When I was nine, I started reading Homer. I would get up at four o'clock in the morning, before I had to go to school, in third or fourth grade, and, for several hours, I would read 'The Iliad' or 'The Odyssey.'
I went to Catholic school. Do as you're told; don't ask questions and you will be illuminated.
I'm 19 now, and I go to The New School in New York, where I study Criminal Psychology. My first week of second semester was during Fashion Week when my first editorials in 'CR Fashion Book' and 'Sports Illustrated' came out. It was crazy!
Bringing GIS into schools gets the kids very excited and indirectly teaches them different components of STEM education. That's been illustrated at school after school.
I majored in illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, although I never had any intention of being an illustrator and didn't take any classes in illustration there. It was just that the illustration degree had no requirements.
I had a strong propensity, which I still have, to be invisible. In grade school, I'd try to disappear and become formless. I lived in a very imaginary world. I loved poetry and wrote my first novel when I was 9. It was about a little girl and the people she met in the woods.
Art imitates life. Life imitates high school.
I had a 'Monty Python' CD, and I would listen to it in the car on the way to school. It also refined my British accent. I can do a killer British accent because I'm just imitating 'Monty Python.'
I did imitations of anyone who came to my parents' house, and that was my identity at school - if there were ten minutes to lunch, and the teacher was done with the lesson, he'd say, 'Okay, Leo, get up there and do something.'
There's this Bruno Mars guy. I met him in Hawaii when was doing Elvis imitations at the age of about five or six years old. There's a lot of old school in him. He's got a depth that I just love.
I remember turning onto the street. I saw barricades and police officers and, just, people everywhere. When I saw all of that, I immediately thought that it was Mardi Gras. I had no idea that they were here to keep me out of the school.
'Never change' is the thing that probably high school students have written in each other's yearbooks for time immemorial. They think that command is possible!
I'm made up of immigrant stock. I went to a primary school in London. I grew up eating Spangles, why shouldn't I be as well placed to speak for Londoners as anyone else?
When I was finishing grad school, the hot new PC was the IBM 286. Bulky. Immobile. Expensive. I touched-typed easily and quickly, but nevertheless, I realized that the machine was a chain.
While taking sign language in high school, one of our assignments was to go out and participate in the deaf community, so I really got to know a lot of the group from that. I felt like they needed a little bit more of a voice because people treat them different just because they're hearing impaired.
I often think about how my sons will come to know about September 11th. Something overheard? A newspaper image? In school? I would prefer that they learn about it from my wife and me, in a deliberate and safe way. But it's hard to imagine ever feeling ready to broach the subject without some impetus.
My father was an important person, the director of the school. He could talk to anybody - simple or educated. He liked chess, fishing, and beautiful women.
As I see it, the debate between summer vacation vs. year-round school glosses over the most important questions. Namely, how can we bring play back to our nation's schools?
I am a big fan of the Impressionists, and in my school days, I was inspired by Caravaggio, Velazquez and Rembrandt.
I'd had a French education for three years, my father being in the army. From 9 to 12, I went to French school. I've been sort of part of the culture, part of the geography, since I was quite young - the imprint was there.
