I find it hard to express myself in a tiny text box in the 2D, virtual world. Which seems a little incongruent with what is probably one of my defining characteristics/passions.... I love words, learning other languages, and getting to know other cultures in the intimate way made possible by traveling/living in them and communicating in the local language. Presently, French is my passion; I am getting my PhD in Comparative Literature (French, English, Spanish). I just returned from a month-long research trip to Paris, my absolute favorite metropolis in the world (though NYC is also right up there -- in the end, it's tough to compare such unique entities). This I know from traveling to and living in many places including: Sweden, Vermont, Spain, Canada, Norway, Tanzania, New Mexico, Central America, New Hampshire, California, Japan.

So, I love discovering new places, and I love returning to Paris. I also love being outside, breathing clean mountain air, climbing rocks, hiking with my family (including my 86-year-old grandmother!) -- activities that make me feel healthy and alive.

I am originally from Colorado; my parents, grandparents, and other extended family are there (I'm fifth-generation on my mom's side), and my younger brother (with whom I'm very close and who lives in NYC) and I both go home whenever we can. When I'm not working or traveling to some far-off place, I'm to be found in San Francisco riding my bike, eating ice cream, practicing yoga, walking around town/hiking in the hills, cooking, listening to music, watching films or drinking wine with friends. I love snowboarding/backcountry-skiing, but haven't been able to do much of it lately; partly because I refuse to make the ridiculous drive and pay the ridiculous price it requires, partly because I haven't had the time. I also used to run -- preferably on trails, in the woods -- but those darn knees...!

And I teach, and read a lot. A lot. Well, it's my job. Though I'm not at all sure that I want to follow this academic path to its end. If I do--meaning, if I decide to go on the job market to get a professorship at a college or university--I see myself at a small liberal arts college in a Comparative Literature or French department, or teaching abroad. The strategy behind choosing this path from the many tempting possibilities, was the idea that an academic career would allow me to fulfill the two most important aspects of who I am: I could live a healthy, ecologically-aware, community-oriented life in a smaller college town that would be both close to wilderness and open spaces, as well as culturally-enriched by the arts and intelligent debate. Beyond my personal need for this balance, I see it as essential for my kids to grow up in contact with the wild, but exposed to diversity of perspective, belief, background, and interest.

But seriously, this virtual “match-making” has something of the preposterous to it, non? I mean, I’ve just written a rambling, stream-of-consciousness, single-paragraph blurb (culminating with imaginary kids?! what?), in which I express to anyone who happens to click onto this page more than one would ever learn about someone else in his/her first few conversations with that person. I admit that, for me, this whole thing still seems to be some combination of experiment, joke, and non-productive procrastination. But I’m tired of hearing, when I express my frustration with my current (anti-)social situation, responses from my mother and others in the vein of: “don’t be so negative [about the f@*ed-up grad school social world (not verbatim, I admit)] and make an effort to meet new people!” I, of course, respond unfailingly with the cynical, semi-true, semi-lazy dictum: “easier said than done”; which elicits, in turn, “success stories,” so-called: my cousin found his now very serious girlfriend on ___.com, my friend met her fiancé on ___.com, et cetera, et cetera….