25 Things about me

1. I could not speak until I was 3 and doctors thought I had a learning disability. When I did start talking it was in full sentences… the first being, “Mom can I have some green beans?”
2. My earliest memory is when I was 7 months old. My mom took me to a new mother’s class at the community health center and I remember the projector and images on the wall. My memory is of a giant cone of light with ghostly women and babies in the air.
3. I am the first person in my family to earn a 4 year degree.
4. The only sport I ever played in was basketball my freshman year of high school, it was a total failure.
5. I was suspected of somehow faking my grades in high school. My first year had perfect scores on every test in every class for the entire year.
6. I’m allergic to bubble bath.
7. I have a pilot’s license and would have pursued one no matter the cost or impracticality of it.
8. I read non-fiction almost exclusively.
9. I lived in subsidized housing for part of my childhood. My mom’s rent was 23 dollars per month at one point.
10. I never close the window on a commercial flight.
11. I helped my mom study for her nursing exams at age 5. I surprised her by remembering the latin names of the anatomy parts she said out loud.
12. I entered a gifted and talented program in middle school. The entrance test was unlike any I had taken and remember describing it as “fun”.
13. I have both undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT. It was the perfect school for me. I was accepted early and never considered another school.
14. I earned a phlebotomy license (technician who draw blood) and trained to be an EMT in high school.
15. I consider my curiosity to be my most defining characteristic.
16. I haven’t seen my father in 16 years.
17. I find learning to be spiritually satisfying.
18. I love NBA basketball.
19. I’ve never broken a bone.
20. I’m a big fan of horror movies.
21. I don’t understand people who dismiss the cuisine of entire countries.. ie Chinese, Indian.. etc.
22. I hate hate hate potato salad, and to a lesser extent coleslaw.
23. I’m an unabashed music snob. Life is too short for musical potato salad.
24. After talking with people at NASA, I didn’t love Star Trek that much.
25. My most common nightmares are being deep underwater or in a disabled spaceship.