Abigail Kambanis

Educator/Teacher

Life! I love to laugh, dance and travel with friends :) New experiences with different people and cultures enthrall me. I see education as the most valuable commodity. Our future = the next generation

Training your mind to think positively can change not only your life but it can benefit the lives of many others. Convincing yourself that stress is your body's way of preparing you to fulfill a goal counteracts negative effects wrongly associated stress. Meditation can allow you to re-train your body so that your heart rate doesn't change when a gun is fired at close range. Exam results can be improved by daily reminding yourself that exams are an opportunity to excel. I believe we should all take social and environmental responsibility for the future of our planet. However, we can only be in a position to take that responsibility if we are happy within ourselves. How can we look after something so much bigger than us as an individual if we aren't caring for ourselves first? To some degree, being selfish is a necessity. My personality leads me to want to care for others more than myself. But I'm most effective in a caring role when I also take time to put myself first. Love is sacred

An amazing man called Mike first introduced me to TED. I read Geophysics at Durham University. As a mature student on my course, Mike was assigned to my tutorial group. Our backgrounds are very different. I drifted with ease through the private school system directly into university with no particular aim in life. Mike disagreed with school and concentrated on his own self-education. Having dropped out of formal education as soon as he could, he pursued a career in investment banking. But he found no meaning in the money. He was a member of a band that became successful globally through an American advert. But he didn’t find enough meaning in music. He took a few years out to write a novel but even writing couldn’t provide that elusive meaning. So Mike chose the same destination as me and enrolled to study Geophysics. His goal at Durham was to find meaning by taking environmental responsibility for our planet. Mike inspired me to stop drifting aimlessly. I looked for meaning, I found TED.

Painting! As a scientist people expect me to be logical and conservative but they misunderstand that creativity is an inherent characteristic of science. I paint to keep my mind open :)