Who was your favorite teacher growing up?

My favorite teacher growing up was my grandmother. She wasn’t actually a teacher I had in school, but… When I was a kid, we would sit down and read the encyclopedia together. And she would tell me, you know, if there was a word I didn’t know, to pick up a dictionary and read [it]… So when I was a kid, she got me into this thing where I would read encyclopedias, and she bought me a whole, encyclopedia collection, and I would just start with ‘A’ and go through it.

Describe the house you grew up in.

I was the baby out of four; I’m twelve years younger than my brother, and I’m ten and eight years younger than my two sisters. So, my parents were exhausted by the time I was born… I grew up with older brothers and sisters, so we would hang out, and I learned so much from them (maybe not good stuff, too, sometimes). But I would just kind of sit there, and I’d be like five, six years old, and there would be a bunch of high schoolers hanging out, and I’d just be sitting in the middle of the floor, looking around, like, “What is going on?” But I grew up in a very warm and stable house. My parents were both good people. I have  very fond memories of my childhood… I think back with a lot of fondness, a lot of nostalgia.

My mom was really into holidays, and she always went over the top. So, Christmas, even Saint Patrick’s Day, were her thing. They were huge deals, and she’d do all of these crazy things. Like, on Christmas she’d — and she did this when I came home from college, as in home from college to visit, clearly knowing that there was no Santa Claus — she would crawl into my bedroom — I was, like, twenty years old — and take my stocking, and fill it, and put it back on my bed. Which is silly on one level, but on another level, it’s tradition, and tradition was important. I think that’s something that my mom in particular has passed on to me, that I’d like to do with my kids.

What big world events do you remember most growing up?

I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. And I’m pretty sure I was with my dad… I just remember the idea that this was a big deal. And watching people dance on the berlin wall, take chunks of [it] out with whatever tools they had at their disposal… I remember the idea that something profound was happening, and that I was watching something that was an important moment in history and that it would have really important implications moving forward… It’s one of those times in history where there was life before the wall fell, and then there was life after the wall fell. And i think history has those moments… At nine years old, I didn’t really understand. In hindsight, I get it.

I remember the start of the Gulf War, too. I remember my parents told me to stay home… The Vietnam War was called the first living room war, in that people were watching correspondence from Saigon and from south Vietnam give a daily update of what was happening in the war there. But, in ‘91, we started Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and the bombing of Iraq, of Baghdad and other cities… I remember just being glued to the TV — I was in fifth grade — just glued to the TV watching the war — which was really a very sanitized version of war — unfold.

Have you had any favorite pets?

I am not an animal person, frankly. I had a dog, Daisy, when I was a kid. I don’t remember much about her, but I remember when we had to put her to sleep. My sisters were just a wreck, and me, I was just five years old and trying to console them….

And somehow, we ended up with this cat, and I still don’t know how. My brother, he got it from somebody, and named it Whitney, because he was in love with Whitney Houston. And then he gave it to my sister, who named it something else. Then she went off to college, and we had this cat, ‘Rex,’ who never really felt like part of the family. He was just kind of, like, there. Having Rex for two months turned into having him for fifteen years. We never really got along; the extent of my relationship with him was that I’d walk in the door, I’d seem him, and be like, “What’s up, Rex?” and that was it.
What were phrases that were popular when you were a teenager?

Oh god…

Phat. That was one. I wasn’t the guy using that word, but that was one of them. Or dope… “That’s dope, that’s phat.”
Do you have any special saying or mottos?

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” I do, I say that a lot… One of my things in life is always wanting to grow, as a person, intellectually; and that everything is about just looking into things and studying things, and learning about things… learning about life, and the beauty of life, because life is so short, and while I’m here I want to examine everything I can. Everyone lives their own life, and they’re entitled to what they want to do, but I think a complacent life, of just quietly going through the motions, seems to me a bit uninspired. A good friend said that to me one time, and I had heard the quote before, but it was just the way this person said it to me that made me appreciate it even more.

If you had a million dollars, what would you do withe the money?

Hm. One million dollars, on one level, is a lot of money. But on another level… Like, I couldn’t tell you that I would quit my job and go walk among the Egyptian pyramids… A million dollars? I’d go get a nice steak and some sushi, and come home and play with my daughter.
Tell us something about the up and coming IB program.

It is going to be a unique opportunity for those who choose to accept it. I think it’ll  be intellectually stimulating, and we’ll be able to talk about a lot of philosophical things, and thinking outside of the box… It should challenge people’s world views and make people think about issues in ways they’ve never thought about issues before. And I think that’s always a good thing… Because, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”