The highlight of my career came and went before I can even remember. The teacher of my mother’s lamaze class was a casting agent and she said the first baby born in the class would be eligible for a role on a soap opera called “Knott’s Landing.” I must have been listening that day because I made it a point to be the first one born, even if I had to come earlier than expected to do so. I was on the show for a couple of years and from then on I got the acting bug. Since then all I’ve wanted to do is act.

I fell in love with classic cars when I was in junior high. My dad took me to the car shows and drag races in Pomona every year. We’d walk down the seemingly endless rows of glittering paint and shiny chrome covered cars and he would teach me all their names and all about the different kinds of engines. When he bought a new camera and gave me his old 35mm (I was in high school) it seemed only natural that I should take pictures of the things that I thought were beautiful; so I started schlepping the bulky camera to the car shows and began to snap away. That’s when I found my love of photography. Since then all I’ve wanted to do is take pictures.

My freshman year in high school I met the most influential person in my life. My English teacher, Glen Hirshberg, was the one that showed me that I could write. No, not the put a writing instrument to paper and make the symbolic pictures that translate into our language kind of writing, I learned that quite a bit earlier. But the kind of writing that turns into novels! The assignment was to write a story to coincide with a picture he gave us. I went home, sat down in front of the computer and all of a sudden, as if they were possessed, my fingers started dancing over the keys. Ideas came into my brain, which formed the words and sentences that were being projected onto the screen (much like what is happening now as I write this) and what I was writing was good. Before that moment the only writing I ever did was the night before an essay was due and it was bland, and it was uniform and it wasn’t very fun. And since then all I’ve wanted to do is write.

I have a passion for every mood I’m in. When I’m feeling withdrawn and wanting to be alone I can sit down at a computer or with a piece of paper and feel more than happy in my own mind writing for all I’m worth. When I’m feeling like being an extrovert and wanting to be the center of attention (which is most of the time) I can always rely on the theater. Where else can I be a different person any time I want? And when I feel like sitting back and just taking in the beauty of the entire world around me I take pictures as a way to connect to that beauty. This way I’m always happy because I always have a way to express myself. And really, all I’ve ever wanted to do is express myself.