About Me

  • About Me: in the words of ee cummings, "Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet bellowings." Or at least: I hope I can summon up some lilac shrieks and scarlet bellowings. I am an early-20s traveler, asking myself Mary Oliver's haunting question--What do I want to do with my one wild and precious life? I spent last year in post-Soviet Central Asia, and will be spending next year in Africa and the Middle East for an eight-month trip starting in January. Right now I am a traveler in my homeland, the U.S., confused and mesmerized as usual by humanity and wonder.

More About Me

  • Interests: Collecting weird tidbits about the world, like quotes and street signs (I just write down what they say) and scraps of paper and hopefully lots of smiles.
  • Expertise: wonder
  • Occupation: Student
  • Website: http://flickr.com/photos/91756673@N00/

Video Games

  • Games I Play: sim farm

Travel

  • Places I've been: mexico, poland, hungary, romania, russia, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, uzbekistan, england, wales, egypt, sudan, ethiopia, yemen, kenya, tanzania, zanzibar, morocco, senegal, the gambia, mauritania, mali, burkina faso, benin, nigeria, turkey, syria, georgia, armenia, ngorno-karabakh, azerbaijan, and afghanistan--in that order.
  • Places to see before I die: iran, south and central america, cuba, china, east asia in general... okay, everywhere.

Movies

  • Favorite Movies: amelie; you've got mail; spring, summer, fall, winter ... and spring; ikuru; my architect; spellbound; princess and the warrior; romy and michele's high school reunion
  • Favorite Soundtracks: amelie!
  • Movie Quotes I say all the time: anything from you've got mail
  • Movies I can watch over and over: see favorite movies

Books

  • Favorite Books: invitation to a beheading, the bell jar, anne of green gables, halfpenny linda, 100 years of solitude, crime and punishment, despair, gravity's rainbow, you shall know our velocity!, the real life of sebastian knight, proust, and about a million others
  • Favorite Authors: nabokov, pessoa, ee cummings, dostoevsky, proust are all i can think of now but i like lots of people.
  • Favorite Genres: poetry, fiction, whatever
  • Favorite Quotes: lots!
  • Recent Reads: i am currently reading: japanese things, book on muslim women from the 1930s, you must set forth at dawn, brothers karamazov, why nothing works, v, war of the end of the world, moby dick, blind assassin, and like 10 other books. recently read a lot of books on suicide bombing, media and islam, etc., and slaughterhouse five, plus salaam brick lane.

High School

  • School Name: Lubbock High School
  • Status: Alumni
  • Class of: 1999
  • Attended: 1996 - 1999
  • Organizations: newspaper, student council, journalism, choir

College

  • School Name: Rice University
  • Status: Alumni
  • Attended: 1999 - 2003
  • Degree type: Bachelors
  • Major(s): Slavic Studies
  • Organizations: The Rice Thresher

Contact Info

  • AIM: romyolivia
  • Yahoo: romyolivia