Shana Alex Lavarreda is the director of health insurance studies at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Before participating in an event on how Obamacare will affect L.A.’s immigrants, she talked about her not-so-hidden talent for poetry and what song she’d want playing if she walked onstage as a presidential candidate.
How do you react when you’re embarrassed?
Oh I don’t get embarrassed, but I do turn bright red. I’d have to cast back to when I was in high school drama class …
What was your worst subject in school?
I didn’t have one. I was very academically inclined. I graduated from high school at 17 and was seventh in a class of 500 people.
What dessert do you find impossible to resist?
Chocolate. Peanut butter and chocolate.
What’s your hidden talent?
Poetry—though it’s not so hidden because my blog has over 600 posts.
If you had a theme song, what would it be?
That’s so difficult. I’ve thought: What would song would be playing if I walked onstage as a presidential candidate? Right now, I’d consider “The Walker” by Fitz and The Tantrums or “I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers.
What are you keeping in your closet that you should have thrown out already?
I have way too many purses. I have a purses thing.
Who is the one person, living or dead, you’d love to have a beer with?
William Shakespeare. I would love to sit down and talk to Shakespeare—if only to show him the sonnets I’ve written. They’re written in his style. Maybe he’d think they were too imitative.
What is the last habit you tried to kick?
Chocolate. I was unsuccessful.
Beach or mountains?
Beach. I love both but if had to choose, it would be beach.
How do you decompress?
Yoga. I really love yoga. And meditation—they go together.