When I was in college I was in the theater department which for anyone who has been involved in any kind of theater program you know that it's really wacky and tight-knit a real family. Me and my good friends from college would do random shows and plays that were sometimes serious but most of the time really goofy and funny.

It's funny but when I arrived in California to start college I was much more interested in becoming a surfer and cruise along in life from one beach to the next. I didn't plan out any huge career for myself.

Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course - because like democracy and freedom many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you.

The impetus behind going to graduate school was a year after graduating from college spent in Dallas working at the dog food factory and Bank America and not having met success in my chosen field which at that point was being an actress.

I spent a college semester in a small town in Italy - and that is where I truly tasted food for the first time.

I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school and afterward went to work in Tokyo where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha.

My parents did a great job raising me and my two sisters. We all graduated from high school and we all graduated from college. So to be a good representative of my family is probably my greatest accomplishment thus far.

I'm thinking of a legacy that I can be proud of and wealth that my grandchildren can use to go to college. So world domination - in terms of providing for my family - is absolutely my goal.

My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born in Jay County to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize but when the war came she was married had a family so she started teaching.

It never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and have a career - as well as a family - of my own. Both my parents but especially my mother encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.