball in adult leagues (NAGVA)

  • Weekly bar trivia zealot

travel & outdoors

  • Lived and worked on farms and vineyards in rural Germany (Weitsche, near Lüchow) and Portugal (Nelas, in the Dão region) via Workaway for a month

    • Was right in the middle of and helped put on the Kulturelle Landpartie

    • Spent 5 hours per day manually exterminating potato bugs and tucking grapevines

  • Spent (survived) 22 days off-the-grid backpacking and canoeing in the Minnesota Boundary Waters, via Outward Bound

    • Collected a total of four near-death experiences

reads, arts, & listens

  • King Lear: Shakespeare

  • Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light: Peter Schjeldahl

  • The Public and its Problems: John Dewey

  • St. Erasmus in Bishop Islip's Chapel: JMW Turner

    • Visited the British Museum Archives to view and handle original watercolor (picture to the right)

  • La valse: Camille Claudel

  • Le cygne: Saint-Saëns

  • Sirât - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Kangding Ray

  • Cello concerto in E minor, op. 85: 1. Adagio - Moderato: Elgar