1. Describe yourself. "I'm short, lactose intolerant, Christian, and I love doing theatre."
2. What are you thankful for? "Not being gluten intolerant. I am grateful for my family, and our safety, and being able to live a 17th year."
3. What makes you happy? "The big robot balloon in the corner of the room."
4. What makes you sad or angry? "Injustice. And lollygagging."
5. What do you want to be when you grow up? "Guess. I'm pretty sure that's been my answer every year." {Actor/director}
6. What's important to you? "Things that are important to me are my family and my success."
7. What do you love most about yourself? "Physically or mentally? Physically I like my eyes and my lips. I also like that my feet aren't tiny. I know that's random. Mentally, or more personality-wise, I like that I'm passionate, ambitious, intelligent, and I'm not likely to ever give up."
2. What are you thankful for? "Not being gluten intolerant. I am grateful for my family, and our safety, and being able to live a 17th year."
3. What makes you happy? "The big robot balloon in the corner of the room."
4. What makes you sad or angry? "Injustice. And lollygagging."
5. What do you want to be when you grow up? "Guess. I'm pretty sure that's been my answer every year." {Actor/director}
6. What's important to you? "Things that are important to me are my family and my success."
7. What do you love most about yourself? "Physically or mentally? Physically I like my eyes and my lips. I also like that my feet aren't tiny. I know that's random. Mentally, or more personality-wise, I like that I'm passionate, ambitious, intelligent, and I'm not likely to ever give up."
8. What do you love most about your mom? "I think my answer's going to be the same. My mom is very strong, and I admire that strength, whether that's in expressing your opinions, or physical strength like going to bake an order when your body is telling you no. I also love that you'll just listen to me any time I'm going through anything, or just in general. You know all, so you're very good about sitting down, listening, and then giving your perspective on a solution."
9. What do you love most about your dad? "Dad sends funny texts. Like the finger with the face on it, and the strawberry with the butt on it, that make me laugh at random points in the day. I also really love that he cares about my safety a lot and that that's a big priority for him, that I'm safe and I'm set up for success. He is also super smart and organized and I aspire to be that organized someday. I appreciate that he helps me with homework; he's always down to try some problems and figure it out."
10. If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go? "I wanna go back to Europe when I'm not feeling bad. And I would just love to travel some more in general."
11. Who do you admire, and why? "Career-wise, I really admire Idina Menzel, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Zendaya, Alan Rickman, and personally, my mom."
12. What do you want to learn more about? "Macroeconomics right now. I feel pretty lacking in that area. I also want to learn more about what it means to direct a show and be that kind of leader in a theatre environment since that's something I'm interested in."
13. What's something you'd like to do to help someone else? "In the grand scheme of things I want to go on a mission trip. I think that would be really cool. And I enjoyed doing a local mission trip and helping Afghan immigrants learn more about pool safety this summer."
14. What are you afraid of? "Probably failure and filing taxes."
15. If you could only keep one thing, what would you keep? "Physically? It would suck if I said a physical object and it was really asking which family member I'd save... Physically, an object I'd like to keep... The book Nana made me when I was younger. About the tooth fairies, Gisele and Isabella, and how Isabella was really jealous of Gisele and broke her magic fairy wand and had to go fix it."
16. What's your favorite memory? "When we were in The Netherlands and it was really windy and that one tourist's hat blew away and we all almost fell over. That was fun."
17. What are you proud of yourself for? "My resilience."
9. What do you love most about your dad? "Dad sends funny texts. Like the finger with the face on it, and the strawberry with the butt on it, that make me laugh at random points in the day. I also really love that he cares about my safety a lot and that that's a big priority for him, that I'm safe and I'm set up for success. He is also super smart and organized and I aspire to be that organized someday. I appreciate that he helps me with homework; he's always down to try some problems and figure it out."
10. If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go? "I wanna go back to Europe when I'm not feeling bad. And I would just love to travel some more in general."
11. Who do you admire, and why? "Career-wise, I really admire Idina Menzel, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Zendaya, Alan Rickman, and personally, my mom."
12. What do you want to learn more about? "Macroeconomics right now. I feel pretty lacking in that area. I also want to learn more about what it means to direct a show and be that kind of leader in a theatre environment since that's something I'm interested in."
13. What's something you'd like to do to help someone else? "In the grand scheme of things I want to go on a mission trip. I think that would be really cool. And I enjoyed doing a local mission trip and helping Afghan immigrants learn more about pool safety this summer."
14. What are you afraid of? "Probably failure and filing taxes."
15. If you could only keep one thing, what would you keep? "Physically? It would suck if I said a physical object and it was really asking which family member I'd save... Physically, an object I'd like to keep... The book Nana made me when I was younger. About the tooth fairies, Gisele and Isabella, and how Isabella was really jealous of Gisele and broke her magic fairy wand and had to go fix it."
16. What's your favorite memory? "When we were in The Netherlands and it was really windy and that one tourist's hat blew away and we all almost fell over. That was fun."
17. What are you proud of yourself for? "My resilience."
18. What are you looking forward to? "Night of the Living Dead {fall show}, and I'm also looking forward to getting all my college stuff in and done and decided on."
19. What do you dream about? "Let me think of my most recent dream. Oh, I had that weird shark natatorium dream with the Voldemort director. That was scary. And it had the mutts from the Hunger Games in it. It was a really awful dream."
20. What else do you want to say? "I really like an Oprah quote right now, and it is, I think, "You only get in life what you have the courage to ask for." There's a Bible verse, James 1:2-3, "Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance."
Gisèle, you inspire and amaze me every day. You make me so, so proud. Happy birthday, sweet girl!