| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | When I was eight I lived on a military base in Germany in a large apartment building filled with American families. The family above us had five kids, all generally my age, give or take a few years, and below us there were two more girls, also around my age. During the summers we would spend all day outside behind the building, where there was a grassy hill and a play structure surrounded by sand pits. We spent countless hours chasing each other around the hill, to the top of the wooden tower, and all around our backyard. My favorite times, however, were the large digging expeditions. Once or twice a summer, everyone would be outside, and the older kids organized us all into an efficient digging machine. We spent hours with our knees in the coarse sand, scrabbling away with plastic shovels and scooping hands. Our mothers would send food outside for lunch, and whenever we got thirsty, the hose was a mere twenty feet away. The feeling of working with my friends on some large goal was the best part, and the fact that it happened so rarely made it all the more precious. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | After meeting my parents for the first time, most of my friends will later tell me how much I am just like my father. We both have slightly smaller heads, the same nose, and the same ears, but the resemblance goes far beyond physical. We share mannerisms of course, but we also share thought processes and values. We love the feel of a book in our hands, and our first thought when presented with a new subject is to seek out reading material. There is a mutual sense of humor, with a goofy twist not quite shared with the rest of my family. We place a large emphasis on the giving of gifts, in the act of presenting some tangible representation of affection. If I could be half the man my father is, I would be content. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I admire humor and ease, perhaps above all else. One must be willing to laugh at the world, and most of all themselves. At the same time however, I value the ability to take things seriously when called to do so. I prize kindness, so that everyone knows the teasing words come from a place of love and respect. I value commitment, the willingness to stick with something through and through. Finally, empathy. Without empathy I do not believe one can have genuine connection, and the ability to form connections with each other is the most important thing. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | This past spring my roommates and I were working together on a sort of collaborative storytelling project that involved loosely planning a fantasy town. One of my roommates really wanted a detailed criminal underworld/shady part of town, all centered on a pawn shop called the “Bug Bear.” We spent the next half hour coming up with all sorts of variations on the name, including the Rug Bear (a rug shop), the Mug Bear (a photographer), the Bug Lair (a local tavern), and so on. It’s a silly thing to write out now, but that half hour spent devising nonsensical names and businesses left us in tears of laughter. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | With time and money out of the question, I would love to spend a long time exploring Europe. I lived in Germany for a few years as a child, and even though I certainly enjoyed it, Europe has so much more for an adult to appreciate. I love history, and every town and village has its own story dating back centuries. There is a certain stateliness to places like Italy or Greece, beyond the tourist dens. I would love to spend months slowly traversing the Italian countryside and getting in deep in French museums. There is so much art and history and food spread all across the continent that I would be content for a long, long time. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | I think the most important thing I would try to pass on to my future children would be a sense of love and respect. We live in a time so defined by classifications and divisions, and I would want to show them that everyone, regardless of race or gender or sexuality or anything, is deserving of love and compassion. I would try to teach my sons how to treat women with respect, and to teach my daughters that such respect is their birthright. I would tell them failure is fine, and what we thought we wanted sometimes has a way of changing into the thing we actually need. Finally, I would want to show them, and engrain it into them, that there will always be people who care for them, and that asking for help is not a mark of failure but an achievement over pride. |
