My journey began with a single pencil. While traveling through India in 2006, I asked a boy begging on the streets, 'If you could have anything in the world, what would you want?' and he answered me with two words: 'A pencil.' Luckily, I had one in my pocket, and in the second it took me to give it to him, a defining dream was born.
Did you hear the one about the elderly Jew on his deathbed who sent for a priest, after declaring to his astonished relatives that 'I want to convert.' Asked why he would become a Catholic, after living all his life as a Jew, he answered: 'Better one of them should die than one of us.'
I don't like to leave anything unfinished. I have an absolute need to see that every phone call is returned, every letter answered.
As the final weeks of my schooling draw to a close and exams loom, I find myself reflecting on the past six years of my secondary education only to realise that many questions are still unanswered. How have I been shaped by my learning experiences? What skills have I developed that are valuable and transferable in the workplace?
Perhaps there's a lot of quality television that's not right for the individual who needs questions answered in each episode, and perhaps reality television may be a better option. With the integrity of HBO and their drive to tell stories, it takes time to arrive at any sort of answers.
My prayers are being answered for my career. These are prayers I've been praying for as a kid.
When I was about eight, I asked my mother if it was true that God knows everything about you. When she answered yes, I said, 'Then there's no hope for me, Mum.'
The people who founded America, who fought for its freedom, did not look to anyone else to get them out of their troubles. They took matters into their own hands and answered only to God and their peers. In today's world, sacrifice and hardship are not in the everyday language, and instant gratification is foremost.
It's tough... My real father - I have my stepdad, my mom remarried - but my real father lived in Thailand, so I barely saw him as it is. So it was really hard for me to go back there and just, I feel like I have a lot of unanswered questions.
What can we be in life? Few figures in history have answered this question with as much clarity and moral authority as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
