I'm always open to new experiences whatever they may be - have you eaten bugs? I have - Yum! (Not really, they were actually very bland).
I love learning about new cultures; their food, art, architecture, philosophies, etc. That said, I feel that the best thing about visiting a new country is meeting the people - more so than seeing the sites is learning about them and their life.
I enjoy cooking for my friends, and invite people over about twice a year and and always figure out new dishes to cook for them to enjoy. Oh and I eat an amazing amount of peanut butter and love cashews in most everything!
I take public transportation in LA which most people will consider a social death sentence. But I've made it work - my view is that usually you can make anything work just try to see beyond the negative.
I treasure my friends greatly (which is why I have the parties). I'm always amazed that I have such a varied group, from whom I continue to have amazing experiences and learn new things from.
I'm an interesting conversationalist and have been told that I can have a conversation about anything!

PHILOSOPHY
I've lived in three countries so far and find that wherever you are is the best place to be at that moment. You just have to work at finding what's special about it. It doesn't mean you don't move, it just means you take advantage of the time you have while you're there and not have to say - "I should have done...", when you're no longer there.

I like to think that I'm very open minded and don't judge others. And I like others to return the favour.

I believe if people were more responsible/reliable everyone would get lots more done.

I'm always on time if I can help it, never fashionably late.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I know Los Angeles pretty well and love showing people around. I give them the stories behind things so that they come to appreciate what they're seeing, or experience it at an even deeper level.

My travels have instilled in me a drive to learn new languages and I'm currently learning my first - German. I want to be able to show people around my city in their native language, so that they feel even more welcome, have an even greater experience here and in the process improve me language skills.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE
My couchsurfing experience has been great so far and gotten me even more excited to travel abroad - the sooner the better!

EXTERNAL PAGES
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sunil.rampersad.52
Check out my work: https://sunil2019.weebly.com/ (this is a site I did when learning how Weebly works!)

Interests

Art. Literally, in all it's forms; architecture, fine art, music, literature, theater and film, and I love having conversations about it.

I do life-drawing every week, try to read two books a month (though I've gotten way behind because my commutes do not take as long as they used to ). I used to write for a design and architecture blog here in LA, however because of time constraints I don't do it anymore.

Because I love film I've volunteered at several film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival, several times and have even helped to put on small film festivals.

I love learning about different cultures and examining why things are the way they are - in fact at one point I went overboard collecting maps showing the ancient migrations of peoples into modern countries which ended up producing the current population/culture - I just know I would have loved being an archaeologist or social scientist!

I enjoy great design and Computer Graphics work in animation or visual effects, and regularly meet with a group here in LA, and have even done a panel on Virtual Reality at the major digital graphics conference - SIGGRAPH (the Special Interest Group for (digital) Graphics)

Currently working with one of the SIGGRAPH people to produce a conference to be held later in 2019 solely on what's called 'pipeline' which is like program management for visual effects, CG or Virtual Reality (VR).

• arts
• books
• theater
• architecture
• design
• film festivals
• traveling
• drawing
• animation
• archeology
• moviemaking
• virtual reality
• visual effects

Music, Movies, and Books

MOVIES:
Just a very FEW of the filmmakers I like; Nacho Vigalondo, Alex de la Iglesia, Peter Jackson, Christopher Nolan, Terry Gilliam, the Cohen brothers, Peter Greenaway, and David Lynch

Some specific movies would be; The Prestige (Christopher Nolan), Fight Club (David Fincher), The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (Peter Greenaway), Trainspotting (Danny Boyle), Lost Highway (David Lynch), American Beauty, Life of Pi (Ang Lee), and Skyfall,

I love going to film festivals, and some films I've seen there that I've liked are: The Angel's Share (Ken Loach), Reality (Matteo Garrone), Electric Children (Rebecca Thomas), , Antiviral (Brandon Cronenberg), Kon Tiki (a film about Thor Heyerdahl),

Some films are not amazing but the director uses an interesting technique to tell the story like, Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland), or Holy Motors (Leos Carax)

And then there are those movies that are just fun like, John Dies in the End (Don Coscarelli), and Room 237 (Rodney Ascher)

MUSIC:
The Pixies, The Smiths, MGMT and drum n bass dj's like Netsky and Hard Contrast. Before leaving on my trip to Germany I decided to do a party with the theme being the Mid-Century (ie the 50's and 60's in the USA). The music is so good!

BOOKS:
Some of my favourite authors include; Chuck Palaniuk, Brent Easton Ellis, Tom Robbins, Rick Moody, Patrick McCabe, and Jorge Luis Borges

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Been to Burning Man. I was there for the whole week with a friend who had one of the art projects there. Around 50,000 people (that year) go to the desert and live a life with no money changing hands. It's a combination of the weird, spiritual, and artistic spectacle, all at the same time - with hundreds of fire dancers putting on a show right before the giant 'man' gets lit on fire and burns to the ground at the end of the week.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you all about design and art appreciation. As well as mythology and cultural aspects of various countries I've been in. Need to get your project done? I have done several panels at SIGGRAPH about that specifically as I saw many artistic friends struggling to get their ideas off the ground. How do you get people interested and what does it take?

I really enjoy cooking, and the more I do, the better I get at it. I would love to cook a meal for you, sharing some of my sensibilities that I use when cooking and learning about yours.

Depending on my time in a city I love to draw at least one of the pieces of architecture there. When I was in Istanbul I created a CS meetup for people who wanted to go draw a mosque. And would love to teach you how to go about doing your own drawing, if you haven't done it before. Talk about why you would want to, and also share one of my drawings done in your city with you.

I have been told that I can talk about anything and with anyone. I accept that complement and admit that I have no problem carrying on interesting conversations with people I've only just met. So don't worry for one moment if you're a bit on the shy side, I am pretty sure we are going to have an amazing conversation when I see you!

I've recently been doing a few web sites for people using Wordpress, Wix, and now Weebly. I would be happy to spend a couple of hours to get your web site started. Show you what you need to do and how to do it. By the time we're done, your web site would be almost complete, you'll only need to add stuff like text and photos you choose. If you already have a site, we can work on it to make it even better!

I'm currently learning German and I need to speak it more to get that confidence, in fact I will be going to Germany for just that reason - to be immersed in speaking and get over the translation that I do, which slows me down when in an actual speaking situation. I would also like to learn French and Spanish, but one language at a time!

Before I leave on a four and a half week tour to Europe I am throwing a fun "bon voyage" party and inviting all my friends, since I will miss them . For the event I am editing together six hours of music from the Mid-Century (50's and 60's) era of the U.S. I've spent many many hours making it, the music is AMAZING! And I would love to share a copy of it with my amazing hosts, while also giving them the history/culture of this era in the U.S. and California/Los Angeles.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Interesting conversation! Cook you a meal. Help you with your web site or drawing. And I can share with you a drawing of a piece of architecture, drawn while I was in your town/city.

Countries I’ve Visited

Egypt, England, Jordan, Puerto Rico, Turkey

Countries I’ve Lived In

Trinidad and Tobago, United States

•