Ella Al-Shamahi

Basically, you know, in the 90s, I was basically certainly in the 2000s.

Well, except that we felt like we had clearly been misrepresented by these lunatics, right?

By these terrorists.

And also remember, our communities were therefore under more attack.

i'll say i was really young um i it was kind of the world i knew and i guess i have always been an all or nothing kind of person like i clearly do not know how to do things in halves and so i was like okay so this is the world around me i'm not going to just do it in the calm chill that way that i should have done it like my siblings you were more like hard hard edge about it maybe i think i was more hardcore hardcore you were more hardcore than your siblings

I mean, you know, if you were to speak to them, and I don't want to put words in their mouth, they're just like, you just didn't have any chill.

You know, so it's really funny.

So they look at me now and they're like, you still don't have chill.

Like you just went from one extreme to the other.

It's just really funny because they're not wrong.

Like, I could have just, you know, they're just relaxed.

We would have had thoughts about you.

No, no, I didn't do that.

So I was so struck that those guys wouldn't have even been my friends.

Except that I might have taken them on as projects.

So, okay.

Imagine you're a missionary and you're that age and you're good, right?

Your big thing that's hanging over you is what you're going to do at university, right?

Yeah, in our family, having a master's degree is the equivalent of a high school education.

Wow.