CURRENT MISSION

Researching, Liming (see Teach, Learn, Share), and improving online educaiton

ABOUT ME

I'm from Trinidad originally and after living there for 18 years I severely underestimated Canadian winters, moving there for four undergrad years in the freezing sleet of Toronto.

I moved to Berkeley to be a graduate student and study cognitive science (which I won't blame you for thinking is the least sexy part of psychology, since it doesn't involve relationships or emotions or those mental disorders we always suspect we have).

The biggest thing I've learned in California is an appreciation of the outdoors. Although confused and skeptical about the concept of "hiking" when I first arrived (in the Caribbean it's hard to understand how grueling work out in the wilderness could be a hobby ) I'm now a huge fan.

I enjoy meeting people and indulging in random conversation. One of my friends told me I jumped into their mind when they read this set of symptoms : "Most individuals with "Williams syndrome" are highly verbal relative to their IQ, and are overly sociable, having what has been described as a "cocktail party" type personality."

It's especially ironic that my last name is Williams.

PHILOSOPHY

Learning actively and on a day to day basis is an interesting way to pass the next 60 years.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Meeting people when I travel or when they visit Berkeley, local meetups.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Going to Frankfurt and hanging out with two German guys. I remember moments after I walked in a loud SCHEIßE! was bellowed from the kitchen. The guy cooking was trying to maneuver a delicate amount of hot sauce into a pot and somehow dumped almost the entire bottle in.

I'd only heard "shizer" (sheiser?) in comedies making fun of German people so it was a hilarious cliche. But they quickly diverged from any German caricatures after that and were a lot of fun.

Interests

Egging people on when they don't hold back and say whatever happens to be dancing madly around the inside of their skull. I think it's hilarious and the conversation only ever goes up from there.

I tend to joke around with people and tease them as soon as I meet them, so just slap me if i'm being rude and violating some cultural norms.

I ask a lot of questions. Not FBI/CIA kinds of questions (although apparently it can feel like a jovial interrogation at times...), but because I really enjoy learning about what people do and what they've done recently.

• dancing
• cooking
• cocktails
• bbq
• working out
• partying
• traveling
• socializing
• outdoor activities
• hiking
• psychology
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: The Paradox of Choice, Predictably Irrational, James Herriot, The High Crusade, popular science books, older British fiction.
Movies & Shows: Stephen Colbert is a genius. I don't want anything else here to have to stand in the shadow of the Colbert Nation.
Music: calypso and soca, but trying to expand the horizons...
Ethiopian, Mediterranean, Thai, Italian, Indian, Mexican. Strong flavors always win out over sophistication.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I feel compelled to stand on the edge of very tall things and think about the fact that logically, it's extremely unlikely that I'd actually fall off. After all, I'd never fall down the stairs if I just stood at the top of the staircase, right?

At half-dome in Yosemite, this meant crawling up to the edge and looking down two thousand feet until my friends got fed up of yelling for me to come back and just left me.

Also in Yosemite, I jumped the railings at Glacier point and walked over the edge of the rock and sat down and dangled my feet over the edge. The entire world seems to spin around you when you're seeing your toes suspended thousands of feet above a valley floor, which is terrifying but exhilarating. What was hilarious was that even though people called out to me to stop and looked like i was insane at first, eventually about 5 people ended up out on the edge taking pictures and posing...

I also like jumping off of things. Recent summer victim of this trait was being the only idiot persuaded it would be fun to to jump (flail) off a five story Turkish cliff into the Mediterranean. For 0.8 seconds my brain *knew* the probability of immediate death was 100%. But the massive bellyflop reawakened it to the gruesome realities of continued life.

Teach, Learn, Share

Explain the concept of "liming".

Here it is!

I think one of Trinidad & Tobago's most important cultural and linguistic contributions is the word and concept of "lime". I use hardly any Trinidadian words when I talk in America because people obviously won't understand them, but lime is important enough to be a permanent part of my U.S. vocabulary, so having to explain what it means over and over prompted me to write this definition. It basically means to hang out or socialize, but as you can see in the definition below there are significant implications of having a word for this activity...

-lime (verb), lime (noun), liming (noun)-
"lime" is a Trinidadian word, which means to socialize and hang out. A "lime" is any event where you socialize and hang out. But the fact that there is a specific *word* for socializing and hanging out emphasizes how important this activity is, gives it high priority, and makes people more prone to do it on a regular basis. "hanging out" is like something you do when you don't have any better plans, or your plans fall through: you invite someone to come over, they ask you what's going on, you might say "just hanging out", or, you were planning to go a party but plans fall through so you decide to settle for "just hanging out" instead.

In Trinidad, liming is a respectable alternative to having a barbecue, going out to a bar, partying, or seeing a movie. On a Friday night you will invite 10 people over to your house and tell them you're having a lime, and they will all show up, sit in your living room, and enjoy themselves liming all night. You don't have to entice them to come or structure the social event with a movie, games, barbecue, or plans to go out (although all of these things are liming as well). When you walk some friends back to their car after a movie or party, instead of just saying goodbye and driving home, it's completely natural for people to spontaneously decide to stand up outside their car and lime for the next couple hours (this could be called a parking lot lime). Passing the time with various weekend and evening hobbies doesn't really happen in Trinidad, because every Trinidadian's primary form of entertainment is... LIMING!

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