When I earned my diploma from the University of Virginia in the spring of 2000, it never occurred to me before my senior year to worry too seriously about my post-graduation prospects. Indeed, most of my professors, advisors, and mentors reinforced this complacency.

I don't know exactly when I started watching television, but I know that Muppets and Smurfs hold privileged places in my memory. Without television, I surely could have mastered several classical languages or learned to play the violin, right?

Having a kid who begged for 'just a few more minutes' of television was the antithesis of what I had hoped parenthood would be. It was resigning ourselves to a universe of want and consumption.

When I read stories of suffering, I still feel something. It seems inhuman not to. At the same time, I'm more aware than ever of how little my feeling is worth, of how - if we are to truly keep alive the conditions that make ethical life possible - it is not empathy that's needed but insight, organization, and action.

Irish is the prominent nationality in the family, but beyond that, I really don't know. I see a lot of artistic or creative influence coming through on my mother's side.

The only person I worry about pleasing is God, my husband, my family, and myself.

My father was sick when I was little, and we had a woman, a nanny-type, who was from Ireland. Her daughter was in Irish dancing, so she put me in it, and in the summertime, every weekend was filled with traveling somewhere to dance in competitions.

While my parents never had the time or money to secure university education themselves, they were adamant that their children should. In comfort and in love, we were taught the joys of knowledge and of work well done. I only regret that neither my mother nor my father could live to see the day I would accept the Nobel Prize.