| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | When I was a child, my family would go camping in the summer, and I am fortunate to have many happy memories from these times. My brother and I played whiffle ball, rode our bikes, played board games in the tent, went swinging on the swings and talked about whatever came to our minds, went exploring through the woods, threw a baseball, and went to the beach playing in the sand and body surfing the waves in. We would read for hours on end under the trees. Running around outdoors so much always made us hungry, and the simple dinners we made over the propane burner, such as pasta with tomato sauce, never tasted better. In the evening, we would sit in front of the fire and my parents would hold me in their arms, and I felt so safe, warm, and happy. This experience made a big impression on me because it taught me that little things make up happiness. I have found that, as an adult, it is easy to think of happiness as something out of reach, complicated, or hard to get. And even when you do get what you desired, you find yourself wanting more or the next better thing. When I think back on these times, I realize that you do not need a lot to be happy. Simple and true things like love, friendship, laughing through playing a game, getting lost in imagination through reading a book, looking up at the stars on a clear night and being filled with wonder and hope, feeling the warmth of a hot drink after being caught in the rain, being with someone you love, these things make up happiness. This experience not only created many happy memories and strengthened my bond with my family for which I am still very close to them and love them dearly today, but also taught me this important life lesson of how happiness comes from opening one’s eyes to the beauty all around in these simple but true things. As my mom says, “It’s the little things”. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I am very close to my grandmother. I would visit her every week to keep her company and to help her out around the house. For example, my dad and I did numerous house renovations to make the house a nice place for her to be, including painting and remodeling the bathroom, kitchen, and bedrooms. There were a lot of overgrown bushes out in the backyard that my dad and I helped clear out to make room for her to have a garden. She loved baseball so we took her out to a ballgame, and she had a blast. She enjoyed watching old movies, and I would get them from the library and bring them to her. She also loved roses, and I brought her to a local rose garden when they were in bloom. I wrote her long letters when I was away, and she would always write back. When I graduated from college, I got my first apartment in the same town she was in so I could visit her often. In the winter months I would shovel her driveway from snow and during the warmer months I would mow her lawn in the hot sun, and she would make lemonade with ice cubes and put it on the porch for me to take a drink to cool down. She would say such endearing things, wink knowingly at me, and would hug me. I would tell her I love her, and she would say, “I know you do. Grandma loves you". Helping my grandmother taught me the beauty and value of service to others. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I admire and strive to possess the following traits: loving and kind heart, attentive, compassionate, understanding, good listener, intelligent, respectful, considerate, polite, honest, does what’s right, selfless, giving to others, grateful, humble, forgiving, athletic, collaborative, social, emotionally intelligent, independent, passionate, down to earth, easy to talk to, positive, playful. hardworking, motivated, adaptive, continuously improving, confident, self-belief, boundless wonder, curiosity, and hope, bold, strong, brave, perseverance through adversity. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | Here is a lighthearted anecdote from my childhood: One funny story my brother and I often joke about together is one time when we went hiking up a mountain in winter. We had planned the trip for weeks looking forward to hiking in the beautiful snowy wonderland and with the wonderful stillness from the blanket of snow on the earth. As we proceeded to hike the path, we came to realize that there was quite a bit of ice on the trail, almost as if water had flowed down the path and then froze over. Undeterred, we continued to climb up the trail, often on our hands and knees and using the adjacent trees to pull ourselves up the trail because it was so slippery. When we got to the top, we realized that we had a new problem, how to get down the slippery trail. Our solution was to go down on our butts! We slid down the icy mountain trail and were quite sore afterwards, but it is a story that makes us laugh now. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I would love to travel to experience the beautiful diversity of life forms on this planet. For example, to experience playful dolphins surfing the waves, hummingbirds with wings beating seventy times per second zooming from flower to flower, marsupial sugar gliders spreading their wings to soar through the air, and magical tiny bioluminescent dinoflagellates which emit sparkles of light when the water is disturbed creating a sea of glowing, scintillating water. Once I looked really closely at the earth and was amazed to see an entire microcosm of life forms, from bryophytes adorned with dew droplets to a myriad of tiny creatures for which a plant shoot must seem a skyscraper, to the delicate, fragrant flowers with their endless varieties of exquisite shapes and colors. Life is so varied and extraordinary, for example, I recently read that octopuses, which are some of the most intelligent creatures on earth, exhibit a range of incredible attributes such as ability to perform miraculous camouflage within a fifth of a second (in part attributable to having about two thirds of their neurons in their arms not in their head enabling them to think across their entire body) and that octopuses branched out very far (approximately a billion years ago) in their evolutionary history from humans, making these beautiful creatures some of the closest things to other alien intelligent life that we know. I would love to travel to places where there are high levels of biodiversity to experience life in all of its myriad of forms, such as the coral reefs with a kaleidoscope of multicolored fish inhabiting a living city of beautiful coral polyp architectures, the rainforests teeming with life and with surprises around every turn, or places like Australia or Madagascar whose geographic isolation resulted in entirely unique life forms such as platypuses, baobab trees, and kangaroos. Not only do I wish to experience some of the beautiful diversity of life, but also, I hope that through my efforts and interactions with the world, I may be able to make the world a better place through improving environmental conditions such as biodiversity, pollution, and environmental conservation. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | That you look upon the world with a sparkle in your eye, as if it were the first time, full of boundless wonder, curiosity, excitement, and hope. That you enjoy your favorite food with zest. That you dream and get lost in imagination or a beautiful story. That you be your best self and give your best to the world. That your heart is full of love. That you find satisfaction from working with your hands to do, make, or fix something. That you forgive yourself and others for past mistakes. That you immerse yourself in your favorite music. That you look at the stars and feel oneness with the world and your purpose. That you laugh hysterically about something ridiculous. That you have a beautiful soul and radiate goodness through your actions towards others. That you feel the rush of doing something thrilling you enjoy. That you find people who are special to you and build beautiful friendships and relationships with them. That you feel hope from a future filled with endless possibilities. That you find strength and courage through life’s storms. That you believe in yourself, trust in your judgment, and let the wonderful qualities innate in you guide you. That you tell someone you love them. That you try something new and out of your comfort zone that makes you feel truly alive. That you think about big dreams that are true to your heart and make a fresh start on the wide-open expanse of your future life. As you stand and gaze up at the stars, full of wonder yet knowing deep down who you are, I wish your dreams stretch as far as the eye can see, beautiful in hope and unique among the galaxy. |
