I grew up in Irving Tx a shy kid who loved reading and who feared asking questions/inconveniencing others. My mom called me "compassionate." I often tried, and still try, to figure the world out for myself and on my own terms. The school was a time of great highs and lows, especially high school when I made some of my most enduring friendships but also struggled academically with mathematics. I grew up in a conservative household where politics was usually a salient topic, and Ronald Reagan would be the model to observe; concurrently I always had a strong sense of justice and morality that compelled me to eschew the better part of these inferences for more egalitarian ideals. I read Voltaire and Edgar Allan Poe, but more importantly Rudolfo Anaya, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Isabel Allende, and many other authors of a great canon of minority, commonwealth, and feminist writers. My love of literature, a penchant for philosophical discussion, and general love of learning helped me to really come into my own being and identity in college. This was immensely aided by a small group of extremely intelligent, high-achieving friends and mentors, who for some reason, always seemed to find something more valuable in me than I could have foreseen.