My sister Jen’s answers made me think about cultural differences. I am not the first person to wonder how different we really are when you get down to the core issues human beings care about: personal safety, family, health, prosperity. But I guess the big difference between cultures is how we achieve the goals that we deem most important because the things that are important to me are not the things that are most important to you. Once you get past the primal goal of survival, differences turn into disagreements. I don’t know what the answer is but pink fairy wands could only help, that’s what I’m saying.
Q: What is the biggest difference between where you live now (England) versus where you grew up (America)?
A: The size of everything—the size of the houses, of the people, the cars—in England is smaller, vastly smaller. There are some good things about it, consumption is less: you don’t go to Target and buy seasonal decorations because you live in a 4 by 4 sq foot flat but being tall sucks because you can’t buy clothes.
Q: What was your worst/funniest date?
A: I met a guy in a pub and gave him my number and he called a few days later to meet up—so I went to a pub to meet him and he was already there, drunk. And he had brought his sister along for some unknown reason. He hands me a pink fairy wand that he had bought me “because every princess needs a wand.” Then he decides to sing me a karaoke song, “Unchained Melody” from the movie Ghost. After he finished, one of the waitresses at the pub came up to me and said, “Wow he’s so lovely, he really cares about you” and I said, “It’s our first date” and she said, “Oh. Psycho.”
I did go out with his sister twice after that cause she was cool. When I asked her why he was like that, she said he really liked me and he was nervous, so he was a little over the top. Needless to say, there was no second date.
Q: What do you know now that you wish you knew at a younger age?
A: You should be happy with who you are in the moment because when you look back at pictures and think, wow, when that was taken, I thought I was fat, I needed to fix myself and now you really are fat… So be happy with who you are at the time, you can never get that time of your life back and most of the time, you realize it was pretty good.
Q: Political issue you care most about?
A: American health care, because I live with socialized health care and it’s not great! To think that things are going to get more delayed like they are in England is scary. An example: I went in recently because I was sick, I had conjunctivitis. They were worried I had swine flu, but instead of giving me medication or at least quarantining me, I sat in the waiting room with everyone else for hours, and when I finally saw a doctor, I got Visine and throat drops, because the doctor was too busy to prescribe properly. That is typical of life in England—that you don’t actually get seen unless you’ve been sick for a long time and then you get your 5 minutes. With a doctor who doesn’t speak English.
Q: If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?
A: I don’t think I would change anything. Even though I’ve made tons of personal mistakes, I think you learn from the wrongs and try not to make those mistakes again. If you change the Nazis, it affects everything after that—although it’s a horrendous atrocity, hopefully people have learned from it and are more open-minded. Things I wish I hadn’t done, I wouldn’t change them because that makes me who I am.
Q: Who are/have been the most influential people in your life?
A: My mom and dad, for different reasons. Dad because he was very supportive and very logical, didn’t think with emotion all the time. If I was hysterical, he was a good one to go to! He’d provide you with options, not the answer.
Mom because she showed me life from a different perspective, from a European perspective since she’s from Sweden. I saw different cultural things and that made me want to travel, do different things in my life. Without her, I’d be living down the street with a 2-bedroom house and a dog.
Q: What are you looking forward to?
A: Summer, better weather. I try not to look too far ahead.
Q: What are you reading?
A: Patricia Cornwell, any detective fiction and loads of kids’ books. For school (Jen is a teacher).
Q: What do you think is your greatest accomplishment so far?
A: Living abroad and making it on my own.
Q: If you won 50 million dollars, what would be the first thing you would do with it?
A: First, I would share it with my family, on the condition that you couldn’t use it for anything practical, like paying a mortgage. And then I would like to travel with a bunch of friends to India and hang out. Somewhere with water parks so we could be like kids again.
Q: Best advice you’ve ever received? Worst?
A: Best advice is don’t sweat the small stuff. I do not follow this mantra and I panic but I try to keep it in mind.
Worst advice is when you break up with someone, all your friends say there’s plenty more fish in the sea and I feel your pain—they don’t. It’s crap.
Q: Least exciting technical advancement of the last 50 years? Most exciting?
A: The Internet is the best one because you can connect with people, you can use it for everything—booking flights, the kids I teach use it every day in school for everything. We do loads of online research and we don’t even have textbooks. I use it for lesson plans, it’s invaluable.
The worst: cell phones. No one needs to be that available.
Q: Worst fashion trend of all time?
A: The Flock of Seagulls haircut. Also leggings are very bad. Leggings are super bad.
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