At Berkeley, you wore a hoodie and pajamas and Birkenstocks, and that's swag. I was so thrown off. What I thought was cool wasn't cool no more, so I thought about what I actually liked. I started experimenting. I started wearing Birkenstocks. I wanted to dive into the culture.

When I go back to Egypt, I call my friend from the airport to buy kushari for us to eat in the car. I pull my hoodie over my head, jump into the car, and then I'm eating it straight away.