I'm kind of a nerd: I like to read a lot, I like learning new languages, and I do the crossword almost every day. I also really like food, and like cooking. Everyone should like to cook: it's fun to do and then you get to eat after. Win-win. Recently I've been trying to grow my own food in the backyard garden (results: decidedly mixed, but improving), or buying it from the Echo Park farmers' market, which is amazing and has the best goat cheese in town, hands down.

Apart from doing things with words, I also do research, play and coach ultimate frisbee, ride my bike a lot, go out to movies, try new wines and cocktails (and find new places to try new wines and cocktails) with friends, and generally try to enjoy my life as much as I can.

Since college I've lived in Chicago, Barcelona, Chicago again, Los Angeles, Seville, and then back to LA. I've worked as an architectural draftsman, an English tutor, and finally seem to have settled down into studying Linguistics.

I used to travel a lot, but do less of it now that I am a relatively under-paid grad student. I still go places from time to time when I get the chance. It's nice to get out of LA now and then.

I'm currently studying towards a Ph.D. in Linguistics at USC. I study articulatory phonetics, which basically means I look at how people move their tongues and lips and other vocal tract organs when they talk, and see how that relates to the mental organization of language. It's pretty fun, though somewhat unusual. But they pay me, so I'm not going to complain any time soon.

I've recently decided to sell my car and get around LA by bike and public transit. This may sound crazy, but it is going well so far. As long as you're willing to take a little longer to get places, it is a much more pleasant way to move about the city.

teaching myself new things.

Books (I always cheat and list authors as well because, well, because I want to): Nick Hornby, P.G. Wodehouse, Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Stephen Fry, David Sedaris, No One Belongs Here More Than You, Persepolis, well-written mystery novels (e.g. Umberto Eco, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Arturo Pérez Reverte, Boris Akunin), The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Gospel of Food, to name what I've read in the last few months and enjoyed.

Movies: Wes Anderson's stuff is great. I personally really like The Life Aquatic which a lot of people don't, though The Royal Tenenbaums is still my favorite. Depending on what mood I'm in I can watch anything: comedies (Anchorman is a favorite), blow-em-ups (of either the well-done Ronin and Bourne varieties or crazy stupid things like Crank or XXX), Spanish-language stuff (I like Almodóvar like everybody else), whatever.

TV: Arrested Development, 30 Rock, The Office, The Venture Brothers, The Daily Show, Flight of the Conchords, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Most recently, How I Met Your Mother; it's a sitcom, yes, but maybe the best sitcom out there right now. Basically, quirkily humorous things in general. Since I watch all my TV online I'm going to include Drunk History, Things but Very Slowly and Look Around You here as well.

Music: I listen to a lot of music riding my bike around but I try to change it up. Things I've been listening to lately: M.I.A., Life Without Buildings, The Knife, Ratatat, The Go! Team, Iron & Wine, Estelle, Dresden Dolls, The Decembrists, Andrew Bird, Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, Talib Kweli, Son de la Frontera, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Nouvelle Vague, Edith Piaf

Food: Everything except okra. I've tried it a number of times, but I just don't like it. Also, I much prefer savory food. Sweet just isn't my thing. I feel that brunch is underrated. It is the perfect way to spend a Sunday. Also, you get to eat eggs Benedict, which is pretty much the best breakfast food ever, but which I am too lazy to ever make at home.

cheese
my bike
books
coffee
a good chef's knife
travel

language. But since that's my job, maybe some other things:

* what I am going to eat for my next meal
* ultimate (more time that I would like to admit to myself or my advisor)
* whatever the topic of the last nonfiction book I read is
* transportation policy

Either:
1) Out with friends, biking around LA, looking for new places to go or returning to a few well-worn favorites.

or

2) At home, cooking dinner, drinking wine, and either working on my research (if I'm feeling particularly productive) or watching a movie (much more frequently).

you feel like it. I'm generally up for fun times.