Rohan Parekh, Senior - Interview Conducted by Araddhya Tibrewall
Araddhya: What are your favorite smells?
Rohan: My favorite smells…that’s a difficult one. I haven’t given it a lot of thought, but my mom likes to bake a lot, so a lot of days, I’ll come home and there will be cookies and brownies wafting through the air—a wonderful thing to come home to after a long day of calculus. So, the whole array of baked goods, really.
Araddhya: If you had a personal flag, what would be on it?
Rohan: I don’t think I’m going to be starting a country anytime soon, but I think stuff that would represent me are weird, esoteric references to books or games or various kinds of media. Obviously, there would be a rainbow background for Pride. Those are the only things I can think of…I’m not much of a lexicographer, if that’s a word.
Araddhya: How do you hope you’ll change as a person in the future?
Rohan: That’s a big thing on my mind right now, given that I’m going to college pretty soon. I don’t have any particular plans for how I want to change as a person; I feel like that’s too nebulous a thing to track down and figure out. I just want to—when I get to college—surround myself with people who are as wonderful as the friends I have here, and I feel like just being around good people would make me a better person in general.
Araddhya: There are two types of people in this world. What are the two types?
Rohan: My mind immediately went to the binary joke: “There are 10 types of people in this world—those who understand binary and those who don’t.” But that feels a little stupid. Separating people into two distinct categories is kind of ridiculous, I think. There are 7 billion and however many million kinds of people in this world. Yup, that’d be my answer.
Araddhya: Who would be your spirit animal?
Rohan: I feel like there are a lot of things I could say; there isn’t a certain aspect of my personality that I could represent in an animal. But I feel like I would make a good dog though. I’m generally a loyal person, who tries to help other people and make them feel better. That’s what my dog does for me at least. So, that’s what I think.
Araddhya: Which activity would you have a good chance at winning a medal in, given that you could turn any activity into an olympic sport?
Rohan: Oh, something that I would actually be good at…probably recalling obscure lore from books. I love reading, and I love diving into fan theories and wikis. So if that could somehow be an olympic competition, I think I would do pretty good. My favorite book would have to be the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson because it’s really good fantasy and there’s a lot of detail that you could dive into to find these tiny plot connections that span the entire series.
Araddhya: Here’s a series of quick questions. You’ll be given two things. Indicate your preference.
Left brain or right brain? Right brain. I can’t remember the difference between both of those, but I’m right-handed, so…
Day or night? Night. I feel like I’m more of a night owl. I feel like that’s when I do my best work—and I don’t like waking up.
Tennis or ping pong? Ping pong. I don’t have a tennis court at my house, but I do have a ping pong table, and I love playing with my dad, so…