| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | My very first Easter/Passover that I can remember involved both sides of my family getting together to celebrate both holidays. My father's side celebrated Easter, while my mother's side celebrated Passover. Many on both sides didn't understand the other side's traditions. It was the first time that I noticed miscommunication, misunderstanding, and a lack of curiosity in my family. I understood both traditions, so I set out to teach my relatives that didn't understand. From there on, I was known as the teacher of the family. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I identify with my father the most, even though we agree on hardly anything. He has always been my role model and I even followed in his footsteps into the professional field of pharmacy. I understand my father much more as an adult than I did in my adolescence. I was idealistic and naive in school and even as an undergraduate. I appreciate his rigor and attention now because it has made me who I am. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I admire intelligence, rationality, compassion, inquisitiveness, curiosity, leadership, and honesty. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | Because I speak Portuguese so well, I am often mistaken for Brazilian by Brazilians. I went to a showroom for granite countertops, and I noticed that another customer was giving one of the employees a very hard time, yelling and screaming. After the angry customer left, I overheard the employees speaking Portuguese to one another. They were complaining about rich and stupid Americans. When I approached, one of them said to the other in Portuguese "Oh, perhaps another rich, dumb American," to which I replied in Portuguese "No, a very smart one!" We all had a good laugh, and they thought I was Brazilian and gave me a discount. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I would travel to Israel, but only after a peaceful two-state resolution to the conflict there. Israel has a vast amount of history and culture. It would be the ultimate 'getting in touch with your roots' moment for me. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | I would pass down a lesson that has been passed down for many generations in our family: the world is what you make of it. The more lies, deceit, and malice that you inject into the world, the worse it makes the world. You have a choice to either spread love or extinguish it. |
