being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own; it's the freedom to buy any book you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it

What was your major? 

    History

If that wasn’t your major, what would it have been? 

    Mass Communications: Photojournalism, which is as close as our school came to having a fine arts photography degree

What most surprised you when you first arrived on campus or first started classes at this school? 

    so few people seemed to cared about what we were learning. (I developed outward nonchalance eventually, though it destroyed a little bit of my soul to pretend that I didn't love learning.)

If I visited your hometown, what local spots would you suggest I see? 

    the soft-serve ice cream place, the doughnut place, the pizza place, the lakes, and the rock. And the river.

What is your favorite midnight snack? 

    cereal, always

What is your best study tip? 

    for class: copy over your notes, or at least read through them thoroughly, within 24 hours of class. It makes filling in the blanks infinitely easier if you catch them sooner.

    for tests: don't cram. You'll shove out at least as much as you shove in.

What is the strangest school habit you had in college? 

    I kept track of my reading assignments on index cards that I used as bookmarks. A lot of them are still in the books that I've kept since then. To some extent, that's stuck with me in the form of using business cards as bookmarks now.

What movie do you think everyone should watch? 

    my taste in movies is too weird to make that kind of pronouncement. But I am thinking about how long it's been since I last saw The Royal Tenenbaums, so let's go with that.

What is one thing we would never guess about you?  

    professional pedicures kind of creep me out (even before COVID)

Name a college class you wish your school had offered. 

    fine art photography (i.e. photography as art, rather than a subset of journalism)

What current fact about your life would most impress your five-year-old self? 

    I can buy new books (pretty much) whenever I want

Besides graduating, what was your number one goal for your time at college? 

    I greatly enjoyed the social diversions of that time period...

Describe the best teacher you have had so far. 

    besides those of whom I've already written ... I admired my undergrad Inductive Reasoning prof. I think I also had him for Philosophy of Democracy. Maybe Moral Theory, too? and Classical? He was a lawyer with a Ph.D. in Philosophy, personally quiet and pretty rigid, known for being a hard-ass who didn't take any shit in class. I was afraid of him and learned a great deal.

 [from here and adapted; the title quotation is by John Waters, from Role Models]