| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | My family's first cross-country road trip is very memorable. It was my first time really leaving my home state for an extended period of time. Stopping to stay in a cabin in Mississippi, visiting several of the Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C., and meeting my mother's extended family for the first time all really stuck out to me. It opened my mind a lot to the possibilities of travel, and my family has made regular road trips something of a yearly tradition ever since. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I identify most with my twelve-year-old sister. She and I have been best friends since she was born. I've always been happy to help her with her homework and listen to her talk about her interests, even when I can't even begin to understand the latest TikTok trends she talks about. We spend a lot of time playing games and watching shows together, and one of our favorite things is to go on bookstore runs together. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | Above all, I value kindness and compassion. To be able to care for others and empathize with those around you is an extremely important ability. I place a high value on honesty; I tend to be closest to those who are make their thoughts and intentions clear. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | I used to work as an aquarium technician for a local company when I was just learning how to drive. I would regularly service all matter of fresh and saltwater aquariums across the city, and one of the most notable was a 500-gallon saltwater tank housing two moray eels. There are two crucial pieces of information I should explain to an outsider here: firstly, eels have a bad habit of escaping their habitats by rocketing themselves out of their enclosures at incredible speeds. The second piece of information, and this is critical, is that I am deathly afraid of eels. The entire time I was cleaning the tank, I was as careful as possible to ensure they would have no opportunity to get anywhere near me with their rows and rows of teeth and get nowhere near jumping from the tank. When it finally came time to remove the lid of the enclosure so that I could replace some of the tank's water, I was watching the pair the entire time. I had hardly taken two steps from the tank to access my jug of clean water when, of course, one of the eels shot from the tank and onto the floor nearby with a wet splat. My worst fear realized, I had to wrestle this four-foot-long tube of slime and teeth back into that aquarium. I acted fast, throwing a towel over it so that I could get a grip on its slippery body while also dodging those huge teeth, and quickly managed to put it back in the tank. The whole moment probably took two seconds at most, but it felt like a lifetime to me, my chest and head pounding. And there was the eel, completely unbothered and swimming around like it didn't just take five years from my life. I couldn't help but laugh, having just endured the scariest situation imaginable while the perpetrator went back to idling immediately. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I have two answers for this one: the first is that I would love to travel to and hike all 2,180 miles of the Appalachian Trail. It would be the ultimate test of my backpacking skills and hiking endurance, and it would take me through one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world. I've hiked portions of it in the past, but I have yet to set aside the 6 months required to hike the trail in its entirety. My other choice would be to visit Norway. The natural beauty of the country really appeals to me, with the mountains and fjords being something completely different from what I'm used to. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | More than anything, I would want to instill in my children the attitudes I value. I try to be kind and take care of those around me, and to know that I've brought more kind people into the world would be a tremendous honor. We live in a world in need of compassion and patience, and I would hope to be an example towards my children so that they would uphold those same ideals. |
