I got my first job the old-fashioned way: I took an elevator to the top floor of many buildings and walked down floor by floor on the stairs going into every firm and asking the receptionist if she knew of any jobs available.
My experience on 'The West Wing' was, I think, now rare in that I was pretty young, and I walked into this environment where Aaron Sorkin was giving me a script every week, and Thomas Schlamme and John Wells were keeping the studio off my back, at least as best as they could.
I've walked away from more climbs than I can count, just because I sensed that things were not quite right.
There's nothing appealing about the Elimination Chamber. When I first walked into it, I was terrified. You start out the match in these pods, and you're just watching everyone go at it, waiting for your time.
When I first moved here, I almost felt like I was obligated to hate L.A. as a New Yorker. I moved way too fast for this city. I walked everywhere, and I was lonely, too. It was a really hard time not knowing anybody, and you don't run into people the way you do in New York. You can go a week without seeing anyone.
My junior year, I went to an LSAT-prep course. I flipped over my test and thought, 'You bastards.' I walked out and went to Waffle House. That's where I had what I call 'The Waffle House Epiphany': I didn't want to be a lawyer. I wanted to make a dent in the universe.
People ask me, 'What were you thinking during that game-winning penalty kick in the 2011 World Cup?' I was actually thinking absolutely nothing. I just walked up there and was so inspired by my teammates who rocked all their PKs; they just killed it. I figured I might as well do the same, or they might have my neck.
I grew up in the middle of everything. I walked the streets alone, I rode the trains alone, I came home at three in the morning alone; that was what I did.
Even as a child, I had walked down streets reading novels, waiting for my feet to get stuck in tar as I crossed the road, like the absent-minded animal in a Richard Scarry kid's book.
I walked into an international economics tutorial, and the professor said, 'I don't know how to teach a woman.' I said, 'It's the same as teaching a man.' I just sat down, and he had no choice but to start teaching. When I handed in my first paper, I think that shut him up.
