““My mother has always been the "gadget lady" who keeps up with current tech trends. When I was younger, that meant we had a mac before they were household names. This thing was super powerful, we're talking 128 megs of RAM(lol). I remember her showing me the computer, how to use it, the basics of typing etc. and just being blown away by it all. She subscribed to a magazine called Mac Addict, which came with a CD-Rom every month with various trial software, considering internet speeds weren't capable of downloading those MASSIVE 20 meg file sizes at the time. But what was also on those discs each month were game demos. I would play those demos over and over, and when the "Try the full game!" window would pop up at the end, it just made my little kid brain go crazy with the possibilities of what the full game would contain. Since, when you're a kid, the thought of paying $10 for a game felt like I had to win the lottery, rent out my room, and sell off a limb just to afford it, I was content playing those demos and having my imagination fill in the rest of the game. It gave me such a sense of wonder about game design, although this is a realization I came to much later in life. Trust me, my little kid imagination version of Exile 3: Ruined World is much better than the original.

I remember my sister and I would bug my mom endlessly to play "Mario teaches typing" so we could watch, since our little dumb kid brains couldn't possibly comprehend how any normal human could type at the speeds needed to complete that game. We really wanted to see Bowser get dropped into that lava pit. We'd sit there and just be amazed at something that is so integral and normal today: typing on a qwerty keyboard. Regardless, it was one of the first challenges that I set for myself, I wanted to be able to type as fast as my mom! Even today, with all of her incredible achievements in the music world, I'm still like "whatever mom, remember when you typed fast enough to beat Bowser?"

Idea fish are  thoughts that come to you just between sleeping and being fully awake. To catch an idea fish, wake gently without an alarm after restful restorative sleep and immediately write the idea on paper or your phone’s notes app. Don’t worry if an idea fish or two get away. Capture the ideas you can with no judgement—even if they seem like goofy ideas. (Have you ever seen a clown fish?) Use a net because you never know what affiliated ideas you’ll scoop up with the big idea fish. Then catch and release.

I have been a teacher since I lined up my childhood dolls and stuffed animals and taught them to “read”. (They were an unruly group, especially the stuffed elephant.) I have been a performer since I won my middle school talent show in 7th grade playing and singing “Jean” from the film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. (A film I probably shouldn’t have been allowed to watch.) I have been a writer since I was poet-laureate and editor-in chief of the Derby Elementary School newspaper. Those were pretty heady titles for a 6th grader. (I imagine I can still smell that purple ink from the mimeograph.) Creativity was in my blood and my parents always encouraged my artistic endeavors, even if they didn’t quite understand it. Over the years, my joy of teaching, acting and singing, and writing has never waned.