Moving to America

When I was four, my parents and my uncle moved to the US from Russia, following my grandparents, who had moved a year earlier. My grandfather, a preeminent mathematician, had a short position at Harvard before moving on to a permanent position at the University of California at Davis. I lived in Boston for a few months while my grandfather finished up his time at Harvard; then, along with my parents, I moved to California, as my father had a temporary position at UC Davis. There, I attended a Montessori school and struggled to learn English – I remember sobbing as my parents left me to fend for my own in a room full of people that did not understand a single thing I said. After kindergarten, my parents moved to Princeton, NJ, where my mother attended graduate school and my father worked (he later worked at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while my mother finished graduate school). Surprisingly, I remained in California with my grandparents until 3rd grade. This is because of a foolish Russian custom to have children early and give them away to your parents while you work. Nevertheless, I rejoined my parents after two years and attended Riverside Elementary School for 3rd, 4th, and part of 5th grade.