We need to make friends with ourselves. We are stuck with our self all day, so let's be kinder, gentler, more amusing company. Let's take our own hand and say, 'There, there, sister. You're doing a good job. I'm proud of how you're handling all this craziness down here. Don't give up. Carry on, warrior.'

I am not bound to spend my precious days on Earth trying to keep up with the Joneses - because the Joneses are really just a bunch of folks in conference rooms changing 'trends' rapidly to create fake monthly emergencies for us.

My greatest fear is that I'll fail my kids.

We'll tell fear it can come along with us in our minivan, okay? But we'll just tell fear it can't drive. Sometimes we'll tell it to not even talk. Like when we tell our kids, 'Enough. No words.' We're going to play the quiet game with fear. Fear is not the boss of us.

I've known for years that the university underserved the community, because we assumed that university education is for 18- to 22-year-olds, which is a proposition that's so absurd it is absolutely mind-boggling that anyone ever conceptualized it. Why wouldn't you take university courses throughout your entire life?

My father was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. His family is from Spain. My father never taught me how to speak Spanish when I was little. That's very disappointing to me. I'm still planning on learning it on my own. I really want to travel to Spain and immerse myself in the culture and learn it on my own.

I think there should be a good balance between being a good student and being able to enjoy your high school life.

There was this hip-hop collective called People Crew. And at the time in Korea, there was no real place to access rap music. So People Crew used to host this summer school program, which taught rapping and dancing. I begged my mom to attend that school to learn how to rap.