Name: Leslie Emerson
Year: 2019
Dorm: Lyons
Majors: Management Consulting and Political Science
Hometown: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Relationship Status: Pretty damn single
You grew up in Santo Domingo – what is your favorite part about home?
“The people, for sure. People are wonderfully strange – they’re like overwhelmingly loving and happy, dry and sarcastic, ridiculously cynical, but also warm and nice. Traffic is terrible and regional baseball team loyalties run deep. We love yelling at each other. It’s a great time.
And my dog Leia, who is a wookie.”
You have an hour to talk to anyone – dead or alive. Who is it and why?
“I know who you think I’m gonna say… but I would say Freddie Mercury. He was a trailblazer and an icon for too many causes, and there is absolutely no voice in this world that compares to his. He never stopped loving what he did, even though in the end he was suffering. That passion’s all I want out of life.”
Favorite memory of your time here (so far)
“I think my first football game, and the entire first football weekend. I did all the typical things – pep rally, midnight drummer’s circle, that kind of thing. I’ve never felt like part of the community as strongly as then.”
What’s something that most people don’t know about you?
“I’m pretty good at accents, both in Spanish and English.”
What kind of accents?
“I can do American and Dominican accents in English. I have fairly good British accents, the posh London type and the Sheffield kinda drawl, but it’s a bit embarrassing (chuckles). Russian or Eastern European accents in English are a favorite. And then in Spanish, obviously Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Spanish (from Spain), my Mexican accent is so-so, Venezuelan, Argentinian.”
No money involved, if you could do anything as your job, what would you do?
“Join a David Bowie cover band. Tour the world. Ride in every night in a giant flying tiger covered in flames. (Stares intently with a smirk). Also probably join some sort of non-profit organization and go out to some places back home where I’ve seen some big problems, maybe help get started on providing people with the lives they deserve.”
LIGHTNING ROUND
Favorite Movie: Monty Python and The Holy Grail
Favorite Song: “Don’t Let Me Down” – The Beatles
Coffee or Tea: Coffee
North or South Dining Hall: Are you kidding me? South.
Title of your autobiography: “My Completely Rational Fear of the Constant Progression of Time”
Do you love your roommates: No. Well, sometimes. Okay, yes. Fine.
Thanks Leslie! HCNDXO
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Images provided by the interviewee