| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | I’d say the most memorable individual childhood experience I had was when we had the opportunity to go skiing. When I was very young, I tended to be a bit overly cautious; skiing helped me be more adventurous and helped me find joy in sports. I think this was helped by the alternative culture of local skiers, which was in stark contrast to how I grew up. Additionally, the snow was rare compared to where I grew up, so there was a wonder in being exposed to a totally different climate. That, especially at an early age, gave me a strong wanderlust for the North. It ended up being something my dad and I could bond over, and I think it developed my character significantly. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | While I see parts of myself in both of my parents, I more closely identify with my father. I think his confidence, sense of humor, work ethic, and principle of treating friends as family have cemented themselves in my personality and continue to affect how I live my life. I also remember many moments with my father that expanded my worldview, which was valuable at a younger age. I feel that he and I both value kindness, adventure, and hard work. We both have an easygoing and hard-to-shake personality with an ability to focus on and achieve complex goals when we set our minds to it. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I admire many traits in individuals. For one, I admire kindness, positivity, and empathy. I admire self-confidence and joy in life, the type of traits that make a person adventurous and curious. I also admire people who value their community and remain involved in it, rather than remaining entirely self-focused. I admire someone who believes that they can accomplish lofty goals but is excited to take the journey to get there. Finally, I think it is exceptionally important that someone remains earnest and doesn’t let negativity or insecurity prevent them from being their authentic self. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | One time in college I went to a stand-up comedy open mic night. A guy gets on stage and is so clearly inebriated out of his gourd. It’s like time has slowed down for him. He’s bombing, but the crowd is polite and listening to him bomb at his own pace. He attempts to tell this joke that essentially boils down to, “Why are tickets for the airplane ride so expensive if I’m going to sleep the whole time.” But this quick joke takes maybe 10 whole minutes to come out, between restarts, repeating the first half, and just dry pauses. It was a supernatural amount of time spent making this quip. When he finally finishes it, the crowd is silent, but to me the unintentional joke of making a Mitch Hedberg style one-liner last that long was just absolutely hilarious. I was the only one laughing in that entire crowd, and I was pretty much cackling like the Wicked Witch. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | Time and money notwithstanding, I would love to take months in multiple other countries to truly understand how the pace and features of day-to-day life change. If I had to provide a specific place to spend a long few weeks, I’d love to visit France. For one, my girlfriend adored her recent trip, and I’d love to be able to spend a long while there, together, not worrying about work. Travel is always better with a partner! An aged country where the preservation and proliferation of art and culture is a high national priority sounds like a fantastic place to explore. I could just as easily spend days enjoying good coffee and food on unfamiliar city streets. While obviously I’d want to spend plenty of time in Paris, the Mediterranean has always called me. I adore being by the sea: between the climate, food, and time in the water I think it changes life in such a positive way. As such, I’d definitely spend time in Marseille. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | I think many of the traits I previously listed in the admiration section come up here. I’d like my kids to have faith in themselves, and through that, have the confidence to try new things. I wish I would have been a bit less afraid of failure as a kid. I would also want my kids to be trusting and positive. I would try to instill values in the community and self-care. I would want my kids to be curious and educated; and hopefully through those traits be able to form the version of themselves that they want to be and feel the freedom to become that. |
