"she's a scrawny little thing."

these were the first words ever uttered in reference to carissa calliope palamara. her father's mother was of the strong belief that she wouldn't make it through the week, let alone the first night. she weighed less than seven pounds, all tiny arms and legs, nary a cry of complaint unless it was time to be fed.

miraculously enough, the youngest of the six palamara children grew from a quiet newborn to a bashful toddler and inevitably into an anxious mess of a kindergartener. she liked to color. she liked dresses with frilly skirts and her hair twisted into two well-placed braids. aside from her tendency to hide underneath playground equipment in an effort to avoid the other children, carissa was a seemingly normal five year old girl.

"she'll grow out of it."

if there was one thing the palamara family was famous for, it was their capacity for having an everlasting flow of unsolicited advice. her grandmothers on either side insisted that carissa was merely exploring her personality  --  a 'late bloomer,' a little girl growing in the shadow of five older siblings, all talented in one way or another. she would find herself, they assured her parents, both wringing their hands over carissa's general inability to befriend her peers.

sociability, however, was never a thing in the smallest palamara's wheelhouse. she liked people, naturally, but the idea of striking up a conversation with one was enough to leave her frozen in place. academia was a world in which carissa excelled, fortunately, and her parents began to accept that their timid daughter would simply be just that.

"she spends too much time with her nose in books."

reading, and all of the skills that accompanied it, became such a hobby for carissa that writing essays for scholarships came with relative ease. she graduated high school near the top of her class. despite her best efforts to find a university a great deal farther from the watchful eye of her parents (and the rest of her extended family), carissa was admitted to columbia in the fall of 2011. she had every intention to graduate within the four-year time constraint often placed upon undergraduates, but her need for independence tossed a wrench into those plans.

working first as a waitress at her parents' brooklyn-based greek restaurant, carissa saved several months worth of paychecks to place a deposit on a small apartment in brooklyn. she spent a great deal of her spare time earning a license to practice as a lab specialist. ultimately, with her dream to become a nurse, carissa feels that she is on the necessary path to do it precisely the way she intended in the first place  --  entirely on her own.