people
I firmly believe that life is about human interactions and the differences they make. Everyone I meet means the world to me.
i heart {friends}
- My family - Mom, Dad, Jordon, and Jasmine: For their endless unconditional love and support
- My relatives: For all the ways they've nurtured me, especially when I was young
- My friends at Boston University: For helping me discover who I really am, what I'm capable of, and what I really want to do
- My friends in my hometown and from K-12: For accepting me, believing in me, and growing up with me
- My friends and campers from Camp Lohikan: For a summer of lifelong memories
- My students at The English High School: For teaching me more than I've taught them.
- My friends from all the random places: For whatever way they have made a difference in my life.
i heart {filmmakers}
- Lukas Moodysson
- Lilya 4-Ever; Fucking Amal / Show Me Love; Tillsammans / Together
- For his tremendously important, urgent, and universal social themes.
- For his simple, yet incredibly powerful and poetic style.
- For his refined wit and humor.
- For all his quotable lines of dialogue.
- For simply being the best. For being my hero in filmmaking.
- Krzysztof Kieslowski
- Red; White; Blue; A Short Film About Love; The Decalogue
- For his hypnotically realistic style.
- For inducing the rawest and most familiar of human emotions into his viewers.
i heart {writers}
- Kahlil Gibran
- The Prophet
- For writing possibly the only book that anyone needs in order to live a fulfilling life.
- For a poetic and concise--yet surprisingly comprehensive--style that covers nearly all the major universal themes.
- For his idealistic, yet honest and applicable, philosophy.
- Mitch Albom
- Tuesdays with Morrie; The Five People You Meet in Heaven; various articles in Parade magazine
- For his obvious love for humanity.
- For all the beliefs he supports.
i heart {the famous}
- Elie Wiesel
- Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- Author of Night and various articles in Parade magazine.
- The Norwegian Nobel Committee described him as a "messenger to mankind" and someone who teaches about "peace, atonement and human dignity."
- Professor at Boston University. At one of his public lectures, his presence gave me chills.
- Dale Carnegie
- Writer and lecturer who dedicated his life to teaching methods of self-development and expanding the human potential.
- Socrates
- The greatest teacher and philosopher of all time. Charismatic and highly principled to the greatest degree.
- Marilyn vos Savant
- Has the highest IQ in history.
- Dedicates her life to answering reader-submitted questions and concerns in her syndicated magazine column.
- Favorite people to quote
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Henry David Thoreau
- Bertrand Russell
- Mark Twain
i heart {teachers}
- Elementary and middle school teachers who believed in my writing ability and influenced my love for English:
- Ms. Harrison (5th grade)
- Ms. Rebecca Prosser (7th grade, language)
- Mr. Larry Jones (8th grade, literature)
- Franklin High School:
- Mrs. Carol Armstrong (9th grade, English): For being the first to give me an award in English.
- Mr. William Krull (9th grade, history): For his charismatic, joyful, and lighthearted soul. Rest in Peace.
- Mr. Steven Affros (10th grade, history): For being one of the best high school lecturers and for being the funniest person at FHS.
- Mr. Carl Blanchard (10th grade, biology): For creating scholars and for mixing a range of disciplines into his classes. It meant lots to me when--of all people--a biology teacher thought I had a talent for writing.
- Mr. Donald Neal (10th grade, English): For his legendary way of demanding perfection and for his off-track tidbit lessons in being a minority.
- Mr. Joseph Novak (10th and 11th grade, Pre-Calc and Calculus): For making math what it's supposed to be: simple and logical.
- Mr. Michael Pinnix (12th grade, video): For fostering teamwork and creativity. For believing in me during my first formal introduction to the craft of filmmaking.
- Boston University:
- Professor Kathryn Burak (Communication Writing): For developing my voice and pushing me to write a contest-winning memoir.
- Ms. Ashley McHugh (Creative Writing): For my first formal introduction to poetry.
- Professor Christophor Cavalieri (Video Production): For developing everyone's "professionalism" in the media industry.
- Professor Jan Donley (Writing / Coming of Age in Literature): For her unique way of exchanging letters that fostered friendship and trust with students. For all her admirable insights in teen and youth development.
- Professor John Hall (Writing Film Criticism): For helping me hone a conversational--yet critical and academic--writing style when judging art.
- Professor Geoffrey Poister (Video Production II): For the vast number of helpful resources he provided. For introducing me to casting and auditioning actors.
- Mr. Jan Egleson (Directing Film/TV): For inspiring me to put more weight on simple storytelling than on technical effects. For all his useful and practical advice in independent filmmaking.
- Professor Frank Capria (Video Post-Production): For developing my editing style. For all his memorable and amusing stories about the media industry.
- Mr. Xavier Rozas (Media Arts Teacher): For overlooking my teaching internship at EHS and being such a great role model of a media arts educator.
- Professor John Bernstein (The Profane: Sexuality, Gender, and Women; New Scandinavian Cinema): For starting my academic interest in sexuality, gender, and women's studies.
- Professor Daryl Costos (Social Psychology Experimental; Psychology of Women): For making psychological research a manageable--but still challenging--task. For all her insights in gender studies and its cultural implications.
- Professor Perlitsh (Industrial-Organizational Psychology): For her unique "ClabSS" set-up (class mixed with a experiential lab) in which I gained valuable experience as a workplace supervisor and how to manage people and teams.
- Professor Ray Carney (Films of Yasujiro Ozu): For his heaps of famous, brilliant, and inspirational essays about film and art--the main reason I enrolled in his class. For his undying passion for independent and truthful films. For being the only teacher to teach me so much even before the first day of class.
To everyone on this page: Thank you. In ways you have never imagined, you have given joy, hope, and meaning to my life.