20 Questions with Aditi Talati

Pixel Journal: What’s the first thing you do every morning?

Aditi Talati: I probably check my phone, but that's a bad habit! Some days I try to do work in the morning because then I feel productive all day. Last year my brick and mortar school started at 8am, so I was mostly rushing to get to school. 

PJ: What’s an extracurricular project you’re working on right now? 

AT: I run my brick and mortar school's math club which is super fun! We had a contest last November where my friends and I wrote all the problems, and it turned out great, so I'll probably start prepping to do that again soon. 

PJ: What’s one thing on your bucket list?

AT: This is really nerdy, but I would like to have a paper published somewhere. 

PJ: What fictional place would you most like to go?

AT: I feel like a lot of fictional places would be dangerous places to actually live in, but I'd probably want to go to Camp Half-Blood to live out my elementary school dreams. 

PJ: What could you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

AT: This has actually happened to me before! I have Celiac Disease, so I'm allergic to gluten to the point where I can't eat anything which could have touched gluten at some point. When I went on vacation in India, this meant there were very few options for me, but the resort I was staying at served dosa all day, so I ended up eating that for the entire week. (Dosa is a flatbread similar to a crepe; I think it's made out of rice flour.) I like dosa, so it wasn't too bad, but I was super tired of it by the end of the week. 

PJ: What did you want to be when you were a kid and why?

AT: When I was really little, people would tell me, "You can be anything when you grow up!" I didn't understand that there were limits to "anything," so I wanted to be a butterfly. I don't think I had much of a reason besides thinking that they were pretty. 

PJ: If you could have coffee with any person, living or dead, who would it be and why?

AT: Nikola Tesla seems like an interesting person to talk to! He had a lot of cool inventions, but he would design things for the sake of seeing if he could, not for any business goals, which is why he's obviously superior to Edison. 😉

PJ: What animals would be part of your dream zoo?

AT: I don't know much about zoos, but if there was a zoo that could help and repopulate endangered species, that would be cool! I don't know if being in a zoo would be worse than the dangers of being in the wild though. 

PJ: What’s one thing no one knows about you?

AT: I don't really have many secrets, but I like to meet different people and learn their stories! Most people don't usually guess that about me since I'm pretty quiet. 

PJ: What is one book you think everyone needs to read?

AT: There are so many good books out there! But I really like Thinking in Numbers by Daniel Tammet. I feel like it's a good explanation on one of the ways people can love math, so maybe if you dislike the subject then reading the book will give you a better understanding of how some of us enjoy it! 

PJ: What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with absolutely no preparation?

AT: In sophomore year, I got pretty interested in math education reform. It's a pretty niche area, but I've done enough research that I could probably present about it at the drop of a hat. 

PJ: If you could make one rule that everyone had to follow, what rule would you make?

AT: Take a moment out of each day to do something nice for someone else!

PJ: Who’s your favorite OHS teacher?

AT: Tillman!

PJ: What’s your favorite OHS class?

AT: HSC is the best!

PJ: What’s your favorite emoji?

AT: My most used emoji is 💕, but I'm going  to go with 🚄. I've never seen anyone use it besides little kids who like spamming the emoji keyboard, yet I'm sure a lot of people had to design it and fight for its use since there's already so many other train emojis. So shoutout to the 🚄 emoji!

PJ: What is one accomplishment that would make your life complete?

AT: There's no specific accomplishment I want to have, but I'd like to be at a place where all the work I'm doing (besides basic responsibilities like taxes and chores) are things that I enjoy and want to be figuring out. 

PJ: If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?

AT: I'd make water purple, because that would be cool looking. ✨

PJ: Grad Weekend or Summer @ Stanford?

AT: I've only been to one Grad Weekend and S@S, but I think Grad Weekend was more fun! 

PJ: What do you want to do after high school?

AT: I want to stay in academia, but who knows where I'll end up? As long as I'm working on something interesting, I'll be happy. 

PJ: Finally, what’s one piece of advice for your fellow OHSers?

AT: I don't know if I'm qualified to give advice, but I want to say I believe in you! Also, this is fairly generic, but if you feel like things aren't clicking for you in a certain class, then go to peer tutors and office hours, and see if there are different ways you can learn or study! When I was studying for HSC finals, I realized that my notes weren't helping me keep track of all the different scientists, so I took some poster paper and made a giant map of everyone we learned about.