Also, I need deadlines, just like everybody else, especially coming from magazines, newspapers, and stuff like that. I need daily or weekly deadlines to get stuff done, or I continue to do things and not go off on a year of unproductivity.

I'm an amateur science enthusiast. I'm not even a professional enthusiast. I don't know anything; I never even passed biology in high school. But I read the science section of the newspaper.

And what we were trying to offer every day was one-on-one attention. The goal was to have a one-to-one ratio with every one of these students.

But Saudi Arabia is surprising in a lot of ways. Like any place, or any people, it relentlessly defies easy categorization.

We are a very close family, and I love them very much, but I'm definitely the odd one out. I live a completely different kind of life style. I always was different. I felt like a fish out of water; I really never knew who I was.

My father was a lawyer and to my best knowledge nobody in my family before had interest in science.

For a lot of children of immigrants, what happens is your parents want you to do something very linear that they can understand. I had an aptitude in sciences and never really questioned it.

We would be there for Canada, part of our family. That is why so many in the United States are disappointed and upset that Canada is not fully supporting us now.