I try to live authentically, to experience life's highs and lows, to be in touch with the joys and pains of others, to take time for reflection, and to balance my energy in artistic, athletic, and intellectual pursuits. But it's probably not as heavy as that all sounded. I also like to slide down the hallway in my socks and dance to Elvis in my bathroom. And I'm learning in this moment that writing a 15-page-long bullshit narrative about my personality is not really my style...

Maybe this would go better if I just gave some bulleted examples:

I have been living on the South Side of Chicago for the past 6 years and loving it. (Yes, this is where 98% of the population is made up of people whose ethnic background is different than my own and people get shot by the 30s over a weekend.)

I cried 5 times in the movie Babe. Those little pigs!!!

I rode my bike and solo-camped across Switzerland a few years ago. Amazing.

I recently changed my own flat when my car tire blew.

I see the sun rise, by choice, most days of the week.

Working, exploring the world, and growing as a person... one day at a time. More details? Finishing my dissertation to complete a Ph.D. in Linguistics, working in Community Relations and cause-based marketing for Whole Foods Market, trying to find time to embrace my creative side through music and the like.

communicating, being independent, baking cookies and feeding people.

Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre is my own personal bible.

Music (this could go long): Yeasayer, Bon Iver, Magnolia Electric Co., Explosions in the Sky, Broken Social Scene, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, Damien Jurado, Swan Lake, Destroyer, The National, Richard Buckner, Townes Van Zandt, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, James Taylor, The Tallest Man on Earth, Wilco, The Clash, The Kinks, Sam Cooke, and lots more...

Midnight in Paris, one of Woody Allen's best; Wes Anderson's collection, anything silly with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson

The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Parks and Recreation

Food? Lots of it. Hippie food. Fruits and vegetables. Pints of almond-milk ice cream. Peanut butter.

1. Coffee.
2. Yeah, pretty much just coffee.

phonemes, the processes through which humans continually construct social meaning and how these social meanings are indexed to language and other symbols, inequality, race and ethnicity, the achievement gap, food deserts (that's with one 's' and doesn't include chocolate mousse), where to go hiking next, how cool my life would be if I lived in a Harry Potter world, how my friends and family are doing at any given moment...

Ok, honestly? trying not to fall asleep before 9... Optimally, though, going out for dinner and a drink or something equivalently low-key.

I self-published a short collection of poetry this year.