We must always remember with gratitude and admiration the first sailors who steered their vessels through storms and mists, and increased our knowledge of the lands of ice in the South.

Those days if you drove cross country and you broke down on the side of the road, and the sign says 200 miles to the next gas station, you knew you were so screwed.

Among my favorite half-dozen topics is the field of Victorian female explorers, the intrepid women who packed up their parasols and petticoats and roamed the world in search of adventure. Some were scientists, some artists, some unabashed curiosity-seekers who simply went out to see what they could see.

I was the last person to get high-speed Internet, I was the last person to get an iPod, the last person to get an iPhone... I travel to India for one month out of the year and I don't have a phone there, so I can go without, which is beautiful, too.

I travel seven months a year, so it's a lot of hotels and airplanes. I teach about three hours a day. I always go for a run. I try to lift some weights if I have the time and the strength. But running and teaching, that's my life.