Emily Ong, 36

Occupation: Project Manager & Blogger

Location: Bay Area, CA

Excitement Level For The Force Awakens, On A Scale Of 1 To 10: “Oh, like 100 or something… I feel like I’ve been waiting for this forever.”

Her First Time: Ong has always been looking for her own world of adventure. That’s why, as a child, she played video games and got into movies like the Indiana Jones series and The Goonies. As a teen, though, Ong became so obsessed with Star Wars that she watched the original trilogy every week. “I would do my homework while watching Star Wars,” she says.

“The world captured me, and the whole adventure, the characters — it was like nothing I had ever seen. It really put me in a different world,” she says. Ong started a Star Wars club at her high school, which boasted about 25 members. “It was maybe 80% guys, and the girls were there because they were my friends,” she recalls with a laugh.

Even now, as Ong undergoes treatment for breast cancer, she is taking comfort in the films, and has planned her chemo sessions around the premiere of The Force Awakens. “I wanted to make sure I was going to be at a good place, health-wise, to go. Even going through treatment, I’m still doing things like sewing, or creative projects, or I’ll watch something Star Wars. All that stuff kind of puts me out of reality and into this world where I can feel happy about my fandom. Geeks hold their fandoms really close to their heart, and Star Wars is like that for me.”