Where are you from?

I’m from Oklahoma. Oklahoma City.

How does Arizona compare to Oklahoma?

There’s a lot more trees in Oklahoma. They don’t have any cactus? (Looks to friend. She whispers, “”Cacti.””) Cacti! (Laughs.) And then there’s grass everywhere while here there’s just rocks.

I’m guessing that Oklahoma doesn’t have freakishly cold days like today in spring.

Actually, Oklahoma is known for having ridiculous weather. Like literally one day it will be 70 and the next day it’s snowing; one week it’s sunny, the next week it’s like snow days for the whole week — it’s ridiculous.

What’s the weirdest weather you’ve come across?

We have a lot of tornadoes, which is scary.

Tornadoes? Have you ever come across one?

We have tornado warnings during one season. I don’t remember what season it is, but we’ll have a tornado warning and we’ll have to get into our shelters. Once we had one warning and they wouldn’t let us leave school, so they made us go down into the basement.

When was this?

Last year.

Have you ever seen a tornado touch down?

I have not. I don’t look for things like that. I hide when tornadoes come! (Laughs.)

What was the worst thing you’ve eaten?

Um, octopus.

Octopus? Why is that?

I tried it at a sushi place, but it was just really chewy and disgusting.

It wasn’t still alive, was it?

No, I did not chew a live octopus! It was cooked. Actually, I don’t think it was cooked, but it was chopped up. I’m not sure.

What’s the weirdest you’ve seen here?

A homeless person pull a knife.

Really? Where was this?

We were walking around Tucson, like the neighborhoods around this area, and there was just this homeless person and he just pulled this knife on us and it was really scary.

So you were walking around and he was like, “”Hey, here’s my knife””?

No, we were walking around and we turned a corner, and he was walking out and he just held his knife up and we ran away.

Crazy.

— Steven Kwan