-: Mona means exploration, it means, like
continuing to learn random things,
and loving doing that,
when I saw the course catalog
after graduating from high school,
I immediately thought linguistics and cognitive science
sounded cool, and I ended up going in that direction,
but to get there, I went through astronomy,
geology, history, Asian-American studies,
all of that, to get there, and so,
I think that that was, it pushed me to be able
to want to learn.
I think my most, like, cherished experience would have to be
taking introductory Japanese for a semester,
and then studying abroad junior year,
and then my final semester I,
there's a Japanese literature course here,
with Kurita, Kyoko Kurita, and getting an A
on a composition paper, so going from knowing nothing,
to writing an essay in a different language,
and being able to experience that,
like that growth path is something that I look back on
and to draw strength from, moving forward,
so I've found that to be one of my most happy moments here.