Work

My parents have done so much for me and they helped me start my business and they have their own full time jobs and they come and work here.  And they have to deal with my stress more than anyone else especially around the holidays when I’m mega grouch and like stressed to the limit and they deal with that.  So what keeps me going is knowing that if I keep working hard I’ll be able to do something for them.  Like this is their retirement plan and I don’t want to put my parents in a nursing home when I am older.  I’d like to be able to do something better for them—not better, that’s not the right thing to say, but I’d like to take care of my parents and make sure that they are set, that they can retire and not have to worry about it.  I really want to get into real estate and own some apartment buildings and stuff one day.  They can sell their house and live there for free.  That is like my ultimate goal.  So that’s something that definitely keeps me going and I just know that if I keep working hard that things will pay off.  So I’ve always wanted to—I’ve really respected my mom that she always loved her job and she never really cared about making a ton of money or anything.  She just wanted to do what she loved and on the flip side my dad has always made a little bit more money, but has always hated his job.  And growing up and seeing that I just want to be happy like my mom.  So for me, I just want to continue to do something that I love and not worry about anything else.  So if I keep working hard and still love what I do, then that’s what keeps me going.

I also feel that when you’re responsible for a big organization and lots of people’s livelihoods depend on me and the success of this organization, I kind of have this responsibility not to wallow in any frustrations, shortcomings, or trials.  You just got to—you know a lot of people are counting on you.  And this institution is two hundred years old, and we have a lot of continuity to maintain, so it kind of puts whatever I’m going through in perspective, and I think that’s useful to get a grip on what are the big issues here, not the little ones.

I didn't know after college that I was going to go to vet school.  I went and worked for a couple of vets, I worked with a large animal vet, I worked on a farm.  I worked for a small animal vet clinic.  I worked at UMass Memorial doing some volunteer work, doing the child life program kind of going between the human side and the vet side, trying to figure out which I would be better at.  I loved the human side but I realized I was probably just too sensitive for that and I got so attached to the kids that I was working with and I didn't think I was probably the right personality for going into human medicine.  I would've gone into pediatrics, that was definitely what I loved [laughs], but then I realized that would probably be too emotionally hard for me. So, it was hard being a vet too, but it was something I thought I could handle better. 

That trip was quite interesting in some ways. I thought it was very exciting being almost 11 years old. We got onto a ship in Shanghai, the SS General Gordon. And we were on third class, so we had – were not in the greatest of places. But, we landed in San Francisco. The trip over was like I said, interesting because we stopped in three different places – we stopped in two different places. We stopped in Yokohama, Japan and we stopped in Hawaii and then we landed at San Francisco. And we went to Worcester due to the fact that there were –some of the churches in the Worcester area were, at that point, getting involved in trying to sponsor people and the people that- in, it was I think a Baptist church-the family that decided to sponsor us were here in Worcester. And when we got to San Francisco we got a ticket on a train and went all the way across the country from San Francisco to Chicago, from Chicago to Worcester.

When I helped produce a film a couple years ago I realized we don’t have any equipment or anything here. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had our own little studio. Well now it’s – my own little studio has grown into – we’re building up the roof on this, it’ll be the second largest film studio in the country. it’s a big film studio! It’s a pretty impressive space, I’ve tried to align myself with some folks, we’re trying to make this happen. We’ve already raised a significant amount, but we’re hoping to raise a good deal more and build it out the right way. And I – we do believe the films will come.