Keeping with our family tradition of sending their children abroad for a couple of years, and aware of my interest in chemistry, I was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland when I was 11 years old, on the assumption that German was an important language for a prospective chemist to learn.
I was little there were times I wanted my parents to be normal. I wanted them to have a religion. I wanted them to have a job, like the parents of every other kid I went to school with.
I was born and raised in California and benefited from California's excellent public schools, from kindergarten through medical school.
My grandparents actually, whenever they got the chance, took me to Broadway, but that started when I was in high school, because that's when I realized... At the very beginning of high school, I realized, 'Oh my gosh. Okay, this is a career choice for me.' So yeah, then they always brought me to New York to see Broadway shows whenever they could.
I was just a normal athlete. My mother tried to spark something in me. She was an athlete in high school before she got pregnant with my older brother. She was 16, and that was it for her when it came to track and her education.
When you go to Africa, and you see children, they're usually barefoot, dirty and in rags, and they'd love to go to school.
I went to art school in Chicago for a year at Columbia College. I had this whole master plan of getting into sustainable development and green architecture and construction, so I wanted to go to business school and then get my masters in construction and development.
Girls in my school were always prettier.
I cherished my time playing high school sports.
You should have seen me in my Catholic school girl skirt with my knees knocking together.
I love dressing up, although that doesn't mean necessarily on the school run.
Many high school students are under so much competitive pressure. They are sometimes taught that if they don't have a 4.0 GPA, score in the 99th percentile on admissions tests, and demonstrate leadership in sports and participate in clubs, they won't get into college anywhere. Even highly credentialed professionals get caught up in this.
I was pulled out of school for every moratorium day and every rally for a left-wing candidate... from Ed Koch in his heyday to Eugene McCarthy. That's the culture that I came from.
I was raised in restaurants. My parents opened their first restaurant, Buonavia, in Queens when I was just 3. This business has always been my way of life. As a kid, home was reserved only for sleeping. After school, you could find my sister and I helping out at the family restaurant.
I went to college and graduate school, studying philosophy. I really did think I was going to wind up being a lecturer or professor of some sort.
I've made some great movies. 'Risky Business' still stands up. It's timeless. They study that film in film school.
So often, we're expected to maintain some sort of standard - that won't get you where you need to go. One of the most daring things I've done is drop out of graduate school. I had no job, but something inside me was saying, 'Go! Be in the world!' I had to listen to myself, and it worked out. I still think, 'Who was that girl?'
After high school I was going to be an architect. In fact, I was studying to be an architect when the audition for 'The Monkees' came along.
I travel often, so my routine is always getting scrambled. But on a standard sort of day, I get up at 6, pack lunches, hustle the kids off to school, then brew a pot of coffee and head downstairs to the dungeon, as I call it: my cobwebby office in the basement.
Thing is, I went to a born-again Christian high school, was brought up in a traditional Mormon family where these ideas about parenting are of structure and sacrifice. To think outside of that idea of family and parenting that I've grown up with is tough but also very freeing.
I suppose the best advice I ever got, frankly the advice that changed my life, came from my uncle who told me to go to drama school and study acting instead of taking a job, because he said the job would always be there.
I was never a person who dated in high school, because at 17, everything just felt like it had to be so rushed. Relationships just bounced around like crazy in high school! And now, I never want to rush anything. I just want to enjoy all of the steps.
I made a promise to myself when I graduated from law school that I would never do anything that I didn't enjoy doing, and almost every day of the year since that June of 1963, I have awakened glad that I was going to work, glad that I was going to court, glad that I was going to grapple with a problem.
My dad is an ob-gyn - he's retired now - and he wanted to come to the States to make a better life, for opportunity. My mom said that, on the plane ride here, I did not want to speak a word of English - I spoke Tagalog. And then, after the first day of school, I didn't want to speak anything but English.
Anything that you can become obsessed with, and you do so much that you don't do the things you need to do with family, friends, school, job - that can be an addiction. And texting absolutely can qualify.
Many of my books are set in New Jersey because that's where I was born and raised. I lived there until my kids finished elementary school. Then we moved to New Mexico, the setting for 'Tiger Eyes.'
I always liked Darth Vader. I remember, when I was a kid, I went to the toy store for the Darth Vader pencil case. I took that to school for years.
I find people who want to help other people to be the most interesting. I come from a family of teachers, and my friends are teachers, often times in very difficult school situations.
Real parent engagement means establishing meaningful ways for parents to be partners in their children's public education from the beginning - not just when a school is failing. The goal should be to never let a school get to that point.
All of the details that most of us memorize in medical school - you don't have to learn those things. They're going to be in your computer.
Comparing and contrasting is a valuable human skill - and not just during high school English exams. Our ability to rank-order things is invaluable in making choices and setting priorities.
The bits I most remember about my school days are those that took place outside the classroom, as we were taken on countless theatre visits and trips to places of interest.
I'd love to see more middle and high school teachers who are not teaching English develop classroom libraries. Our message to kids should be that reading is for everyone.
As a kid in the eighties, I didn't need much disposable income. I went to Catholic school - white shirt, plaid skirt - so fashion choices were limited. But youth finds a way. For me and my schoolmates, neon argyle socks were a crucial barometer of coolness. Hair ribbons, too, and they didn't come cheap.
Before my father would open up a karate school in a particular neighborhood, he'd clean up the block - kick all the drug dealers and gang bangers off the block. My father was very clear: 'I've got guns too, and I'll kill you just as much as a rival gang would.' And he meant it. He was a man of many facets and complexities.
I knew all the right Bible answers and the Sunday school answers.
