Transcript of Malala Yousafzai (education activist)

Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Sheppard, and I'm joined by Lily Padman. Hi. Today, we have Malala Youssef's eye.

Yes.

And guys, this is a message to me. Not most listeners will be like, Oh, I can't wait to listen. But for pieces of shit like me that are like, I don't necessarily want to go on a super emotional ride. I just want to say this is the version of Malala that is the fun, playful college student coming of age version.

Yeah. Human.

Yes. Which is really shockingly fun and uplifting and I loved. Love. No, I'm going to be clear. I read her book, and I love it. It's very important.

Yeah.

I'm not saying I'm not up for that story, but just, you know.

This is a different version of her.

It's a different side of Malala, which was a really fun side to get.

It was great.

She's a rascal.

I know. She's so fun.

She's a playful rascal. She's an education activist. She's the youngest ever Nobel Laureate, best-selling author and award-winning film producer. Her books are I Am Malala, We Are Displaced, Malala's Magic Pencil, and now her memoir, Finding My Way, which is really from the moment we all knew her to her trying to attempt to have a normal college life in England.

Falling in love.

Falling in love. It's really cute falling in love.

It's really special.

Please enjoy Malala Youssef's eye. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple Pay. You know, holiday shopping can be a hassle, but Apple Pay makes it so much easier. Whether you're shopping online or in-store, look for the Apple Pay button or contactless symbol @challenge. Com. Checkout. No more digging for your wallet or filling out long online checkout forms. It works at millions of places, including stores, websites, and apps. This means you can spend less time at checkout and more time finding the perfect gifts. Pay the Apple Anyway, terms apply. I'm Jon Robbins, and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, How do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure. Every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy, but it's always real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort, or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on How Do You Cope. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts or listen to episodes early and ad free on WNDRI Plus. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life with thousands of audiobooks, guided meditations, and motivational series.

He's an ultra expert.

He's an ultra expert.

He's I'm actually so excited to be here.

No, you're not.

Yes, I am. You are not.

You hate press. You're so sick of it.

We're so excited to I have you.

Are you two old friends?

You and Hannah. Technically, yes. Hannah joined Malala Fund many, many years ago. She helped me with my work outside Malala Fund as well. Okay. The production company. Then she left me.

Oh, no. Why did she do that?

Exactly.

To start a podcast with your husband? Because I can relate.

But she's helping me on this.

Okay, great. How long is this little tour you're on right now? It's got to be extensive, I'd imagine, for a book.

I have many things to do. So I'm here to do some press in LA. Then I go to New York, do more press. Prep for the launch. So the launch will be in New York on the 21st. The book will be out everywhere.

It'll already be out. Yeah.

And then I begin my book tour. Yeah. Wow. That's a lot. Then I come back. I go to every city every day.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, I wrote down way too many notes for you, I'm now realizing. We never have four pages. This is too many. I wrote down, Oh, my God, there a fifth? Okay.

This might be a record.

I So you already talked to Monica one time, yeah? Yes.

We did. Kristen and I. But that was Zoom, and I don't count that.

I agree. I want to meet Kristen.

She's in the backyard when you're done.

We have met, but we haven't met.

Right. We I love that with a lot of people.

In COVID, we did all Zooms, and now we decided none of those count.

They don't count. And we'll have someone on who we had on on Zoom. And when they come, we're like, This is the first time.

The vibes in person. They're meaningful.

But I love your podcast. I I'm so excited to be here. Oh, good. Thank you.

I loved your book. Oh, thank you. I loved it so much. And I cried this morning. Some of those text between you and Asur are...

Do you think I was a bit mean to him?

No. There's a difference between annoying and mean. Do I think you were annoying sometimes because you didn't know how to handle a new love? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

New first love. I mean, I never thought I would actually fall in love. Yeah.

Yeah. You're probably having to integrate that yourself. That's a lot to process.

Now, I don't know if you guys talked about it the first time you met, but there's some passages in your book. I wrote them out in their entirety because I'm like, this is Monica's book. She wrote this book. Really? Oh, wait till you hear some of the zingers in here. There's a lot of overlap.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, boy. I can't wait. How can we be so similar? What's your star sign?

Virgo.

What are you? I'm Cancer. My husband is a Virgo. Really?

Which you read were great lovemates.

Those go well together. Kristen is a Cancer. Oh. Yeah. And she's a lovemate of mine.

Two of my soulmates are Cancer. That's right.

Erin and Kristen.

That's right. Yeah. Kristen. Okay, So rightly so, this book is about another chapter in your life entirely. But unfortunately, I'm going to have to bring people up to speed a little bit because I think there is some foundation that needs to be laid.

I have so much in my life. You do.

Yes. You do. You I do. And I only know, look, my daughters have your children's book. I've read it to them out loud. So that's my knowledge of everything that happened. And then, of course, I was alive when all this went down, so I didn't miss it in the media. Anything post that, I don't know about. And even just this notion that you end up in a high school in the UK with the snap of a finger is really equally bizarre. But so for the folks that don't know, and I think maybe a couple of the details people might not have already known. I don't think I knew until I read your book. You were already a political activist before any of this happened. You were blogging at 10 years old?

Yeah, I became an activist at age 10. I blogged for the BBC at age 11. And I volunteered to be in the New York Times documentary when schools were closed by the Taliban. Again, I was only 11.

You were already famous before this other thing. I guess I stupidly thought, oh, this is when she got a lot of attention.

I was known in Pakistan, and people had read my story. But I do think that the recognition that I received after getting attacked was very different than the recognition I had received before.

Yeah, exponential. Yes. But so for the folks who don't know that little chapter, your father was an educator and was a big proponent of girls being in school. You were in Swat, this area of Pakistan.

A very beautiful valley in the north of Pakistan. And we had a pretty normal life until this extremist militant group took over our valley, and the Taliban started imposing restrictions on women and girls, including a ban on girls' education. It affected my education directly. It affected the education of all of my female friends because girls could no longer go to school. They were punished if they did to even learn. And it was a very scary dark time. And that's when my journey of activism began. It's not like I was passionate about doing something for my community from a very early age, but circumstances changed. So the way I became an activist was simply because I was responding to this new reality where I could not have a future without an education. I knew I have no choice but to speak out.

Yeah, it wasn't like you sought out to be an activist. You just sought out to- Stay in school. Exactly. To speak up for yourself.

It's not that I was researching different topics and figuring out what am I more passionate about? Let me pick this issue. It was about our future. And we know that girls in our communities, especially in patriarchal societies, have very little opportunities if they do not get the complete education. They are restricted in exploring different careers. They cannot make a living for themselves. So many girls are forced into marriages.

It would be right to say they're dependent on whatever the patriarch in their life tells them exists on planet Earth.

It's your dad or your brother, and then it's the husband, and you just pray you find a kind man, so then you could at least have a life in dignity And it's not that of violence and oppression. It's just a simple wish like that. I actually realized that when I started speaking to my mom more, my mom and I have struggled a bit to be friends.

It's comfortingly universal.

Yes. Especially till you make it to your 20s, it's a really difficult phase because I was just told off by my mom for everything, what I wear, how I dress, what I say. For her, the concern was always about what would our community in Pakistan say. She was just worried about controversies. And I used to argue with her all the time. But later on, I realized that my mom was just simply trying to protect me. She was scared. She was scared because she had seen it in her lifetime, how girls were punished for simply daring to wear what they wanted. There was a story of a girl talking to a boy on phone. The next thing you hear is that she has been killed in the name of honor. She has been poisoned. She has been beaten up.

Well, you as a little girl were slapped by a cousin in the street because he saw you doing what?

I was in the river and your clothes get wet and then they- Stick to you. Yeah, stick to you. I had gone with some boys, just a local cousin's little boys, and he just slapped me. He said, Why would you go? I think for him, it was just the fact that girls, as soon as they have the identity of being a woman, they need to be restricted to the followers of their houses. But I must say that cousin thinks very differently now, and he's a big advocate. That's good. But that was once in a time.

The These things happen when you're little that form your worldview. And what you learned in that moment was, oh, an older male thinks I'm bringing shame to the family has the authority and the right to smack me across the face in public.

It was scary.

That introduces you to what world you're living in. You're like, okay, this is life on planet Earth for me.

But I think my story is an exception simply because my dad was very supportive.

Why was he? What about him was so different?

He was so passionate about his own education. He saw His five sisters have completely different lives than him. They never went to school while he did. So he knew if you are born a girl, it just means you do not have the same life as a boy. So he wanted to change that, and he made a commitment that he would want a different life for his daughter. He didn't stop me from speaking out while other men, fathers, actually stopped girls in our school who were stepping forward the same way as me to speak out. And even if a cousin or somebody tried to say something about me being in media or me speaking out or being in public, my dad just would remind them that they mind their own business.

Wow. You just got lucky. He just had a great personality.

We need male allies. We need them to stand up with us.

And when we have compassion for your mom, reading the book, I want to give her Mel Robin's book, Let Them. That's what I want to give her. That's what she needs to read. Let them talk. It's okay. Let them all think what they're going to- But the culture is different. I was going to say your father had the freedom, really, that your mom didn't have in a lot of ways. So he could have the position of, Yeah, mind your own business. That wasn't really a luxury your mom had. So it's quite understandable why she has so much more fear.

A hundred %. If a man is seen as an advocate for women, people celebrate him. It's a lot easier. It's a different story when we are praising a man. It's a very different story when we talk about women or mothers and how they are becoming allies of the next generation of women and girls. I feel like their initial instinct is to actually protect us, to keep us safe. For my mom, it was a whole different world to be able to advocate and change the perspectives and bring in safety. For her, the first thought was, let's do everything so that none of these horrible things happen. If it means you obey the expected dress code or if you just follow the customs, let's just do that because in the end, what's more important is your safety. And just simply focus on your education, but do not cause any trouble.

Yeah, do it quietly and do what you need to do. And in her defense, the absolute worst nightmare for a parent would be exactly what happened to you. So you got shot on a box. So I'm sure she was like, We just barely avoided the ultimate heartbreak in life. Let's button it up.

I knew this would happen.

I know we care about these things, but not as much as I care about you being alive. I very much understand where she's coming from.

Yeah. After the attack, when I moved to a different country, we were now settled in the UK. A new culture.

What is it? Eddington?

No. Birmingham.

Birmingham?

That's so simple. Not the Alabama one. No. Birmingham. That one would have been harder. Not Birmingham. Birmingham. Birmingham. Birmingham. Birmingham.

Birmingham. Yeah, right here. G-h-a-m. Okay, it's already a really unique life. You were on the BBC. A doc was made about you. You're reporting as the Taliban is invading your town. All that's crazy. Now, even if none of that happened, another crazy thing would be to come out of a coma, having been raised in Pakistan and then be in Birmingham, UK. Do you remember how foreign that all felt to you?

Yes, it was a complete shock to wake up in a different country, surrounded by people who were speaking a different language. I was very, very unfamiliar. And of course, I was grateful that I woke up and I finally opened my eyes that I was alive. I was in this induced coma for a week. And all I remembered was this last day of my school in Pakistan. And then I have these mixed memories and these visuals and pictures of attacks happening again and again. And I'm stuck in this induced coma where I just cannot wake up. I feel like, am I dead? Am I alive? But the moment I woke up, I was so grateful. But at the same time, I was just figuring out who has brought me here? Where are my parents? When will I recover? When will I be able to get back to my old normal life?

Also, when are you learning that you are now a world figure?

Weeks later. How old are you again? Fifteen. I had no idea. I just thought nobody even knew. So I had this tube in my neck initially, so I could not speak. So I had to write everything down. And because my vision was so blurry, I could not even write well. So every time I would just ask the nurses and doctors, Where's my father? I want to meet my family. And then the second thing I would write is, Who's going to pay for my hospital?

Sure, sure. It looks expensive, I'm sure.

I was just so worried. I said, Do I have to go and get a job or something. Oh my God. But my family arrived 10 days later. When they joined, that was the first time I actually cried. Yeah. Of course. That's so overwhelming. It's because you're going through a trauma. You don't even know what a normal emotion is. You're going through so much pain that you cannot even cry. How do I become that normal person that I was?

You're disassociated, right? You're out of your body. Almost the crying is you reentering your actual body.

So I saw my family. That's the first time I cried. And even then I thought, As soon as I'm discharged from the hospital, I'll be able to go back to Pakistan. But things changed really quickly. I was working on these different projects that I was approached with, starting Malala Fund, writing my book, giving my first speech at the UN, and then also starting a new school locally. They said, We cannot let your time be wasted, so you have to get back into your education. I thought this was all temporary, but I didn't realize before I knew it, it had been a long time when I went back to Pakistan again. But this was a a whole new pathway that my life was taking. And I was like, where is this going? Where is my old life? And where am I now?

Now, I find this to be the most interesting part because it's so human. So you start this school in England, and it's a disaster, right?

I loved that school, by the way. But what was really challenging for me was making friends. Yeah. I was a completely different person when I was in Pakistan. You're popular now going. Funny and outgoing. I was in Every competition, debate, singing, playing cricket. Being a kid. I had so many friends. Now at this new school, I felt like a stranger. I just thought nobody could ever know me. I could not be that old self of mine. I would You start to have a conversation with people. You start and it dies. It's such a stressful moment. You're like, I hope somebody picks up this topic and it could be a funny thing. And it just... Fell flat.

Fell flat.

Yeah.

You had so much working against you. You're from another I can't imagine your English was bulletproof at that point.

I mean, it was more like textbook English. Textbook English is very different than what people actually speak.

You have the cultural thing, the fact that you're famous, which is an awkward thing. You've also just been shot in the face So you're not feeling- A hundred %.

I became very self-conscious. We all look at each other and we all just think sometimes, what is that person actually looking at right now? Yes, of course. And usually they're not, but we just think that way. But I think at school, yes, I was very I was very self-conscious, and I was thinking about the facial nerve damage on the left side because of the bullet. I just was hesitating even to smile because I now had a crooked smile.

When I had acne, I didn't want to go to school. When I have pimples, I would not interact with anyone those days.

It's hard enough. And you have to carry the weight. People are looking to you to be the voice of activism, and you're 15, and you're in a new place, and people are expecting wisdom from you. That's too much. I know.

Thank God you were delivering on that front because it's a mess at high school. You're rising to the occasion of the political stuff. You have to be an adult. Making the speeches at UN. You're crushing that part of your life.

I just thought maybe at 15, This is where I'm supposed to be at these UN conferences, bilateral meetings with world leaders advocating for girls education, running a foundation. I just thought maybe this is how my life is supposed to look like. That's all I'll have.

I won't get this other thing.

And to be honest, yes, I I wanted all of it. I wanted to be a normal student at the same time, to have friends, and to be able to express myself, and to try new things. But somehow I thought that maybe because I'm supposed to live this activist life, it means sacrificing. It's one or the other. Of course, I'm sad and lonely, but I thought, okay, this is how it's supposed to be.

You did the cuteest things. You enlisted on field day to run the 200 meter dash and came in last. I know. I tried everything. You did so many things. This is horrible. I know. It makes me love you so much.

When this is going on and you're struggling at school, I think a lot of American kids, they would come home and tell their parents. And I feel left out. And did you feel like you could do that?

No. I think when you are supposed to be this strong, brave, courageous girl, you feel you cannot complain about not having friends or crying alone in the bathroom to get over this or feel like, I wish more people could talk to me in the school dining hall. I never I really shared it with my parents. I would just go home and talk to my best friend in Pakistan. I would ask her about everything that was happening in our neighborhood with our friends and how her studies were going and just try to reconnect with my old life. I knew that's just not a reality. I'm not there, but I used to just imagine myself being there and imagine what life would have been like if I were there. So deep inside, I wanted to make friends and just know who is that true Malala and what would my life have looked like if none these things had happened. So the day when I saw most of the students at my school talk to me was the day when I heard the news about the Nobel Peace Prize. So I had gone to school and I was not expected that I would get it.

You were 17 at that time? I was 17, yes. I was in my chemistry class. The school's deputy head teacher walks in and calls me outside and tells me that I have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh my God.

And I'm like, Wait, what?

And I'm like, Oh, thank you.

Thank Yeah. Thank you.

It feels like she did it.

Yeah.

But I actually went back to my class. I finished my whole school day.

In hopes that people might engage with you and show interest.

And I feel like more faces were looking at me that day. When you feel noticed. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's huge. Yeah. But the day after, it was just back to normal. Everybody's looking the other way.

They were all going to McDonald's, and you weren't. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man.

What a bizarre. You're winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and you're not getting invited to McDonald's. This is too much.

I loved your question, Monica, about asking mom and dad. And I'm wondering, do you think Hardeeu did not want to share that with them because you were afraid you had already put them through so much?

My parents do worry a lot. They freak out. And for them, it's just like, how could you be sad? Don't be sad.

Yes, exactly.

I'm like, help me, please.

This is where Monica really knows.

This has happened many, many times. I mean, I have gone to them several times or tried to signal something. Initially, I'm testing it. I'm like, what if something like this, they're like, why would this even happen? My dad came up to my room and he just saw I was really stressed and worried. I was worried about some work thing that was going on. And my dad was like, no, no, we can't see you sad. You should be happy. And I was like, Dad, can you respect my right to all of these emotions, whether that be happiness and sadness and grumpiness? I know you want me to be happy and I understand it, but that does not mean I suppress every emotion. You can't. Because I have to make you guys happy. So he's like, When you are happy, we are happy.

And I'm like, That's too much pressure.

That's a lot of pressure.

Also, you have to go out on the road. You're still at all the conferences and doing all that stuff. And it's like, even more do you need when you get home to be able to be the scared, lonely kid because you're putting on a brave face everywhere else.

They have to be the landing spot. But culturally, I do think it's- This is very- It's very hard.

My parents- Subcontinent, any of you guys.

Yeah. My dad, too. He's come a long way. He tries. He'll be like, Tell me what's going on. And I can see the panic. Before I've even said anything, he's so panicked. And then it's like, Well, I can't tell you because you're going to get so stressed out. And then that's going to stress me out. So let's just not do any of this. And then you don't have anyone. And then sometimes my dad will be like, You need to know you can talk to us. And I'm like, Well, that's not the way to say it, for one. But I understand it because they grew up in such a different environment. And with a lot more struggle, they want their kids just to be happy. That's it.

Yeah. And I fully understand that parents want their kids to know that their happiness is everything to them. But we also want our parents to know that we go through many emotions, and sometimes it's just some space. That's all we need. It's listening. It's just you being there, but we don't have to fix it. Allow us to go through the emotion, to process it.

Well, most importantly, that I would be lovable even if I'm very unhappy. Can I have my whole array of emotions and you still love me? Because that's what you want to hear.

It's way too much pressure on a child, really at any age, to take on a grown up's emotional state. Regulating their emotions by yours. It's just not okay.

The other thing which I realized was that I had taken this adult role from such an early age. I mean, I was looking after my family. All of a sudden, the roles had switched completely. My dad, mom, everybody had to move to a new country. I was doing all of these things, from signing a book to a documentary to giving speeches so that I can make an income. And this has been forever part of my life to help my family and our relatives and people who need support from us in Pakistan. So there's always been that pressure as well. I think that also somehow affected me because I thought, I cannot be that child anymore. I have to be acting like an adult.

I'm the grown up here. Exactly.

This is all on my shoulders. You win cash for the Nobel Prize? They give you money?

Yeah, it comes with the prize. Oh, really?

They give you some around how money?

I think it's usually like a million euros. Oh, really? The year I won, I had two winners. You have to slip it. No.

This is bullshit. They need to double the- It's okay.

I know they should. Don't say it's okay. It's not okay.

It's okay. Then you can even root for the person. You want to be able to be excited for them, but not if you're giving them half your money.

But the school that I support in my parents' village in the north Pakistan started with the help of the Nobel Peace Prize money. Oh, it did. That was the seed money for it. That's when I started it. And in my speech, I said, I want to build a school there because right now there's no high school for girls. I want to start the first one. We need to be ambitious about bringing change in the world. But let's start from home. If we can make it happen there, there's hope that we can make it happen elsewhere. It's one of the most challenging areas. It's in the north of Pakistan, up in the mountains, and the literacy rate is so low. And hardly any woman and any girl had actually graduated. There was no high school for girls, but we started it, I think, seven, eight years ago. And now that school is complete. And this year, the first class graduated. Oh, wow. And I met them for the first time. How great is that? I went to Pakistan. It was amazing. And I share this story in the book as well. It's really, really important to me because seeing how the lives of these girls have changed because of education is the most rewarding feeling.

It's just hope for the whole community. I was just looking around like the trees, the mountains, the river, everything is like the same. But one thing that was different in the whole village was the school. And I thought that the school had given hope for the community.

That's so incredible. Yeah.

Okay. So your book really is a coming of age story of you entering Oxford. And as we've already set up, it didn't go well in high school. And you just have the sweetest singular desire. I'm going to Oxford, and I am going to make friends. And it's so endearing and sweet. Mindy Kaylene, I meant? Yes. Yeah. So I text her yesterday like, Oh, my God, I just read Malala's new book. This is the show you would make. It's so cute.

I have watched all her shows. Never have I ever. And the college.

Yeah. What is it? Girls like sex or something? Sex, I'm not going to call it.

Sexy College. No, I mean, the title is a bit long, but not what you said.

Exact Lives of College. Yes. I got her.

Okay. So you arrive at Oxford and you get a dorm. And then you decide to just hit the sidewalk and start walking around. And you're sweetly taking charge. You're just introducing yourself to people. And you meet this cute girl who at first has taken back. Her name is... Cora. I mean, you're like, oh, great. We've got one friend. And then you go to the Freshers Fair. And just tell Monica what you do at this Freshers Fair. This is such a comedy set.

Yeah. I mean, you sign up for these different clubs clubs and societies like rowing and jumping, running, anything you can think of. There's a club for everything. Jazz club. Music, languages, anything. So I signed up for a few clubs, including rowing. I had never done it, and I couldn't swim. I don't know why I signed up, but I did it anyway.

She signed up for everything. She left this fair, Monica.

I was like, I want to make friends. I should be everywhere.

But that's such a smart thing to do. I want to make friends. I got to sign up. I got to get myself out there.

No, it was like a real FOMO. I want to be everywhere in this college life. There's the Oxford Union, which is this famous debating society at Oxford. I was signing up for that to get membership. And then there was this big poster behind. And they had photos of all of these famous speakers who had previously spoken there before. Oh, boy. I'm looking at all of these famous names, and then I see my photo and I'm like,. I remember I spoke here before.

Oh, my God. I was so embarrassed. Also a little feeding frenzy. Some person wants a picture, then 10 people want a picture.

Yeah, and then people are like, wait a second. Is that you people started asking for photos. But my friend who I had just met- Yeah, your new best friend. Best friend, yes. She was supporting me and she took some photos and I was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I felt so embarrassed. I just do not want it to be awkward. I want my friends not to think like they're here to take photos for me. She was just so chill about it. And quickly, we were talking about next lectures and essays, and I was like, I love it. I know that I'm meeting the right people.

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I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin. So it's not like...

What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club?

I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago.

I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different.

On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear.

On the 22nd of July, 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house.

So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wise Crack, where stand-up comedy and murder take center stage. Available now.

Listen to Wise Crack on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I missed one part, though. Before we even get there, and this is very sweet. Up until this moment, when you leave your house, your mother has dressed you every day of high school. She picked out your clothes. She laid out your clothes, right? This is what you're going to wear.

So my mom She refers traditional Pakistani clothes. And I think for her, it's like anything, jeans, top, any of these land colors are just too boring. She's like, why would anybody wear that? Why would you not wear the traditional colorful clothes? But it's also representing the culture. And that's what you are expected to wear. So I was looking at the bags she had packed for me for college. And I was like, Mom, if I wear this, I will be instantly recognized as the public figure, Malala. Yes. I just want to mix in the students and not stand out. Bland in.

College girl Malala.

And I want to wear college outfit. That's the dress code there. She would put one dress out, remove it.

And also tell Monica what you googled.

I googled Selena Gomez, Casual wear, 2017.

And what to wear to college, 2017. Googled it because she had never worn anything but these.

What did it tell you?

What did she wear? Cardigan. Tite jeans.

Oh, yeah. Probably low rise. Skinny jeans.

Skinny. Necklaces.

Selena Gomez casual. Don't you feel like you would do this, Monica? You would.

Actually, that's really funny that you bring that up, because I think Taylor Swift just went on Fallon and talked about how at Selena's wedding, which was last weekend, I guess. Okay. Taylor gave a speech, and she said she made fun of the way they dressed back then when they were first friends, which is probably around this time. You're wearing what they were wearing. I'm adding more to the debate. Exactly. Taylor would have razzed you.

Okay, so you got your 2017 college clothes. You've met Cora, and then gracefully and luckily, you meet Hen. Tell us about Hen.

Hen is such a jolly, funny, entertaining character.

She's from Zimbabwe?

Yes. She just talks forever. You cannot stop her. I loved her. I was like, wow, I don't even have to do anything. I just have to sit and listen to her. Yeah, she's got it. She wanted to try new things and explore things and take photos. And I just love that. I was her photographer. I would be just taking her shows all the time. We are really good friends.

I mean, isn't this a '90s college movie? Sure. We're like, you meet the outgoing girl. It's like, I'm going to take you under my wing.

Are you still friends with Cora?

I'm friends with everybody. Oh, good. Good.

I love this.

And I met really interesting people. I met a lot of Pakistani friends. I met some friends who were very supportive at times and were also a bit mean at times.

Yes. This is your girlfriend, Anissa. How is she mean? She's mean. She's making fun of how you look, what you're wearing.

I remember there was this mug. You put sugar in it and then you stir it. To make tea. So I was just stirring it. She's like, That's not how you do it. You do it like back and forth. Like, this is the more posh way. I was like, Wait a second.

What?

Anyway, I was like, Okay, I'll just stir it this They're like the way the queen does it.

You should have been like, Bitch, we invented tea. What are you talking about? Exactly.

Also, hey, I have a Nobel Prize, so I would be throwing that in everyone's face.

But you're starting to play Scrabble. It's off to a really great start.

Amazing start.

You're not a great student. I like this. Really? I like this because- The first person who's praising me for not being a good student. I like this because our association with you is wise beyond her years, completely poised, can somehow write Keep the speech, deliver the speech. We're thinking you're going to go there and this is going to be a cakewalk. And what I love is you're lazy. You're there to make friends.

There to be social.

Yeah. And it was shocking to you as well.

If I wanted to do incredibly well academically, I had to stay in the library for seven, eight hours a day. I was like, why would I do that? I want to be with my friends right now. I had signed up for every society. There were these gatherings and parties, like a Diwali Ball, an Eid party, and biryani event, anything you could think of. I just wanted to be everywhere.

I'm so proud of you for making that decision because I think you are receiving so much praise for being an adult and being a good little soldier, and doing everything you were supposed to do. To let go of that praise. You would have been most praised to go there and finish top of your class.

You know, this is what my dad was expecting. My dad is mentioning now and then, how are you doing? And do you think what grades you will get? Or are you going to run for the President of the Oxford Union? And I said, Dad, I don't think I'm here for any of those things. I'm here to actually just find out who I am as a young woman. I was living my late teenage, very, very late in my 20s. That's how I see it. And it was the first time that I was not with my parents. I was living on my own. I did not have my work people around me. I was managing my calendar myself. Poorly. Really poorly. But you know when you see you're free to explore whatever you want. And I said, I may not get this opportunity again. I knew that I could go to these libraries anytime in my life. I could reopen these books.

No, you did it right.

Friends, in your early 20s is such a blessing. Oh, it's everything. And I'm so glad I met these people because they help you grow. They help you learn more about yourself and who you become. I am who I am today because of these friends.

They took her to McDonald's.

Finally, you got to go to McDonald's. I learned so much. If I were studying, would I have ever learned about how to order? No.

Chauser, my ass. We need to know what's on a Big Mac. What's in those nuggets? We don't need to know about that. What's cute is this is so fun. These girlfriends, they took care of her. They each decided to get her their favorite item. Oh, fun. So you were at McDonald's just completely surrounded by nuggets and Big Macs. Exactly.

Did you like it? I mean, the caramel frappe, of course.

That one's the one that got you. Tell us about Tarek.

Tarek. Tarek, Tarek, I mean, doesn't matter.

Okay. And this is the part I've written down. This is textbook Monica here.

Chasing a guy who's unavailable?

Oh.

Have you ever heard of it? Just my whole life.

I'm just describing my story. I'm not saying anything about you. This mysterious character, he was He was a bad boy. Gorgeous. He was a bad boy. He was saying less. And I was like, I want to know what he wants to tell me. He had nothing to share, actually.

Rumored to be a drug dealer. He's from Iraq.

That's what my friends used to say, and I refuse to believe that. I was he's really struggling with the college pressure and somebody needs to help him out. Many times he came to my room and he was hungry. So I was like, okay, there's some biscuits and bananas. He was just eating the bananas and the biscuits. And then go back. I know. And I saw him in college. He was sitting on this bench which had a clear sign of no smoking. So he's smoking and he's reading a book and I'm like, Excuse me, it says no smoking. And he's like, Oh, I'm dyslexic. I was like, Oh, okay. Then later on, I was questioning myself. He was reading a book.

What does smoking have to do in dyslexia?

He probably didn't have the word smoking in his book. That's why he was able to read it. He just couldn't read the word smoking.

That's when you know you have a crush because you're just so nervous in front of them.

You'll do anything.

I know. If they They're reading a book and they're reading a book and they're dyslexic, I don't know. You'll just believe that, whatever that is. Or if they say nobody understands them. I was like, Yeah, nobody gets it. You're going through a lot. Let me help you.

And Tarek was like a Wunderkind when he was young. But then He was in year six at Oxford. He couldn't get his shit together.

Oh, I know. But you were like, because he's struggling and he needs help.

He's struggling. Nobody's there to help him. Let me help him. And my friends told me off. They were like, What are you doing?

The girl that was catty at times, she was the real talk express. She's like, You're fucking delusional. This guy doesn't like you.

All of these hard conversations, she would just tell me directly. She said, I don't care if I sound rude or not, but she said, You need to get your life together. You cannot go and fix this guy's life. Don't you see it?

But it's hard for anyone at that age if they have a crush on someone to be self-actualized enough to be like, No, he's not good for me. But also, you have had experience of changing the world.

Well, yeah. So you have some evidence.

The reason that I was enjoying this crush scenario was because he was unavailable. He was not even responding. And for me, it was this one-sided love that I was experiencing. And I was so insecure about my looks because of the damage of my facial nerve on the left side And I just thought this love life and all of these things are not going to be part of my life. And I thought maybe the closest that I can come to it is this imaginary relationship that I have right now.

This is what I wrote down. I want to read it verbatim if I could. Walking away from her room, I felt strange. Like the spell that had brought me there was broken. I'd failed in my mission to help Tarek, and Anissa thought I was a fool for trying. She was right. He had not asked for my help and didn't accept it when I offered. So why was I doing this? Because I enjoyed crafting drafting elaborate narratives around our brief interactions. I could have snapped myself out of the delusion at any time, but I didn't want to. When Tarek disappeared for days, I would sit on my bed and listen to Bollywood duets, imagining the two of us imbroiled in an epic love story. Then he show up again without explanation, eat my food and leave. He didn't want to be close to me, didn't ask about my friends or weekend plans, and that never bothered me because I preferred the fantasy in my head where everything was both thrilling and safe. Obsessing over an unapproachable boy was just another way of avoiding rejection and staying single, filling my need for connection with one-sided romance. It's so- Sorry, I had to read that.

It's so dead on.

That's Monica in high school. That's me now. That's me still.

Hopefully, we'll get to is how you got over that because those are big feelings. They're so safe. I bet if he did start to like you, you would have been like, no, I don't want that.

That used to happen to me a lot. It's scary. It's scary when it feels more real. Part of that actually did happen to me when I actually started seeing my now husband, Asr. It felt more and more real that this guy is real. The feelings are real. I am actually going through these emotions. And it means I have to make decisions about my future with this person. Do I want us to be together or not? That changes you as a person. I felt different when I made that decision. But initially with these crushing or these relationships in my imagination, it was fun because I was like, what if it's just these scenarios that you are imagining and that's how you pass your day.

You can't get hurt in them because they're not real. But when it's real, all of a sudden we can get hurt. And now a whole another batch of thoughts and emotions enter.

Yeah, I actually did not want to be in a relationship, to be honest, because I just thought culturally, for many other reasons, I thought it was not for me. And I just never thought somebody would actually love me because of my insecurities. So many reasons for why I just thought it was never going to be the story of my life. For me, it was this reality that is not going to happen. I would not do it because of the culture and all of that, but also that I don't think anybody is going to love me or I'm going to find a person. Yeah.

Was that so confusing? Because also the world is telling you they love you. You're being praised, you're on covers of time, I assume.

Exactly.

Absensibly, the world is Malala, we love you. But then internally, you're like, but that's not real, and no one will really love me.

Even this recognition that you receive or the way people imagine that you are in these circles and you are hanging out with some prime ministers and presidents every day, or you are meeting famous celebrities. That's not a true picture of my life. I'm spending most of my time with my family or my college friends, and not with my husband. That's just a more true picture of my life, my everyday life. I'm meeting our activists and the projects that we support. So it's a mix of that, but people have these perceptions.

You're probably a victim of a lot of projection. For us to know that a little girl got shot on a bus over wanting to go to school is so terrible that the only way it's palatable is she's fine and she's turned it into this great thing and she's won the Nobel. So it's okay. I can handle this start. We can live with it. Yes. I need you to be this because it's way too uncomfortable for me to think a little girl got shot. So I think you probably were just this blank canvas that people just projected onto you what they wanted you to be so they could feel better.

It's really hard to process the response from people because I come across all sorts of reactions. Even if we deny it, I think they do affect us in one way or another. I think in the middle of it, I just did not give myself enough time to know what I wanted. Life was moving so fast that I thought, okay, this is what's expected of me and I'm supposed to live this way. It's work, it's being an advocate that I'm supposed to know everything when I'm still reading a biology textbook, learning about cells, or I have to do an essay for my English subject or solve some math problems that I somehow need to be able to address policymakers about their budgets for girls education. And I need to have the correct opinion about every political issue out there. And I accepted. I said, yeah, if you are applauded and if you are recognized, then somehow you need to know everything and you need to know it the right way. It's a lot of pressure. You're not being yourself anymore. You cannot make a mistake. You're being scrutinized for it. It still happens. Even now, there are so many things that I actually don't know.

I have principles in life that I follow. For me, the most important thing is promoting peace, promoting compassion. It's creating equal opportunities for girls through education. It's ensuring that we actually listen to each other and bring more harmony and stand against oppression and violence and wars. I know these things, and I also know that whoever it happens to, we have to stand with them. In whatever part of the world it's happening, we have to stand up to that. But it's not that I have to know the history and the background of every political issue.

I bet it's not enough for people. I bet you have that, but they now want you to be an environmentalist, and they want you to be nine other issues that they care a lot about because they are in alignment with you on this thing. I bet you're now feeling the pressure of getting sucked into all these other political arenas that maybe isn't your passion.

The way now I look into it is I see it from the perspective of girls, and I related to the issue of girls education. So for example, climate change. I don't know everything about this climate change topic, but what I do know is that climate-related events are affecting girls education. Girls education is actually one of the top solutions. To all things. Including climate change. So I think about it that way now. I'm sure I can help in some of these things, but my focus will be girls education.

Right. I think that takes courage because people want you to be all things, and it's okay to have one message. I care about girls getting educated. You all can solve the rest of the stuff.

I mean, looking at all these conflicts and things that are happening in the world, like what's happening in Afghanistan or what's happening in Gaza, for me, it's girls in their future. If their schools are bombed, if they do not have an education, they are denied the opportunity to have a future. So I support the education programs. I help bring attention to their stories. And my goal is that we promote the message that can give them a chance back to their education. So that means we have to promote peace. We have to advocate against wars.

Okay, so Oxford is going well. You've got a friendship group. You have gone to one of your rowing meets, which is hysterical because you've never rowed.

Are you afraid of falling in and not swimming?

She can't swim. There's another overlap.

Of course, I'll drown.

Oh, She's still out there because she is hell-bath.

The worst thing that could happen is I could jump.

Yeah. Because you wear a life mast?

No. No. I couldn't even tell them. I was just like, Do it once and then get out.

So she does this, and she's walking home from rowing practice, and she's wearing jeans. And then a photo of you emerges. You already have so much on your plate. You're trying to get through Oxford. You're trying to make friends. Now, these things keep bubbling up.

Yeah. You're confused. What's wrong with jeans, right? Yeah, exactly. Before that, I had only worn my Pakistani traditional clothes. Even if it was a non-uniform day at school, I would just wear Pakistani clothes. And I felt awkward. I always stand out as this public figure, Malala, because that's the clothes that she wears. The Pakistani clothes are beautiful. They're just flashy, colorful, and I love them, and I still wear them. But in college, I just thought, if I wear that, everybody's going to see me as this public figure, and they're going to approach me differently. So I decided that I was going to wear jeans and these jumpers or Sochers. Cardigans. Cardigans, all of that. Selena Gomez style.

Whatever Selena was in. Coming back from rowing, somebody took a photo of me in skinny jeans with a green bomber jacket.

Sounds cute. I know. Sounds really cute, right?

Yeah, I like it.

And that photo somehow went viral. And there was this whole social media controversy that started that was criticizing me for wearing jeans, that it was against my culture and religion.

Anti-islamic. Yeah. You're a Satanist. Oh, my Your parents now know. Your family members in Pakistan are getting heat. And mom's, of course, freaked out.

She's like, I told you. I know. And then I opened my phone and I just check what's happening. And my parents called me and they're like, Can you respond to this or can we help fix this? Because for them, it's like, let's fix the problem. They were getting these calls from Pakistan. And I told my parents, I said, I'm not here for some pilgrimage. I'm here to study. I'm here to be like any other student. I said, I'm not going to be defending myself or apologizing. I'm going to wear what I want, and I'm not going to issue any statement on this.

And that's the right move. You did the right thing. And you did as well as you could to not let it affect you. But there's a reality of all that is insanely stressful. You've got a whole country up in arms right now over the fact that you wore jeans.

I know. And then it just started a whole debate. People were criticizing that my dress was either too un-Islamic, and then some people were saying that she's still wearing a head scarf, like a hijab, and she's not fully liberated if she continues to wear that.

She's wearing too much. She's wearing too much fuck sunny stuff and not enough.

For me, it is about the right of every girl and woman to choose for herself, what she does, what she wears.

Were your friends at least support? Were they good?

Always. Okay, good. Always. They just could not believe it. It's just a crazy world out there that no matter what women do, they're just criticized for it. You are promoting work too much or career, anti-career, staying at home, you're wearing this or that.

You guys can't do it right. You just can't get it right. But you do discover 24 OBS?

Yes.

Is a party. In the wake of all this, you get invited to join a Pakistani club. Yes. Friends Club. And so you go there with a ton of fear. I don't know. The rest of Pakistan seems pretty pissed at me. How are they all going to feel?

Yeah. It had been nearly five years. I hadn't gone back to Pakistan since the attack. And this was the first time that I was getting so close to my country, where you feel like the people who have just come here as international students for Pakistani, now they're meeting you. I was so nervous because when your exposure is limited, then you think that what you see on social media is what people think. Yes, that's the danger of it. I was nervous. I was preparing an answer for every possible ridiculous question I could be asked. What have you done for the country? And why don't you go back? And all of these ridiculous things. Why are you wearing jeans? Yeah, all of that. And when I go there, they're so excited. I feel like they had just cleaned their living room just for me.

And they're everything, just like the real world.

You guys, some people, smoke, pop, drink. Yeah. It was like Pakistani food, and somebody smoking weed, and somebody is not, and somebody is talking about boyfriend and girlfriend, and somebody's like, none of those things. We're not going to talk about that. I was so quiet, and I was just watching. I was just worried what's going to come next. It was such a chill, fun evening, and I ended up staying there till late.

This is the rascal in her. She stays till only the people left her high, and she will sleep till 2: 00 the next day, and she'll miss class. Good job. Yeah, you'll let it rip.

I know. And you danced at this one? Yeah. To Pakistani music. And Pakistani songs are so addictive. And the friends were just wonderful. That became my safe space, the 24 Ops house. It was a perfect place. I would just be there almost every day.

It's beautiful because in some ways, You had judged them without knowing them in the same way that people were judging you.

I know. And I was just so anxious. They're going to ask me this ridiculous question the next minute. One of my friends there told me that I know what you might be thinking, but just know that any hateful things that you come across, that's not what most of the people think, and that I support you in all of that. And I was like, Oh, my goodness. Thank you. I believe more in what I experience in real life than what I see on social media. So I've been asked constantly about what do I think about the hatred I receive in Pakistan? And I'm like, what hatred? I actually receive a lot more love in Pakistan. I have been working in the country since I started this Mission for Girls Education. There are incredible organizations that I'm supporting through Malala Fund. We have a school there. We're doing so much work, and people are working together with us, and they're supporting us. So of course, trolls and these things, they're always there because people will be disagreeing you for one reason or another.

The pathetic nature of Twitter and all of it is it's 0. 5% creating 95% of the content. It's not representative at all of anything in real life. I forgot the most embarrassing and awkward part of her journey. Oh, okay.

She had a full security detail for all this.

She's rolling around two white old middle-aged cops who are living in a dorm down the hall from her.

I put them in a student room. How funny is that?

I mean, you're already feeling out of place.

And you've got- I know. You're trying so hard to blend in. You just can't.

I made them eat the College Dining Hall baked beans and potatoes.

And this was educational for me. So the English or at least Oxford were so different than an American College. You're there for three years. You take a test at the end one year that tells you you're out or you get to stay for another two years. And they tell you where you rank. And so you take the first year when you're at the very bottom.

I was at the very bottom. I nearly failed my exam. Wow.

They didn't kick you out. So you didn't do so bad that they booted you.

No. But they warned me. They weren't going to kick you out. They were like, You're going to fail your degree if you- Keep yourself. Yeah. And that's when my senior tutor had a meeting with me. She said, I'm serious this time. I have seen your results. You need to change the the way you do your work. I asked her to write a letter to my parents and Malala Fund team. Everybody was like, Okay, fine.

Basically, I need to stop being on the road. I need to stop my other responsibilities.

She said being a student means you are a This is a full-time student. This is a full-time job. You cannot be traveling to three different countries in a week or so. That's what I was doing in my first year. I was in Lebanon, then I was in Switzerland, then I was in Monaco. I was doing different things. Some were for Malala Fund I see, really significant and important, but some were paid events where I could support my family and all of that. But they said, no, you have to do it in your summer breaks. You cannot do it during college time. And it did affect my studies. I was, of course, prioritizing, socializing, but at the same time, I was doing work as well, which meant I had even less time for my essays, and I was so behind in my academic work.

Yeah, you were drowning in that.

For my second and third year, when it was serious, serious, I said, okay, I am going to work hard. It was quite stressful to get back into it and get it all together. But then I found out about the student support system at college, and there was this amazing person. She was brought into college to help students who are struggling with their studies. I was nervous to go there because I thought I might be the only one who's going to be there. I had this imposter syndrome, and I thought, maybe I don't deserve to be here. She told me so many students get to see her, and I even saw my friends there. That gave me a bit of comfort that it's quite normal and quite common for students to ask for help. And I think we should encourage students, the sooner you ask for it, there's just small things that can significantly help you.

Yes. Your friend Rasha invites you and your friend to go go karting. Do you ever see the movie Yes, Man, Jim Carrey?

Yes.

He has to say yes to everything for a year or whatever, some period, and his life takes off. And in that same way, they're like, you want to come go karting? You're like, let's go. And there's this boy there, and he is so cute.

It was not Rajah, it was Jamal.

Oh, it was Jamal. Sorry. Different friend. But you get invited, and then there's this incredibly cute boy in town from Pakistan who's a cricket player.

Yeah. I was just getting over my crush who had ghosted me.

Ate all your food.

Ate all your bananas.

I had just given up on love. And then this other guy enters my life. A new potential fantasy.

Yes.

Maybe it's not a fantasy. Exactly. Maybe not this time.

Not this time. He's gorgeous, though.

He's gorgeous. He's really handsome. I immediately was like, wow, this is the guy I used to imagine. He's very charming, very handsome.

And she drove her go-car directly into some tires and really fucked herself up and had to get taken to the manager's office. And her security had to check her vitals. It was all in front of the guy. Talk about a set piece.

To be honest, so that was our first time meeting. So that's when I met Asr. Asr, who's now my husband. Yes. This is a meet cute.

I know. You totally crashed and had a big episode. And he basically talked to you out of it a little bit.

I know. I was like, got to give me a minute. This is a serious injury. He's like, get over it. He's like, you were driving it like 10 miles per hour.

I made some tires.

He said, I think you are fine.

He should have been like, Girl, you were shot. What are you talking about?

He never brought that up. He never asked me about my past. He never brought those things up. And I instantly knew that this guy is different. He I was more interested in the person who I was and who I was becoming. And I needed that person because you want to grow. You are exploring more about yourself. And I thought he's the perfect partner because with him, I can be myself. I can be funny. I can say silly things. I don't have to think twice, am I getting this right or not? Or am I saying something incorrect?

But do you think part of it was because you were like, oh, he's gorgeous. He's out of my league. Nothing's at risk here.

A little bit, yes.

Yeah. I think that's not to out Monica more, but the hotter our guests, the more powerful Monica is as a flirter. We'll have Brad Pitt and she'll be like, what's up, girl? She'll be so confident because she's like, Well, he isn't going to like me.

Well...

No?

Yes. It's the same thing, though. It's an unavailable person or an unapproachable. It's like, okay, yeah, there's no reason to be anything but me here because there's no pressure. But then that's when you get into the circumstance where it's like, oh, wait, no, maybe actually they do like me. Uh-oh, there's something wrong with them, so I don't like them anymore.

I know. I thought it would be like one of those one sided imagination love story. But it turns out I was actually in love with him. Yeah.

He's so sweet. If he's anything like how you describe him in the book. I know.

I don't want to give too many spoilers about the love story because I think this is a really, really fun story. It is. But at one point, I felt like it was not going to work out.

At the beginning, you were very assertive. And I like this. Yes. You knew he was leaving town and you're like, I got to get together with this guy. He's going back to Pakistan. I'm going to show some initiation.

It's like we couldn't say it out loud, but we were trying to signal it to say, I'm interested. By the end of that first summer, it was 2018, I had just finished my first year at college. He didn't even communicate. His friend told my other friend to communicate to me. So it was like a long way that, oh, well, Assa is not thinking about you in that way. Just a friend. Just a friend. I was like, What? Anyway, It broke my heart. It broke my heart. I know. But then we got back together. And I don't want to... People can read how it happens. Oh, this is so cute.

Monica, he's so sweet. He's so cute. He's older than you. His love is cricket. That's his life. He's from a very poor background. He's had a pretty fucking gnarly childhood in his own right. His father had a lot of issues. So you guys knew each other.

We had a lot in common because we both used humor as a coping mechanism. So being funny is everything to us. And I just realized that this guy has the best sense of humor. But most importantly, he finds me funny. So he laughs at my jokes. And I love that.

I really want to know why he first...

Of course, there's more in the book, but he also tells the story that his right angel was telling him that if there's one person in the world that you don't want to hurt, it's Malala. And that his left angel was telling him, the devil, that the one person, if you hurt her, you are going to be her enemy number one. I think for him, it was our friendship. He did not want that friendship to go away. He also understood that we were at a different stage in our life. He was already working. He had graduated. I had just finished my first year of university, so he knew that I was still figuring things out in life. To be honest, I think he was thinking the right way.

He had also been burned. He was a sweet boy, and he was a sweet boy to a few different girls, and they left him in the lurch.

Yeah, and he was just scared.

If Malala speaks publicly about me.

I think he was just scared. If we start technically dating each other, and then he messes things up that he thought it's going to be over for him because the mission of Malala fund changes. You're like, David Taylor Swift.

You're like Taylor Swift.

We're going to come back to that, but there's just one guy.

Education aside.

We've all come together today to talk about the educational challenges of Mongolia. But before we get to that, do you guys know this guy, sir? He's like, Oh, I'm a cricket player.

Exactly. Oh, my gosh. Everyone would hate him because everyone loves you so much. So I understand the fear.

Well, we hate Tarek. I hate Tarek.

I do, too. Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. I mean, this is such a movie. You decide to smoke pot.

Yes.

And you have what is the The worst experience I've ever heard detailed from someone smoking pot. It turns into a two and a half day thing. Do you want to try to describe what that sensation was?

Of course, I had become this adventurous student at college. I was trying to try everything. So one evening, my friends called me to the College garden and said, Let's hang out. I visit them. They're trying this new thing, which looks like a flask, and it's called a bong. Yeah. So I was like, I've never seen this. What is it? They're like, give it a try. It's just weed and something. I was like, okay, this is just take one puff. And I was like, oh, what could one puff do? Sure. First attempt, I coughed. Second attempt, I inhaled it and it went all inside my body. In that moment, I froze. Everything changed instantly. I was reliving the Taliban attack. No.

And prior to this, you had said many times and maybe believe yourself that you had no memory of that whole thing, that You got on a bus one day and you woke up in Birmingham.

A week long induced coma. It's hard to know what happened, what didn't happen, what was a real memory and what wasn't. But now, seven years later, at college, after this BONG experience, I was reliving that flashback.

It makes so much sense because when you're high and you have no experience with it, you're out of control. You don't know when it will end. You feel trapped. These are all the things you experience.

And it doesn't end. It went on and on for hours. I was shaking. I wanted to scream. I wanted to move, but I couldn't. I thought I was being attacked again. I thought maybe I'm dead and my dead body is somewhere, and this is maybe an afterlife. I just could not figure it out.

And you're seeing flashes of memories now.

Yes. And you lose that sense of reality. You feel so detached. That whole night, I was in my friend's room. I was just so scared. I couldn't close my eyes. I couldn't sleep because I thought, as soon as I close my eyes, maybe I'll die. Yeah. That's when my mental health journey began. I had not seen a therapist before.

If you don't mind, you had a second experience, too. And this all makes so much sense, which is you also go to Boston to get the nerve surgery, and they put you on oxycodone, and then you're back again. Really? So now we've got, again, and it's the same thing because I don't have my full faculties. I'm in this purgatory nether world.

I just can't do drugs, basically. Yeah, that's fine. Now you know. Drugs are not for me. That's a bummer. And I wouldn't do it. You should, though.

No, don't. She already did it twice.

No, she should do it. Let's try Exocenex. Okay.

I've heard these things in here. What is it? I've heard something about MDMA. What is that? Yeah, that's Exocenex.

It's great for intimacy at some point. You and your zero want to rekindle.

Dax, if you make her feel this again, this is not nice.

No, because she's going to do all the work and she's going to decouple all that. And there'll be a moment, there'll be a big signal that she has processed everything. The kissing you guys are going to do on it. Oh, my God. Okay.

The disassociation that you probably felt in the attack is what you are also feeling on drugs. There is a disassociation that happens when you're drinking or on drugs. And so it is literally the exact same feeling.

Those suppressed memories. I could not acknowledge that I had actually seen it.

Yes. Again, back to it wasn't what people wanted to hear. They want to hear that you survived and that you're strong.

And I want to hear that I survived I don't remember anything. Who wants to remember that?

And you said you had been given this identity marker of brave. Yes. And now all of a sudden, you're just scared out of your mind to be alive.

I felt that I had failed living up to the expectations.

You have this thing that so few people could relate to, but I find it so heartbreaking. You have this Wunderkind thing, which is like these prodigy musicians. They're 12. The world loves them. And it's like, where do we go from here? It's untenable. You'd have to grow up and be Beethoven to deliver on what this promise at 12 was. It's such a cruel expectation. It's dangerous to celebrate young people in such a profound way.

Yeah. And I think the way we are received in media, and especially now on social media, that exposure is just crazy. People then have this fixed image of you, and you also internalize it. So I just thought the girl that I was recognized as being strong and brave at age 15 who survived the Taliban bullet, this is who I need to be for the rest of my in life. I have to be brave and courageous. I was actually really happy with myself that I didn't need therapy, that I had overcome all of these things so quickly. I was now on this mission, and then I was enjoying my life. And suddenly, Something so small triggered the whole trauma.

The body keeps the score.

I felt like maybe it was all there this whole time. So this was the first time I started getting mental health support. I started therapy.

Which you had a lot of hurdles, right? You had some cultural hurdles. As you say in the book, there are 243 million Pakistanis, and there are 500 practicing psychiatrists in the whole country. So it pretty much tell you culturally how your culture feels about psychiatry.

Growing up, we were not familiar with this.

It's weak, it's indulgent, it's anti-God somehow. You should be turning to God for these solutions.

It's either you're supposed to get some medication for everything because they see it as a real physical problem, or maybe you're cursed or something.

Well, generally, Yeah. You were saying in Pakistan, if you're having mental health issues, that's almost a sign that you're not connected to God.

I don't want to go and tell my parents because then they will think that I've gone mad or something. Yeah.

You're crazy.

Yes. I myself just thought that maybe a therapist just would not understand my situation. For everybody, it's just so unique and personal.

Well, that's the thing. Your story is unique and it's not. Exactly. Because you're just a human who's scared. Exactly. It's like we think we're so unique, and you are objectively unique, but also you're not.

Fundamentally, the things you're struggling with are the things that- You're afraid to smile at times.

We're really doing all day long.

We'll see my exams. Yeah. I was really nervous about my exams. I was nervous about life after I graduate. I was nervous about her decision whether to get married or not when I was seeing us. So there was a lot on my mind. From the flashbacks to the time when I started getting therapy, we're still a few months in between. My friends noticed that I wasn't being myself anymore. One of my friends then suggested that I see a therapist. I was like, They won't get it. But she said, Give it a try because a lot of college students do that she herself is seeing a therapist. That gave me a little comfort that I'm not the only one. The first time I went to see that therapist, Evelyn. I told her everything. I said, Okay, and now prescribe. What do I need to take? I like, fix it. Tell me when I got it wrong this time. I just wanted it all to go away, and I wanted myself to be the person who I was before the BONG incident and the flashbacks. I came to this understanding that you're never going to be the same person as you were.

Everything has changed, the way you think, the way you feel. Everything has changed. You have to acknowledge that, and you have to coexist with it.

And your therapist is like, You have PTSD. And you're like, What is that? People say they get PTSD for the line was too long. Exactly. It's been so overused.

I got PTSD seven years after. It's insane. Anybody would bring up this topic. And I was like, not me.

But you started having panic attacks.

Yes.

There's a lot going on. You move in with your friends. That's a little different.

She diagnosed me with anxiety and panic attacks. We had many sessions together. She told me to understand my emotions a bit, write it down, breathing techniques. Then she helped me separate emotions and thoughts and feelings from actions. And sometimes you are in this spiral of thoughts and you feel so helpless or you feel frightened from nothing. You're like, why am I scared? I can stand up to the scariest people who try to silence. And at the same I'm scared.

And then you're mad at yourself because you're weak in that domain. And then you're ashamed of yourself. And that's its own fucking thing now we do. We're so cruel to ourselves sometimes.

I know. And it was just so hard to go through it. But now I still get therapy. These panic attacks and flashbacks have happened a few more times after that. I'm doing well now, but I just don't know what's going to happen in the future. The transition, the changes, just seeing new things. But at least I know that I will always ask for help.

Yes. I also have anxiety and panic. For me now, if it starts to happen, it is actually a sign now that something else is going on because you're just going through life and then all of a sudden you're in a Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. And it's actually helpful to say, Oh, I'm having a panic attack. That means I need to deal with something. Something's going on. Yes, go talk to your therapist. It can be a good indicator if you know what it is.

This is what my therapist told me. There's a window of tolerance for each of us, and that can change throughout our lives. I kept questioning her that I stood up to so many challenging, difficult things in my life. Why am I scared now when this is not scary, but I'm somehow really scared?

You're fighting a lion, but you're afraid of a mouse.

And she said that the window of tolerance that we have can shrink in. It can grow bigger at times. Right now, you might be overwhelmed with everything that is happening. You might be just scared about what life would look like for you after college or or whether you should get married or not.

You're dating a sir, and it's a secret. You're not allowed to be doing that.

Yeah, that's a lot. And the work pressure exams, all of these things. Maybe that window of tolerance has gotten a bit smaller, but it's okay because your body is giving you these signs. You are very right. It's a sign telling us something about how we are coping with the stress. Yeah.

And maybe I need to be a little bit gentler with myself right now.

There's something to look at. Yeah, there's something to investigate. There's something here. Now, the one thing that's going great in your life at this point is still a sir. Yes. This boy, I like him so much. The taxi sends. The way she does this British Vogue interview, and she discusses her thoughts on marriage and some other things. And it causes, yet again, one of these insane out cries. And her own parents are freaked out. You got to know, correct this statement.

I did the British Vogue cover seven, eight months before our marriage. We did not know we were going to get married, but it was the same year. The Vogue piece came out and it received this backlash and it became another controversy because I was asked by the interviewer, what do I think about marriage? And at the time, I was so stressed about this marriage decision. I was seeing Assa and I was confused. Should I get married? What about the system of patriarchy? And am I giving up to it? And what about the millions of girls who are forced into marriages? Am I losing something? Am I making more compromises?

Marriage has been an instrument of oppression. Let's just say that.

Exactly.

You've been fighting actively against that. I know.

And it's not that I was either against it or prove it, but I was questioning it. So I said something like, I don't know why people have to get married. Why can't it just be like a partnership or just an agreement or friendship or something like this? My comments don't even make sense to me now. I'm like, what was I saying? It makes sense.

What makes sense to me because that's what you were experiencing with this, sir. You're like, I'm in something that's great, and I can't say that.

It also sounds like a fine thing to think.

Yeah. And I think we should be out to be confused and question these things. But people were like, oh, she's now promoting girls not to get married. And she's against this Islamic religious ceremony around marriage, which is called Nicca. And this whole thing that Malala is now promoting, anti-marriage culture. And I was like, wait, what?

Oh my gosh.

And the parents, this one, I felt very protective of you. I was like, I don't want to be in this house right now. Because initially they saw it and they were so proud of this thing. And then the backlash happened and they succumbed to it and they want her to make a statement. And then it serves like, Do you want me to talk to him?

To your parents?

What a stud.

You know, in that moment, you know, I think he's the one. Yeah.

We're here to protect. We don't offer a lot, but we should be protecting you.

And I knew he was the right one because he stood up to that patriarchal narrative, that misogynistic narrative.

He's like, You look beautiful, and it's a great article. And let me remind your parents that they loved it, too, 2 hours ago.

I love him.

I love him. There's some text, Monica, that'll make you ball your eyes out.

In therapy, I've talked a lot about this, where I just want someone who just has my back regardless. And it's really hard to find because also people are their own people and no one needs to have your back regardless. That's asking a lot. But in moments where people show up for you like that, it is so meaningful. I love that you have that.

So then Malala right after is like, let's take trip. Because he's also living in Pakistan. He's got his dream job working for a cricket organization. So you guys take this lovely trip to Lake Placid.

It was a long distance. It was still the COVID travel restrictions, and we somehow managed to make it to Lake Placid in the US. And it was just the two of us. So it was a time where we were not thinking about anything else. Family, culture, all of these things. It's just, what do I want? How do I feel?

And you're supposed to have a talk.

I know I had prepared a long list of questions that I'm going ask him everything. Does he have any problem with a woman earning more money or not? Would he feel insecure about what I do or he has to adjust to my schedule?

Are you going to feel emasculated by joining me? Yeah. Exactly.

He feel insecure and all of that.

Because I ain't got time for it.

I know. Well, does he truly, truly love me or not? I'm so worried. Anyway, we are in Lake Placet. It's a beautiful place. We are exploring different things, doing a yoga session and then watching birds and walking and hiking. And then we consider We start canoeing as well.

Again, can't swim.

Okay. I need you to see. Because I'm getting in both. I know.

We start canoeing and the waves were really strong. We are trying to head back to the hotel. This is Monica's nightmare. But the waves are taking us in a different direction. And before we know it, we're quite far away, and we're both panicking now. We see this house, and then we stop by the dog. But then they have three, four big dogs, and they were barking at us. Now I'm okay, but at the time, I was really scared of dogs as well. That's okay.

That's reasonable.

The house owner shows up and she's like, I'm going to help you. This happens all the time. And then she drives us back to the hotel.

Well, let me just add. She's a rascal. She's a procrastinator. She's gone on this trip to have this talk, and they go the entire trip, and he keeps wanting to talk, and she's like, No, later, later, later, later. Because you're having fun.

You don't want to bring it down. He's like, So what did you want to ask? I'm like, Oh, this yoga session That's going to be so cool. Let's do that. He's like, Okay, are you ready to talk now? No, no, no. Let's go canoeing. Yeah. Okay, are you ready now? No, let's play card games or something. So this was the last day of the trip.

Five minutes before you get picked up.

And he's like, Are we ready to talk? I was like, I think I'm ready. And he said, To talk? I said, No. I think I'm ready to get married. To be with you.

Oh, how sweet. What did he say?

He was very happy.

I love this story.

I love it because you had such an idea of where your life was going to go and what you could have and what you couldn't have. And you got to have it all.

Yeah. And then we got married like six months after November 2021.

That's another said piece that's in the book. Everyone should read it. It's more mom stuff.

Me and my mom fight all the time.

You know, moms and daughters, we do it.

She needs to read. I have a copy. The book? I'm going to send with it.

Yeah. What is it called? Oh, Let Them. It's up there.

Do you know about Let Them? Yeah.

No, I've come across it. Yes.

Oh, your mom needs this book. You need to give your mom this book. No. No?

So we don't know my mom and my dad's actual, actual birthday. But I asked my mom if she has heard anything about her birthday from her family members. And she said it was Ramadan time around 1969 to '71. So I looked those years up on Google, looked up Ramadan time, which is based on lunar calendar I remember. It was around October, November. My mom is a Scorpio.

Does that explain a lot?

Yes. Okay. I love Scorpios. I mean, my mom is a Scorpios, but you can imagine, you cannot argue with her. She's always right.

You want her to read Let Them? Malala is already letting them.

She doesn't need to read it.

Well, exactly.

So we can just- But her mother is suffering out of her fear of what people think of her and her family and her friends. She's actually suffering, and I have compassion for her. She really needs some tools to let go of what everyone else thinks.

Yes, but also you can just be like, that's her.

It's hard to unlearnt if you have experienced something for decades and you have seen the consequences of what women and girls have to go through.

I have tons of compassion for her and no judgment. And because that, and I don't dislike her, I think she deserves a relief. And I think there's techniques to get relief. This is my last question. Have your parents read the book?

No. They haven't. They have not.

Are you sure they haven't? If my daughter writes a book, even if I say I'm not going to, I'm going to.

I actually chose not to share this book with my parents. Yeah, that's fair. This book has not been shared with anybody, friends, family members, brothers. My parents are very supportive right now. I'm sure we'll have some disagreements or something. They'll be like, did you really need to talk about this? Did you really need to bring this up? We'll talk through it. I know. I decided not to share this book with my parents because I wanted it to reflect my feelings and my emotions.

Without having to think about theirs.

I think this is you claiming your autonomy. I think you're very immersed with your family and your parents. And I think that this book is a declaration of, no, I'm going to be a full person now. I'm not just going to be the person at the UN. You're going to have to accept I'm multifaceted and I'm a full person, and this is it.

And that's brave.

And I hope liberating for you.

It's really hard to experience these different human emotions because sometimes you feel weaker and more vulnerable. When I fell in love, I felt more vulnerable. Oh, yeah. Emotionally, I was like, oh, love can make you feel so weak. Eew. I felt broken and so vulnerable when I had flashbacks and panic attacks. It was like, I'm failing. And now I'm more open to accepting emotions, and I am embracing them as part of my growth. I do not believe in this old version of me who You felt that there's only one emotion, and that is just being strong, staying so firm in what you believe in. But that means you cannot cry, you cannot feel weak in any way, you cannot be heartbroken. All of those emotions are not you. You're only just supposed to be strong. But now I'm like, true bravery is when you go through the lowest and you still stand up and do what you believe in. That's true bravery. That is true courage. To anybody out there who might feel that they are failing themselves or if they have any doubt, just know that for as long as you keep your work going, you are brave, you are courageous.

Yes.

Finding my way. I really hope everyone reads it. It's so fun and cute. Like I said, it's like a complete departure from the other side we already know. And it's so human and relatable and just really well written. And it's wonderful. So I want everyone to check out Finding My Way. And Malala, I hope we get to do this again. Yes, come on. This was so fun.

This was so much fun. I really enjoyed it. Oh, good. Stay tuned for the fact check. It's where the party's at. Hello.

Hello.

Did you use that towel? Yeah, I did. Your hair towel? Yeah, I did. You did. Yeah, you can tell. It's crazy you don't use the hair towel every single night because every time you use the hair towel, you get a compliment on Thank you.

I know, but I can only use it on wet hair, and I only wash my hair once.

Once a month. How often do you wash your hair? Once a week. Once a week. Yeah, it's a lot of hair. It's a big job.

It's a big job. Expensive.

Probably got to use a lot of shampoo.

Yeah, and it gets dry. It's not good for me to overwash it. It gets dry.

Yeah, it was right.

Brittle. Brittle bones. I do need a haircut really badly.

Osteoheresis.

But one thing about the towel that's interesting is when I use it, my hair gets a little... It's very naturally curly. It's hitting its natural skin.

Don't bribe, but yeah, just tread lightly. Yeah.

Well, no, people like straight hair.

Well, that's the funny thing.

Exactly. You like grass is always green. Always. But when my hair is curly, if I brush it, it gets poofy. So I haven't been brushing my hair lately at all.

And do you get... You're so blessed your hair, right? Because you don't get knots.

I do sometimes get knots, and I just love it.

Sometimes you say. Now, when I have long hair, and I'm talking only a little bit past my shoulders. Yeah. Every night, it would get a dreadlock in it when I slap.

Oh, yeah. I don't have that. Yeah.

I had to really every morning with fucking a conditioner and a comb, get knots out.

Because you have fine hair.

Thin.

We call that fine hair. We call that fine hair.

Fine hair, yeah.

Beautiful fine hair. Okay, so Yesterday, I went to a restaurant, and next to it was a bar that was playing the Dodgers. It's in the area by Dodgers Stadium, so a lot of people go to watch the game. Sure.

Not the Shortstop?

No, it's called- Little Joy?

Yes. Wingstop? You were at Quarter Sheets?

Yes. Okay. Good job. Rob put it all together. Little Joy. Really cute. Anyway, they sell these chips, voodoo chips, that are really yummy. In best case scenario, we go there, we have voodoo chips.

What are voodoo chips?

Tortilla chips? No, they're potato chips, but they have... Let me see how they're described. They're so good. Zapp's Kettle potato chips Voodoo. Sweet, spicy, and tangy flavor, known as people chips.

New Orleans. New Orleans Kettle style voodoo.

They're so good.

I'm intrigued.

Oh, I'll get you some. They're really good.

Okay.

They sell them there. So you have a little voodoo, and then you go over to Quarter Sheets, really good pizza place. Now, we were watching the game, and then we went over to Quarter Sheets, and when we were leaving- Can I ask who we is?

You and Jess? Yes.

Okay. I just look on the website for the next reservation, and I just book it because it's really hard to get in there.

For the pizza joint? Yeah. You wouldn't have noticed, probably. But do they have a gluten-free cross by chance? I mean, it's LA.

They should.

They must. I don't think they do a lot of modifications. Good for them if they... Also, if they don't, good for you guys. Don't accommodate us. Like, make your real thing and don't fucking accommodate.

Yeah, because they only have a certain amount. Okay. It's not like a huge- It's not like a huge scarcity. It's not like a huge- Scarcity. So good, though.

Yeah, and you love it because of the scarcity.

Because limited edition. Anyway, we went. We had a great time. I have a couple alter egos.

That you make reses with?

No. They just appear. Like, Sonica is an alter ego. She drinks a lot of water.

Interesting. Yeah. Because she's in the sauna so often?

Oh, wow. No. She just is thirsty. Every now and then, if Sonny takes over, and then I'm just drinking a lot of water. Okay. Then it's like, Oh, Sonny's here. You know? Yeah. Then there's another one named Flani, and she's feisty. She's loopy and quirky.

Slapsticky.

Yeah, exactly. Purvy? Sure, but I think they're all purvy. Okay, great. Including Monica. Okay. Something I was like, it was like that movie Split. Like, Flawnie came, Sani came. I was there.

It was a carousel of characters.

It was a big night. Then we left, and we were walking back by Little Joy, and it's open. We peaked to see how we were doing, and it was 6: 1. We were not winning. We were all like, Oh, God, that's bad. Then this guy was standing on the street, and he was like, Yeah, you saw it? Those guys got run over?

What?

I know. We were like, What? He said, Yeah, the two people just got run over up there. It It was so... It was definitely... Oh, it's a ding, ding, ding to an upcoming episode. There's an expert we have on morbid curiosity.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

It was a real... It was such a ding, ding, ding because he was like, Out there, and you could tell he was scared talking about it. He was like, They got run over. I think they were homeless, but I don't know. They screamed, and then Jess was like, Oh, I don't want to hear anymore. They screamed like homeless people. No, he kept saying they were homeless. Sure. It was an interesting piece of it because I could tell he was saying it so that he felt better about it, I think.

Yeah.

And he was like, they ran out in front. But, yeah, he was just processing it. Yes. This feels we did not want to hear it.

This is very similar to if a stray dog got hit by a car or someone's family pet. I think that's what's happening. You're trying to comfort yourself. And so you're like, but they were homeless, meaning they're running around and they're already crazy. Somehow- Yeah.

Somehow it's better.

It's not the big threat to the world because these people are already living on the fringes and doing wild stuff. Right. But I don't even think you know you're doing that, but you're trying to go like, well, I shouldn't feel so afraid because it's not a normal person. It was a homeless person.

Yeah, in quotes. Yes. 100 %. Yes. It's I would never be in that position because that's a different type of person.

Like, if a guy got hit by a car and you were like, he was a drug addict. There's something about it. He's like, slumped over.

He was on drugs. That's why it happened.

Yes. And there's more culpability.

I know. But it's all made up. We're all making it all up in our heads.

A human died, and it's the same thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so- Although we don't even know if they died.

Yeah, that's what I said. I said, well, maybe they're okay because our friend Eric got hit by a car and he was okay. Way. Yeah. I mean, he's- Who knows what he was like before.

We met him post-tax. He got blasted by a taxi cab. Yeah. In New York. But again, no. But what's funny is it's like it was Eric and you go, Oh, it was definitely his fault. Because he He was so absent-minded. He was probably looking at his phone. But if someone's really alert and they get hit, you're like, Oh, no, then that could happen to me.

Yeah, I know. And the truth is everything could happen to all of us.

Anyone could get hit by a car.

Yeah. Jess said something interesting. He was like, Yeah, it also goes from if you hit someone, a person that's just walking across the street, if you hit them, you're a murderer. And if it's this homeless person who jumps out in front of you or you have- It's a bit of the collateral catastrophe that is homelessness in LA.

Right. It's like a part of a bigger problem. Yeah.

We really We categorize things to make ourselves feel better. Anyway, so that was a crazy thing that happened. And I don't- But you didn't really get many details other than the people were potentially homeless. Screaming and potentially homeless.

Ambulance come and take them away?

Yeah, a lot. There were so many police cars.

Okay, rescue.

Yeah. But I'm really glad I didn't see it because that is the type of thing that is like that lady in the mall who had to get out of the wheelchair or the husband had to get out of the wheelchair and the lady had to get in the wheelchair, and it was the whole commotion. I was really upset about that for the rest of my life. I think this would have made a similar Mark. Yeah. So I have to say I'm glad I did not see it.

Well, what I'm hearing, which sounds like good news, is you are more affected by that than the loss, the World Series loss.

I was.

Yeah, that's good. I think that speaks well to your character.

It also is so human. He's a stranger, this person. He's a stranger on the street, and he really wants to connect over this bad thing that happened. Yeah. It's really interesting.

Well, he's alone in this, and he needs a little connection.

Yeah. Oh, man.

Yeah. I have such a warp. So again, we're talking so much about this expert, but this morbid curiosity topic, which is great. And there's categories. This person broke it into four categories of different curiosities you could have. But one is violence. Now, one is my great curiosity. But as we were going through some of these things, and I was like, I just don't even get scared. I don't have any emotion during a scary movie. I'm really desensitized. I could see that people get hit by a car, and I would be fine. I could walk over and get involved. It wouldn't... I don't know. I want to know if it was born that way. I want to know if it's nature or nurture.

I mean, probably some combo. Probably both. Yeah. But probably more nurture, I would say for that.

Well, this guy was saying, when you show people pictures of violence, there's these different levels of which if it's like, if it's a two guys high-fiving and you're seeing a photo, you'll first notice that they have contact with one another. So your eyes go to the high-five, but then your eyes go immediately to their faces. Whereas if it's If it's a punch to the stomach, your eyes will go to that violence and it won't come away. But then if you see it on the street, you don't want to look or you're repelled by it. I only have the attracted to It's the private part.

I think that's nurture, probably because you're around violence, but also you have a need to help. So you're not going to be like, I got to turn away. You want to go towards it to see what you can do.

Yeah. So that would be a good reason. And I'm not even willing to give myself that pat on the back. Even more like when Nate and I were in Afghanistan, in the base we were at got bombed and everyone was running in a very specific direction. They were running to all of the bomb bunkers, which were all around the base. And I was fighting this huge to run from where everyone was coming, run towards where everyone was running away from. And knowing that I'm a guest here and we have this liaison, and I start moving and he's like, No, wait, where are you going? I'm like, I have to see what they're running from.

Oh, interesting.

It's like, I need to see what the threat is or the degree of it before I can possibly feel calm. I got to first know what we're up against.

Oh, that's interesting.

But, yeah, I just want to run at everything. That's not good. It's not a good instinct. Yeah.

No. I mean, I do think something like this, like someone getting hit by a car and you going towards that is nice. I sometimes feel like I'm really bad because I don't want to go help.

You want to pretend it's not happening.

Yeah. Sometimes I'm in my bed and I think I might have heard an accident. And I should go out to see. And I struggle with this. I'm like, What should I do?

You should feel guiltful because there's so many people like me in the world.

I know. But what if they're not around?

I more have that when I see something and I'm like, the cops aren't there yet. And I'm like, do I call 911? I'm like, I'm sure someone... That's the time where I'm like, I'm sure someone else did.

Yes. Calling 911. It's a big hindrance for me. I don't want to do it. And I assume someone else is to do it. But if everyone assumes- But didn't you call 911 once for absolutely nothing? No, it wasn't nothing. It was important. And then they weren't picking up.

Okay.

There was some guy lurking around our apartment.

Okay. That's worthy of a 911. It was worthy. Yeah.

They just kept ringing.

They never picked up. No. That's interesting.

It's not good.

We've heard that on Armchair Anonymous. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare. Now, back to... I do think this upcoming episode is going to be one of these ones where it's like, I think about a lot, or I start noticing, I think it really... Yes. Because it happened immediately. We interviewed this person yesterday, and then I'm laying in bed with Lincoln last night, and we're talking about... I don't even know what we're talking about, but she just tells me. Yeah, she's like, I I spend a lot of time when I'm in my room by myself planning out scenarios where there's an intruder and they get into my room. Yes. I have a couple different plans. I have this one toy I think would make a great weapon, and And so it's like, I have one version where I'm going to go grab that. I forget how she determined when that's the option. And then another one is she goes onto her balcony and then hangs over the side and drops down. Yeah. And then runs to here. She's decided she's decided. She's running into the studio and locking the doors, but screaming the whole time, hoping we'll wake up.

And then buying some time. What about Delta? But I'm like, Why not just run all the way? Run out the house, run to TTs?

No, because you have to... Oh, you mean keep going?

She's going to get a distance, but she's going to stay on the property. She also has this inclination to make sure everything were alerted. She doesn't want to abandon the whole situation, but she wants to build a buffer. But anyway, she's telling me this whole thing, and it was just completely random that she said this. And then I was thinking, I wonder if I hear this all the time, but I wasn't thinking of it because we hadn't done that episode. But I was like, Oh, honey, that's this great gift of humans. We can model out the potential threats we have, and we can have game plans without ever having experienced it. And now, whether you'll be able to execute this game plan or not, you at least have a game plan, and you have a couple.

I had so many game plans. You did. First and foremost, you get under the bed, but then Spider-Man. You're not under, you are flush with the- You're holding yourself up like a cockroach. The top of the bottom of the bed. Yeah. Yeah. You know, hair is a little bit of an issue there.

So you got to put up a pony. Do a bond.

Then you got to flap it so that it's also flush.

Get your towel. Get your nighttime towel.

Yeah, that was my plan when I was a kid.

But my guess is you never tried that because I don't think you could have done it.

I didn't try it.

You're not a spider monkey.

But I felt like in a scenario like that- Life or death. Yeah, I could do it.

I think some of us rely a little too much. We're going to get a big bump once the adrenaline hits. We'll know kung fu as soon as that adrenaline spike.

Yeah. I also remember in school, we'd be doing fire safety week or something. They would tell you, have a game plan, have an escape route at your house, have a plan. I told my parents, we need to come up with a plan, and they said no. Oh. They had no interest.

They were not going to play that.

They thought it was a silly waste of time.

Now, if we believe there's any power in manifesting, which we do.

Yeah, we do.

I was listening to your first episode of Best Dead.

Oh, thank you.

And they're reading for people who haven't listened to it yet. You're going through your history, which was you were a fan of their show, and then you had written them emails. Yes. And then they had access to those emails.

Yeah, it was so embarrassing.

Were you prepared for them to that quickly be able to produce these emails from 10 years ago? No.

He just did a little quick search.

A little search.

It was so easy to pull up. It was so embarrassing.

But you say out loud on there, I hope I'm a guest on your show one day.

I know. Isn't that wild?

Yeah. And I'm like, I'm caught in the same spot you are, right? I'm thinking if I was reading, if this was all happening to me, I'd have the same embarrassment you have. And then I have some judgment of people who are forward.

You do?

Yeah. When people hand people scripts in restaurants and stuff, I'm like, no, that's not how you do it. Sure. That's not how you do it. You go through the channels like everyone else There's no shortcut. But then I hear this story, and I'm like, well, then also that's true. You ended up on their show. And them on yours.

I did. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's It's funny that that's your takeaway, and I do think it's so specific to who you are.

You know I hate asking people for stuff, my own hangups. Yes.

Because Anna and I were talking about this. She listened and she heard that part, and she texted me and said, I almost started crying when I heard that email. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was like, It was so sweet, and you're just such a go getter.

Oh, yeah. I thought that, too. And I was like- And I was sending emails.

Which, and then it was a weird sim because earlier that day, Jess and I were talking about hustlers, and is that learned or is that who you are? Is that like a nature or nurture, basically? And we were talking about the group, our group of friends, and who is one and who isn't one. And he was like, You are one. And I was like, I am. I am. I think that's right. And then this was a weird confirmation. Yeah.

I think being a hustler is as cool as it gets. I think that's one of the... That's a descriptor of me. I'd love to have someone say.

I think it's just like, I don't... That's the only option. I think that's the only option of getting anywhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wait, waiting around. That is just not going to happen. I think there are very specific lines that I feel I know not to cross. That are just in my gut.

The ones you decided. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They happen to be other people's lines. That's all life is. You run into someone and that to them is also the line and it jives. Yeah. And there is- Because there isn't a right or wrong line.

No, there's no right or wrong. It depends on who you're talking to, who you're connecting with. And I do think there's a... For me, I do think I also have a level of self-awareness and awareness of others, a heightened awareness of others. So I'm like, that person This person probably is a no, this person is a yes. But even with writing the letter to Jen-Ann, that is just like, I'm going for it. Because why not?

I have other domains of I'm going for it, but just reaching out and asking is so hard for me. Yeah, I know. I'm doing it more and more and more.

Yeah. I don't know. I have to say I just I don't have a problem asking.

Yeah.

It's a good quality. Because I can just say no. But anywho, how are you?

How are you? Manifest. Manifest, yeah. So you manifested that whole relationship. Right. It's in writing. A full circle. Yeah, it's in writing.

Yeah. I manifested a lot of relationships.

And I was just like, and you explicitly stated, but while I'm listening to her response to you, I'm like, well, no doubt she's going to end up in a murky situation.

Oh.

Elizabeth. Yeah. And by the way, these are my favorite people. No boundaries. Yeah. Her third response is to you is like, will you marry me? And I'm like, yeah, this is like, I'm so much like her.

No, I think you are boundaried. You're good at that.

Yeah. Maybe more the BDP. I I fall for people. I love people pretty quickly.

Sure.

Which lacks some boundaries. Sure. Yeah.

But you would not have found yourself in the situation she ended up finding herself.

That's true. But it's all right there in the intro of this innocuous, inane backstory. And you're like, well, of course, Elizabeth is going to end up in some murky.

In a situation.

Yeah. There's a lot of things being examined. The whole thing, a ton. I applaud her honesty and lack of any... She's just very honest about it. You're like, Did your ego like getting these letters? She's like, Yes, loved it.

It's the most complicated journey for her, definitely, by far, of the three of us. She does have to confront a lot of personal things and personal behaviors throughout because it's about parasocial relationships, but both ways.

Yeah.

It's a tricky world.

It is. It is. It's a tricky world. I just was on a hike with my brother, Peter Krauza. Oh. And Larry Trelling, our father, our directing father. It was the sweetest hike a couple of days ago. And yeah, we were talking about... Between the three of us, we've all been close enough to several people who have gone to the absolute top of the Status Mountain. And it was our conclusion that even the level Peter and I have is a lot to manage successfully and to not become a narciss and an asshole and all this stuff.

Yeah, it's slippery.

And obviously, Peter and I have only experienced really a 25th of what's out there And we all concluded that we certainly know a lot fewer people that manage that successfully than we do. Successfully, it's such an abnormal experience for a human designed to know 100 people to have tens of millions of people love them.

It's unnatural.

And good luck. And I'm not judgmental of anybody who doesn't manage that well because it's so bizarre.

Yeah, I know.

And confusing, I think. And ultimately, ironically, lonely. I think that's where all these... Most of these cases lead to really a lot of isolation and loneliness, which is the opposite of what your fantasy was.

I know. And I also think it gets confusing. Who you're servicing in life gets confusing and who your close people are versus who is everyone. I do think it's lonely and scary and hard to manage.

The thing I can relate to a lot is I think for many people, it's like they don't enjoy it and they're afraid it's going to go away, which is the weirdest mental space to be in.

Because it feels like you've lost something. You've lost something. That you've lost, but then it doesn't feel like love when you're engaged in it.

No. It seems to be the outcome of the goal you set. It's like, well, if that goes away, then the thing I was chasing, I must also say goodbye to. Yeah, I guess. My hat's off to the few that have, are somehow completely normal after that bizarre human experience.

Yeah, really strange.

But there are few and far between.

People who have handled it well are the most evolved people on Earth because you have to do the hardest thing, which is really fundamentally understand And that what anyone else says about you doesn't matter.

And choose to chase the validation that's hard to get and not the one that's right there and easy to consume. It's almost like junk food versus protein. It's like the real self esteem comes from the service and the being available to others and making yourself suffer. Basically, anything you don't want to do is going to lead to self esteem.

The human parts, not the celebrity parts or famous parts or those things. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's like you have this at all times you're at a salad bar, and there's a humongous dessert bar, and then there's a little bowl of broccoli. And for the few people that can just Pick that broccoli. It's hard. I think a lot of it has to do, too, with how grounding of a relationship you're in and how equal-footed the relationship is. I think that can help people not get too untethered. A person I can say who's completely fucking normal and as famous as it gets is Kimmel.

Yeah.

Somehow, Kimmel is a completely normal dude. He's the same dude I met 21 years ago. My hunch is he was the same then as he was 21 years before that. Right. And the things that are obvious to me in his life is that he's completely surrounded by his family at all times. Yeah. He is not at all distance himself from his family. They all work with him. They're all everywhere. They're with him.

Yeah. He's so loyal.

And a lot of his focus is endlessly on his hobbies, getting people present. So he's just endlessly thinking about or noticing someone like this and having something special made. It was like his hobby is something not self-focused. Yeah. And then the family's around all the time. And then his wife's a gangster and not going to be out leveraged or out talked. Yeah. He should write a book, How to be a successful A-list.

He really should. That's why that Best Boy Award, not very many people get it.

It's an exclusive.

It's pretty rare.

It's an exclusive. Pretty rare. Pretty rare. Have you tried Capital Grill yet?

No. Is it good? You should try.

I want to go there. I took my mom and Dan there yesterday for lunch. Is it Beverly Hills? No, it's right next to Warner Brothers. Oh. Yeah. So it's very close. What'd you get? And they're not popular yet. So you can just go in there, which is not going to last long.

Not Probably not now.

Probably not now, but I also want them to stay in business because I love it.

It's a steakhouse.

Yes. It's very Houston's adjacent.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. They go like an artichoke and really fresh vegetables and the tomatoes are outrageous. The meat's incredible. I just discovered it maybe a month and a half ago, and I've been four times now.

What do you get? What's your order?

The lamb chops. Oh, wow. Yeah. They've got an incredible French onion soup.

We love French onion soup.

Croc or cup. Croc Rock. Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Beautiful salad, the artichokes. It's great.

It's really good. Sounds like it probably has a good martini.

Karen fucking teed. The bar is 29 feet. It's longer than that. Oh, my God. Bar is probably 50 feet long.

I want to go. Maybe I'll go now.

She I'm going there and get shit face in the middle of the afternoon. It looks like a great place to- That sounds really nice.

Yeah. I'm going to Houston's tonight- You are? With Elizabeth and Andy because- To celebrate? We launched today, and then that's where we decided to make it.

At Houston. So it's a full circle. Okay, great.

All right, shall we do some facts?

Yeah, let's do some facts.

Okay, some facts from Malala. Not very many facts. Not very fact-heavy.

Yeah, what are you going to say? She didn't feel lonely?

Well, I did look that up. Okay. No. Okay. So her friend was telling her how to drink tea properly.

Yeah. Not hit the sides of the cup. Yeah.

And you joked that she should have been like, Bitch, we invented tea.

Yeah. And I also remember you having a moment in your life where you learned how to do tea.

Did I?

Maybe. I heard the whole don't hit the sides thing, and it wasn't from Aaron Weekly. It was either you or Kristen.

It was probably Kristen. Okay. Maybe when she had lunch with the queen.

She never had lunch with the queen.

In her dream.

Maybe, yeah. I mean, there was a phase. Tea phases are fun.

I love tea. I drink tea every morning.

You start pedestrian style. You get the bag. Dip, dip, dip. Lips to nice tea. Everyone's done it. Sure. Classic. And you can graduate to raw tea and then the little steel basket.

Yeah, the steeping in the basket.

And we were doing that for a minute. I was really into English breakfast tea for a while. Yes, that's my tea. You know why I stopped? Why? Vanity. What do you mean? It's, I think, the highest on the teeth-staining spectrum.

Oh, my God. How are my teeth?

They're still white as fuck. But you were blessed. You've got straight Big white teeth.

No, I didn't know that. That's very scary. I've been drinking it. I drink it every morning.

You better brush right after. I brushed before. Oh, no. You got to change the order. Really? Yeah. You should look up the list. There's between coffee, wine. But tea is like, tea will get you, girl. Oh, shit. Have you ever noticed people drink tea? It stains the cup. Coffee never stains the cup.

But do you think maybe mine's not as bad because I put a little milk in there.

I drink it like the England. No, it's probably just put that sugar. So you're just adding an adhesive to the dye.

No, I don't add sugar, just milk. You're saying the sugar's in the milk?

Yeah, the lactose is sugar.

Okay, but it makes the color much more diluted.

Sure.

It's like a very light- It's like this very light thing.

Well, just imagine, great. If your teeth were the color of your tea after you put milk in it, would you be happy with that?

No, but I also been doing this for five years. I don't... And it's so far so good.

Do you think they'll ever learn to tattoo teeth? Do you think people ever reject white teeth? Because white teeth, we're all so drawn to white teeth. I guess it looks clean. It looks healthy. It's clearly some evolutionary signal we're getting that we all are universally like, we'd prefer the teeth white. Yes, that's so true. You can't see it's just like, oh, marketing got you. That's not it.

You're right. It's like an indicator that your body is healthy. Yes.

It's like the YTS of your eyes.

Right. How are mine?

Always great. I'm envious. I have But I have to add drops.

Oh, yeah. That's because you don't sleep well, so you- I'm an allergy machine.

I constantly got something.

Yeah, but your teeth are white.

Well, I brushed the shit out of them, and I did stop drinking tea, specifically because I- Shit.

That sucks.

I don't want to drive down the tea market. Me either. I hope it thrives.

I mean, that's you are a negative, and I'm a positive, so that evens out.

Okay, so it's neutral. Yeah. But I do think you should look it up.

I don't want to do that. What if you start noticing people's teeth are brownish? I guess you should just be like, Do you drink a lot of tea?

You just go like, Oh, cool. I love Inky Brecky, too. We should have a glass. What? How do you know I like Inge Brusty? Because your color of a fucking bottom of a lake in the fall.

Oh, man. Okay. Wow. Do I brush my teeth before? You should do it after. I think it depends on the day.

Yeah, in your time schedule. Exactly.

I guess I should do it before and after. Although I actually- No. I know. I don't like drinking something right after I brush my teeth because like, toothpaste taste.

It funks it up.

But I also do fundamentally not want to put anything in my body until my teeth are clean.

So you know what I do? Maybe this... So I wake up and I brew my coffee. It sits next to me while I meditate, as you already know. But before I'm done meditating, I'm like, Okay, I get to have coffee. But first, I take a big sip of really clean, fresh water. Right. I even just a little bit... I want a nice clean palate for this coffee I'm about to receive. Okay. So maybe just have a nice heavy glass of mouthful of fresh. It's got to be fresh good water.

Like Tahoe.

Tahoeartisan. Com. Shut up.

The issue is I don't want what's in my mouth down my gullet.

That's crazy.

It came from your gullet. But yeah, now it needs to come out. Okay. It needs to be clean. The germs needs to go away.

Okay, here's my pitch. Okay. I have a spatoon that I ended up getting for Christmas the year I quit dipping. It's a bummer. It breaks my heart. I know. Get a spatoon like the one I have.

Okay.

Big, fresh, clean mouthful of water.

Gargle.

Spit it in your spatoon. Okay. Then consume your tea. Then brush your teeth. Okay. I'll Instead of- It's a lot of stuff to have this tea. It is a lot of stuff. Or switch to coffee.

I'll think about it. Okay. But Bitch, We Invented Tea. Actually, technically, China is the country that invented tea.

I'm not shocked, but wasn't the Indian spice trade also tea and spice or no?

I mean, the tea- The English went down to India and they wanted shit.

They wanted the spices, and I thought the tea. Me, too. Darjeeling tea?

Yeah. I don't know- Enough about the history of tea. I don't, except it is saying here China. But the issue is, I do think you're right. We think tea is very Indian, but I actually think it's British.

Okay, you know what? This is an old fact I've said in the past, and you're not going to believe this.

Okay.

Well, this is so fascinating. Do you know how many different kinds of tea there are? Oh, There's only one. You told me that. There is only one. That makes no sense. It's how you dry it, which turns it into English breakfast or green tea or anything. Green tea is really fresh. It's not been dried out a bunch, but it's all the same bush.

So the black tea versus the green tea versus chai?

Yeah, it's all the same. So what my guess is that the bush is probably originally from China, and they were probably doing green tea. And then the Indians got their hands on it, and they were like, Fuck, hold on. Let's drive this to high heaven and see what we get. Let's play with it. I think they must have invented the third one you said. Chai. Chai.

Well, chai. So this is one of those.

And chai means tea.

It means tea. I know. People like that.

So it's tea, tea. K, though. People are really mad when I say chai tea. They'll correct me.

No one needs to get mad about it, but it's also okay that it does mean tea.

Yeah, that's great.

It means tea. But chai has more spices. The Indian tea has more spices and stuff in it. Yes. My mom makes me tea when I'm home, and she always asks, Do you want the spices and stuff in it? Okay. I normally say, yes.

You know, in Italy, they say, Chai bello.

And Balissimo, as you learned. And Balissimo. Okay, yeah. So China- Well, good for them.

I did watch the history of tea on the history of channel, which is how I learned that it's all one bush. Oh, that's cool. And I wish I remembered why India is so connected to it.

Connected to it. Yeah, me too.

So there's two main varieties of the plant. One is in China and one is in India. But it gets the oxidation process that makes the tea's different.

Now, on Wikipedia, it has nothing.

Rwanda has gone all in on tea growing, and I stayed at a place that was in a tea plantation. Oh, cool. And they're gorgeous. The field of tea leaves is beautiful. It was very enchanted.

Do you think I should at my house do a tea bush?

Yeah, I do. If we have the climate to support that, which I think we might. I don't know if it's moist enough here, but...

I mean, according to My dad, it's the same as India.

Well, Santa Barbara is the same as India.

Yeah. Santa Barbara is the same. Okay, the movie Yes, Man, Yet. That was a year that he needed to say yes.

One whole year. Mm-hmm. Great concept.

Yeah, it is.

I liked that movie.

Okay. Famous Wunderkinds.

Oh, great.

Mozart. I thought it was a bug, but it was actually my mouse. That was embarrassing.

You're bringing up a really... You're about to do Wunderkinds, and I was in this really complicated dilemma. Delta was reading me a story she wrote. It's awesome. She wrote this five-page story about leaving Arizona to go to college in Cleveland. Oh. And her uncle's looking out for her and encourages her to plant in this empty lot where people grow things. Then her mom gets cancer, and she has to come back to Arizona. This is a great story. Oh, my God. The details are incredible. But there is a line that said, I was 19, and in my third year of college, and I was like, Oh, do I tell her she would have to be 16 when she entered? And people generally enter at 18. And was she a funderkin? I thought like, Oh, is she? Maybe I could ask gently like, Oh, is she a funderkin? And then I was Who gives a flying fuck?

Yeah, absolutely not.

Just enjoy that story. And I did.

Good.

The better angels of my nature prevailed. But as a parent, you're constantly like, Do I need to teach them this?

I know. I would also be struggling with that.

Yeah, I think I chose right. Definitely. Who the fuck cares? If it's an issue, I guess her teacher will say, Hey, PSU would have been...

Also, it's like we could just fill in our own gaps. I guess she's a Wunderkind.

She's a Wunderkind. Or maybe she did two years of community She was in college while she was going to high school and entered with the credit.

She just had a lot of credits.

Yeah. She was technically in her third year of college, even though it was her first year of university. I don't know. But I was just like, it took over for a minute.

My cousin's son, he started college when he was 15.

I don't think it's a good idea.

He's a Wunderkind.

These Wunderkinds never... I just read this terrible. There was a headline about this. There was a Wunderkind chess champion who just died at 29. He was like a chess grandmaster in his But I just was like, the whole Wunderkind thing is scary. It's, of course, scary. He's just like, I'm impossible to live up to.

It's really hard, and the pressure's too much because they're still a kid.

Yeah.

But he's giving up his career to run for City office, city council.

Who is?

My cousin's son. Oh, really? Yeah.

So it's panned out for him.

Yeah. I mean, he's running for the city of Redmond. Okay, Mozart, Marie Curie. I didn't know she was a wonder kid, but she was.

I didn't either. I thought she was old as hell when she... When she invent Penicillin?

She invented something. She's discovered- She's discovered- Something.

Yeah, I think-discovered antibiotics. God, I think I did-radioactivity. Oh. Pioneerian research on radioactivity, which created- Okay, so she's- I also thought maybe she did the Red Cross. No, I think that's- Fuck. What is the point of going to school? It's like a Joan of Arc name, I think. Okay, let's Who invented? It's obviously not Joan of Arc, but I think it's like- Clarissa Harlo Barton. Barton? Maybe she's really- I'm Dave Buttons.

Okay. Well, I don't know why anyone goes to school because I remember doing a report on Marie Curie.

Yeah.

And obviously, I remember nothing.

Me too. I think she invented Penicillin.

I think she invented the Red Cross.

I was thinking of Florence Who's Florence Nightingale? Who's Florence Nightingale?

She's a Joan of Arc type.

Isn't Florence Nightingale something about medicine and medical- English statistician. But the founder of Modern Nursing? There we go. Founder of modern nursing. Modern nursing.

Oh, my God. Okay, well, there's a lot of other... Picasso.

He was a Vondeca.

It says. It says that. Your favorite guy, von Neumann.

Oh, yeah. But he's the definition of a Vundercid. Solving math problems no one can solve at 12 years old.

Yeah. Yeah.

But he fucking delivered. He's one of the rare ones that delivered.

But he also died.

Janusz von Neumann.

And Bobby Fischer, speaking of Ches, Wunderkind.

Yeah, that's Crazy Doc.

Yeah, I want to watch that. I need to remember that. You got to. There's some other people. Dugui.

Douglas Hauser.

Yeah.

Ronan Farrow. Yeah.

Ronan, famous Wunderkind. All right. Well, that's it.

Okay. Well, that was fun. We asked more questions than we answered, which is my favorite fact.

Yeah, that's always good. Okay.

Love Malala.

Love Malala. Yeah. Love Wunderkinds.

Yeah, Wunderkinds are great. Bye.

I love you. Love you.

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