THE HUMANS

"Yes, there is a difference going into high school. Things change. Some friends I used to hang out with, they start to not hang out with me anymore. I think it's for better though."

May 18th, 2015

English: What is one of your biggest challenges?

Portuguese: O que é um dow seus maiores desafios?

"My life."

May 18th, 2015

"The connection here is that I met this young man (founder of Arrive Kenya) because he came home to Ridgefield for the first time since moving to Kenya just two days after I had prayed to God, 'How can I help? What can I do for these people?' Then I met him, and he said, 'I'll work with anyone who wants to help with the work I'm doing. I'm accepting donations. Let's meet and talk.' I met him and I was blown away. Now we've met, built a relationship, held a fundraiser at my house, and my older son even has a pen pal with one of the kids he saved."

Arrive Kenya is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to improving the lives of the most vulnerable children around the world. In partnership with local organizations, Arrive restores hope and self-confidence by empowering at risk youth, orphans, and street children. Check out www.arrivekenya.org for more information!

May 19th, 2015

"I got a lot of cooking skills from my grandmother, and that's where I got the southern part. Then the urban part was my mother, and then I studied French-American cuisine. So in the end we came up with this style of cuisine called, 'south-urbican.' People always ask, 'What is that!?' It's a word I made up! I like making my own words...

...They say, oh, just get a job. But I'm about creating jobs. If you can't find it, then you have to create it."

May 20th, 2015

"What is extremely helpful are internships, having a mentor, and even in business, right? What makes a successful business person is making sure that you get out there and connect yourself with the right people. You make sure to let people know that you are interested in moving up within the company. You only get what you ask for, and if you don't ask for it, you won't get it."

May 21st, 2015

"When I was younger, well, over fifty-fve, I walked up and down Main Street two or three times. Everybody that came by me, I said hi to them. Anybody under fifty-five would just keep walking by really fast and turn the other way. Anybody that was over fifty-five would say hi, smile, stop, and tell half of their life story."

May 22nd, 2015

"We were friends for 5-6 years, and now we've been dating for about 1.5-2 years. The entire time that we've been dating, we haven't lived in the same state. It has only really been 3 months in total in the same state. And communication wise, that's all we've known, so that's been helpful. It's not like we spent a long period of time together and now we don't anymore. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes we are at each others' throats because we miss each other like crazy. We just try hard to make it happen. I don't know about her, but I think if we weren't friends for so long before hand and had such a rock solid foundation,

we couldn't have done it."

May 23rd, 2015

"This drop down right here, today, was my favorite so far. It's such a special event and day. I even had smoke on when I was coming down from the plane. We could fly flags, streamers, and all sorts of stuff. It was a lot of fun! Even though we have a lot of milestones in four-way formation diving, where we jump out in teams and change different formations, today was my favorite."

May 25th, 2015

"We do reenactments all over. We even go out of state. Where there may be a timeline event, most of the reenactors, both groud forces and the American forces, go up to a reenactment for the public. Sometimes they are a week long, but most times they are a weekend, like a long weekend— Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Certain events, especially timeline events, you could get up to 2,000 reenactors. We actually even did the Plains of Abraham up in Canada, which was one of the biggest ones yet."

May 25th, 2015

"You know, I hear so many people say, 'The world is so f***cked up. The world is messed up.' It's not the world. The world is a beautiful place. God gave us this place to appreciate it. People don't appreciate it. That's what will make it an ugly place."

May 26th, 2015

"I chose to study Music Performance at Rutgers. I really want to play on Broadway someday. I love playing the different parts of musicals. Actually, I've been playing Godspell now for four days a week throughout the past month. So, I wouldn't say I'm bored of it, but I know all of the lines and parts by heart. I've gotten used to the repetitiveness. I just absolutely love playing in musicals."

May 26th, 2015

"My parents have been split for about ten years now, and I usually stay with my mom. My dad lives in the same town, but he barely talks to me though. He really only talks to me on Facebook and that's it. He'll invite me over every once in a while, but half of the time I just show up at his house because I don't want to be neglected by him."

May 27th, 2015

"My big senior project at UMD was based upon differential equations. So you know how a system is determined by its equation, right? Well there's a type of equation that certain quantum mechanical systems obey, it's called a ‘Nonlinear Schrodinger’ equation. Anyway, you only really see this equation in really difficult-to-measure systems. So basically what you can do instead is take other materials and sort of engineer something so it obeys the same equation and you see similar observations. For example, there's an equation that governs how black holes radiate and all of these weird things that you can't measure that well from Earth. However, it turns out that you can make a small circuit using special superconductors and watch that difficult-to-measure system right before your eyes.

My job was to engineer one of those."

May 27th, 2015

"So, over winter break we were together for a couple of weeks, and we decided to go up to Newport, RI. Newport in the summer, spring, and even winter is typically a beautiful place. But this winter... this winter was so cold!"

"SO COLD." (In sync)

"While we were there, we walked along this bridge where you could see the ocean and all of these really, really nice houses and mansions. Yet, it was still so cold and the wind would hurt your face."

"We were really determined..."

"Yes we were! And we finally got a mile or two out, and it was beautiful. It was just the two of us taking in everything... It was amazing."

May 28th, 2015

"It's not that simple being an artist. If you do one piece that they like, and that piece sells, they'll want you to keep doing that over and over and over again. It provides money for them. So they'll constantly be fighting you to try and influence what you paint or draw, and that's not very pleasant. Yet, there's potential money there... It's an eternal struggle between doing art and financing your living."

"I've been working on this drawing for weeks. The inspiration came from a Christmas card of my son and his wife, and it struck me that they looked quite diabolical."

May 29th, 2015

"I don't know if there's really a 'best' time that we have had together. We never fight. We've never had a significant fight that has made us drift apart. But one thing I know for sure is that we are always laughing. When I think of us, it's always happy times."

May 30th, 2015

"I have a lot of fun with my grandchildren. That's something else that I learned as I got older. When I was younger, I wasn't very close to my grandparents because you know why? They weren't fun. That was a stupid, selfish attitude on my part. So, not forgetting that, I make my time with my grandkids fun."

May 31st, 2015

"I went to this one studio since I was three, and there was a group of five of us that had been dancing together forever. Then, when we were all thirteen, she showed up. She knew some of the girls in the group, and some days they would all go suddenly talk to her. I would think to myself, 'Who is this girl? She's stealing my friends... She's really good too... Who does she think she is!?'"

"Then the next year we had our first class together. I just know her so well. It was a subconscious decision that suddenly 'I like her.' We've been best friends since."

June 1st, 2015

"My passion is hiking. I love the trail, especially the Appalachian Trail. I went through fourteen different states in five months and six days back in 2003. Even though I was all by myself, I wasn't too scared. You know, it seems like all good things happen on the trail... My trail name is 'Sue-Bear.'"

June 1st, 2015

"I regret not going to college right after high school because I wanted to be an RN already. It's harder now because whenever I try to save up money to go to school, something else always comes up. I regret it, but I want to go back. I'll get there though. I'll get there..."

June 2nd, 2015

"I actually have already talked to HONY. It was weird because I had just gotten rejected from my top school and I was going home. Then he suddenly came up to me in Grand Central and asked me what my biggest struggle was at the time, and that was that. But, now I go to the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)...

...You know, I realized that I'm too normal for art school and too weird for normal school. So, I'm sort of f***ed with any direction I go in. Really, it wasn't the issue of feeling pressure from my friends or parents, but I just didn't know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go."

June 3rd, 2015

June 4th, 2015

"I've preached in many places. In Central America, about two years ago, I went to this one house where a mother had been lying in bed for too many years. I prayed for the woman and said, 'In the name of (the woman), Jesus Christ says to raise up!' The woman jumped up and started dancing and crying because it had been too many years."

"This is the first time we've ever met. We met like 10 minutes ago..."

"I am SO sorry! I'm interrupting your first date!"

"No, no, no... this is the perfect opportunity to get to know one another a little better."

June 4th, 2015

"Coming here, I definitely became so much more independent. I mean, I didn't really have a choice. I had to become more independent. Not having family, you get used to being dependent on yourself. I also became more open-minded. New York City was the first time I had ever seen two gay people walking in the streets holding hands. In the Bahamas gay people are not accepted at all. They would kill you... Well, I'm sure there are gay people there, but they aren't open about it."

June 5th, 2015

"You know, live every moment. This is going to sound SO cliché, but college goes by very quickly. Everyone says that and you're like, 'Sure... I've heard this before...' You can even look back on how fast high school flew by. College goes by even faster though. Everything moves at a faster pace there because in high school, everything has already been all laid out for you and you're simply doing what someone has planned for you. After that though, you're thrown to the walls and you need to be independent. So embrace the independence or you almost sink."

June 6th, 2015

"I have a number of businesses, some are online and some are offline I guess, but I primarily help speakers with the marketing of their businesses. Actually, just recently a friend of mine ran from San Diego to New York in 100 days. It was 100 marathons in 100 days. Additionally, he spoke over 100 times during that period. I've helped him with his marketing and I have a number of other clients, largely motivational speakers, but also speakers on all sorts of topics. I met him through Toastmasters, a non-profit organization that has clubs all over the word and helps you develop public speaking and leadership skills. At one point I was in charge of 150 clubs as the district governor for Western Massachusetts, all of Connecticut, and from Westchester North on the eastern side of New York State. If anything, I would recommend doing Toastmasters to anyone."

June 7th, 2015

“Freshman year we became best friends because I was crying about this boy who was spreading rumors about me, and she was there by my side to help.”

"Inspiration is doing a split in a school uniform."

June 8th, 2015

“I’m actually not a middle school teacher. I’m an administrator. But if you’re looking into teaching, I may discourage you… it’s changed a lot, and I think the premise is very different. It’s very much about testing and evaluations, and it takes all of the creativity out of teaching. You’re very limited to what you can do, and I think it’s just a lot of pressure to meet these unreasonable standards.”

June 9th, 2015

“Yeah, I mean, I’m still pretty young. I’m nineteen. I’ve seen a lot of things. A young person… old soul. At the risk of sounding a tad ignorant, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen people raped. I’ve seen people stabbed. But seeing these horrible things has made me want to do good in this world. I even get upset when people kill bugs. I have a heart, you know.”

“I haven’t been the happiest person, but I’m getting through it. I’m a lot better now. I’m looking at life with a better perspective. Like, I have a smile on my face.”

June 10th, 2015

"PEOPLE ARE GENUINELY GOOD PEOPLE."