As a kid, I would trade going to the playground for staring at a map and try to remember the countries, their capitals, their borders, etc. I then found the world of mathematics where thinking deeply about even the simplest ideas, as Bertrand Russell did in his famous paper proving why 1 + 1 = 2 from the ground up, was key to mastery. I wasn't fond of rote memorization and applying formulae. Instead, I was interested in the patterns that were involved. Why was there a formula for quadratic, cubic, and quartic equations but not quintic equations? I was curious. I found my Wikipedia. There I read about Galois Theory and how Galois proved there to be no quintic formula. Of course, I had not the slightest clue about group theory, ring theory, or Galois theory at the time. With this yearning to always try to seek more knowledge, I didn't hesitate to major in mathematics at Tufts University. As a tutor, when I work with students I try to make them question everything and try to guide their curiosity.

Skateboarding, chess, video games, soccer, sudoku,