My parents moved to American Samoa when I was three or four years old. My dad was principal of a high school there. It was idyllic for a kid. I had a whole island for a backyard. I lived there until I was eight years old and we moved to Santa Barbara...
In my case, I was born to parents who were very young, and I don't think they were entirely ready to have a child. My dad was going to college and working two or three jobs at the same time, and my mum was working and going to school.
I don't have any labels for myself, really. Sometimes, when I am out with my wife, I am just Mr. Thompson. Or at my daughter's school, I'm Gaia's dad. I don't think of myself as Greg Wise, actor.
If I didn't already sense that I was different, I certainly was reminded, whether by my parents or by the other school kids. Not just reminded. Told... I was made to believe it wasn't right. If I went a little bit too off - slap! It was Dad's upbring...
Everyone at school knew who my dad was. It made me a little self-conscious a little introverted because I had a lot of attention drawn towards me, but in a way I guess it gives you a little bit of a celebrity skin, even though I wasn't a celebrity.
My dad told me when I went into high school, 'It's not what you do when you walk in the door that matters. It's what you do when you walk out.' That's when you've made a lasting impression.
I wanted to stay in New York to pursue acting, but my dad urged me to get a four-year degree. Reading about the film school at Florida State University, he suggested I go there. I received my bachelor's degree in 2003.
My dad was in the Indian Army. He died in a terrorist attack in Kashmir in 1994. After that, my mum and I settled in Noida. I went to Delhi Public School in Noida and then to Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi University. It was in college that I ...
When I was in nursery school, the teachers asked me, y'know, 'What does your dad do for a living?' So I said 'He helps women get pregnant!' They called my mom and they were like, 'What exactly does your husband do?'
Being a Sikh meant having to do what Mom and Dad said, and going to temple, and Mom and Dad choosing who I would marry. But going to an American school taught me that I was the one who's supposed to make those choices.
I was going to be a concert pianist, and when I was in high school, my parents were scared to death that I would focus too much on that too soon. And that I'd end up in some sort of dead end, and not fulfilling whatever potential they thought I had.
Where do we enroll in Life 101? Where are the classes dealing with the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, the failure of a relationship? Unfortunately, those lessons are mostly learned through trial by fire and the school of hard knocks.
When I was an adolescent in England, at school we had to read 'Death of a Salesman.' I remember feeling incredibly moved by the portrayal of these people and the idea with which Miller broached the whole subject of failure or failed systems, or the w...
My experience as a school nurse taught me that we need to make a concerted effort, all of us, to increase physical fitness activity among our children and to encourage all Americans to adopt a healthier diet that includes fruits and vegetables, but t...
It's not like I had big dreams to go to California and become an actor. I loved doing my shows at school and community theater, and I probably would have settled in New York because it was closer. I was going to go to NYU.
What can we learn from the battle between data and design? What can we learn from the relationship between Google and Apple? Clearly no one school of thought is right: Apple and Google are both wildly successful and profitable companies that changed ...
I'm not really a fashion designer. I just love clothes. I've never been to design school. I can't sketch. I can't cut patterns and things. I can shorten things. I can make a dress out of a scarf.
I'm constantly thinking about design, shapes, patterns and colors, so I just want to be more of a blank canvas. But there is a comfort in knowing what you're going to wear, and that probably comes from Catholic school, where I wore a uniform for 10 y...
The American dream always meant that anybody willing to put in a hard day's work could make a decent living. That's just not true anymore for people without at least some post-high school education.
Research shows that children do better in school and are less likely to drop out when fathers are involved. Engaged parents can strengthen communities, mentor and tutor students, and demonstrate through their actions how much they value their childre...
Knowledge goes hand-in-hand with truth - something I learned with a bit of tough love from my Jesuit education first at Regis High School in New York City and then at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass.
