My background is almost definitely the only reason that I turned out the way I did. First of all, I was born in Khartoum, Sudan, and I consider it one of my homes, even though I have an American passport. My family and I moved to North Carolina when I was about three years old, and we stayed there until I reached the end of my third grade year. We moved to Katy, Houston for a few months, but ultimately...

In my junior year of high school, I entered an art show for the American consulate in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. I didn’t really want to, since I was in the process of studying for my AP mock exams, and therefore couldn’t put my full effort into the drawing. My art teacher pressured me into it, though, and I managed to complete an art piece that made it into a published calendar. This made me happy, of course, but...