My Growth

      Over the past few months of college and Hixson Seminar, it feels like I've grown up a whole lot and learned numerous things about life and education. 

      One of the most important things I've learned was that life goes by quicker than a blind of an eye, and I am already in adulthood waiting and preparing to emerge into the tasks and hardships of baring responsibilities for myself and others.  College is my pathway to a desirable career, and the Hixson seminar is a tool to help me deal with and understand college life. The lessons that we had such as financial aid, writing resumes, and just different guest speakers had opened us to realize our goals and priorities.  

     I've grown from a lazy, care-free high school girl to a responsible, hard-working individual that's ready to embrace the winding future that awaits me ahead.  

Diversity Event: Eco-mind

     This diversity event was absolutely mind-opening to attend. The speaker Frances Moore Lappe, the author of seventeen  well-sold books, taught everyone about the way we think needs to be changed to improve our agriculture and other aspects of life. Her inspiring messages includes: "Believing is seeing", "Hope is not what we find in evidence, it is what we become in action", and "We don't see what we don't expect to see." All of her stories had proved these points in a empowering way, and she really showed us what we can do for the world.
     She started all of her unforgettable journey out with a simple question, "Why are we together creating a world that we as individuals would never choose?" This question propelled her to go out and discover what is in need to be done and changed for the better. She claimed there's something called a scarcity mind and a eco-mind. The first mindset is what's happening right now within the United States and the latter is what's necessary to be changed to.
     The scarcity mind has the strong characteristics of feeling powerlessness and never have enough of anything. Right now, the people here in the country is quicken to struggle to hunger for over-producing of food which is not what our present economy can afford. People have such a slacken and apathetic spirit that they just sit there and complain and not doing anything to help. The distrust of government had made the country even more cynical in beliefs.
     On the other hand, the speaker took a positive turn and brought up the central point of her speech, eco-mind. What this is basically encouraging us to obtain the capacity for fairness, cooperation and efficacy, also capable of deliberative problem solving, and free from private wealth, and emphasize our democracy. For these goals to be established, there will be no waste of anything, every small input is useful.
     Her speech mostly revolved around the agricultural industry and how people's lives in other countries were changed dramatically just from one small initiation. Whether's it's decreasing the release of green house gases, inplanting of trees, or pesticides inhibition, all of these interesting stories she told were mind-blowing and inspiring. One of my favorite last comment of hers was "It's not possible to know what's possible."

The Hixson Award

The Hixson Award means a whole lot to me. It has guided me financially and spiritually throughout the college semester and in the upcoming years. 

My family and I are extremely grateful for this amazing opportunity of obtaining this huge amount of financial aid from this generous program, and Mrs. Hixson is a great lady for doing this good deed. 

The peer mentors are great leaders and very well-trained for helping us understand different aspects of this university and just college in general and how it relates to life. Also, the activities that we do are mind-opening and fascinating. 

This award really inspires me to keep going with college and encourages me to keep up with my grades. Every time I try to slack off, this award just reminded me why I am here and what my priorities are. My hard work and everyone else's hard work will all be worth this short journey.

Social Media

    Social media has become a necessary aspect of our lives, and its vast influence is certainly growing wider everyday. The world now cannot function without this essential piece of communication. After engaging in some in-depth discussions on facebook and reading a few interesting articles concerning popular types of social media such as twitter, I have gained quite a bit of knowledge on modern social media's impact on the world.
    I have learned that no matter facebook or twitter, they are not only widely used as within the United States, they are also a huge trend in most other countries around the planet. The functions of these social media are not as simple as communicating with friends or share random facts about yourself, but can be useful in business, politics, education. Since the social media is so prevalent, there can be a negative side to them too. In some countries, people actually got killed and threatened for what they have said on their social media.
    My engaging of discussions on facebook forums actually made me realize how absolutely fascinating social media is. The issues people discussed were what I was wondering at one point in life and everyone has their own unique opinions and answers. I think this is a firm, but yet abstract way of building relationships with people you have never even met. This medium is going to help me reach almost any goals, if I have any questions or need help withe something, I can just put up what I want to say on my page and the people that are interested with just join in and be connected with me, that's more convenient than anything I can do on my own.
    Social media is definitely big part of the modern society. Its postive side is helping people establish relationships and share knowledge plus wisdom. Its terrible side, ironically, is that it could destroy relationships and put distance among people because of nonface-to-face interaction. I will keep utilize this brilliant tool to hopefully achieve something world-wide or nation-wide someday.

Personality Traits

      Everyone has different personalities and characters. I perceive myself as a quite unique person with my own special personality traits. Based on my MBTI, I have learned a lot about myself that I didn't know before and never thought deeply about before. All those traits of me helps me tremendously of achieving my goals in life.
      First of all, I am an overall introversion person, that means I can be abnormally quiet and thoughtful a lot of the times. I take things seriously and is always conscientious of myself and others, and I can also be very traditional on my values and perceptions about the world. I tend to always try to make meanings out of every aspect of my encounters and think way too much about a small matter due to my over-sensitivity. It can be stressful to have this worrisome character trait that I have to deal with, but that's who I am. Sometimes, I solve a problem based on my intuition rather than my senses because I trust my feelings more. The logical side of me doesn't overcome the emotional side of me very often. I can be so realistic and cynical sometimes, but at other times, I am immersed in dreams and my own little world, I tend to shut out the rest of the world often. Sometimes I am very responsible but other times I am very messy and disorganized.
      All those unique and contradictory characters help me setting and accomplish my future goals. Everything from starting a family to obtain a career are based on how I make decisions from my firm values. All this influences my academic achievement also. As much as a introvert person I am, I think more about life and take this period of my life seriously, and that's what I like most about myself.
      I hope I can improve my characters from learning from others, and take their good traits. Also, I should try to dispose my negative traits so they won't hinder me from making good decisions in life.

My Goals

    Goals, one of our necessary incentives to live, the essence to our success,and the common path to happiness. How much does it mean to me?  It surely has impacted my past eighteen years tremendously, and it will keep pushing me until the day when my heart stops. Everyone has numerous goals in life, whether they are big or small, significant or mundane, common or rare, they are everywhere and unavoidable. Goals vary in meaning and persistance, and everyone interprets them differently.
    For me, I seperate my goals into long-term and short-term goals. My previous goals from kindergarden to the end of high school had been mostly accomplished and that leaves me with no regrets so far. But my present goals in college and future goals in adulthood are more worthy of talking about.
    College is a huge turning point in my life. It cuts off my childhood and brings me to reality abruptly before I even realize what's happening. Academic achievement is extremely important to me and my family, and fighting to have a high education has been my goal for the last thirteen years of hard work in school. In college, I wish to try harder and encounter more difficult situations and problems. My mind will develop fully with vast experience in every aspect. The first thing I need to maintain is my GPA, and then pursue my other dreams and passion such as music and art. I have confidence in my perseverance of finishing the four years of bachelor degree no matter how stressful it becomes or what hardships are going to stand in my way.
     After college is done, my farther perspective will be to acquire a family and build strong relationships with them. Life is so short that we should cherish the people around us by spending time with them. On top of that, I will still maintain a career that I love and enjoy. Before I die, I want to walk across the world and travel to majestic places that will raise my spirit and embellish my soul.I also want my children to follow and see my examples as an inspiration to them.
     I hope my goals aren't just longings, but they will all come true by the guidance of my heart and the genuineness of my emotions. I believe nothing can block my way and make me doubt my intelligence and wisdom, not even every human-being's most common enemy, fear.

Unforgettable Academic Success

     Fifth grade was definitely one of the most eventful time periods of my life. Aside from moving across the ocean to the United States, I also had a spectacular academic year in China. I would consider this achievement the most memorable one out of all. The joy it brought me and the way it inspired me til this day are still tremendous and undescribable.
     The testing system in China was harsh and extremely competitive. All of the two thousand students in my elementary school rushed through their mountains of text books and notes trying to memorize a huge amount of facts and formulas. The final examination determines a student's rank in the whole grade, and it mattered a lot to everyone indeed. The pressure almost suffocated me when I thought about the three hundred and fifity people I had to defeat.
     Finally, there was only one day left to prepare for that fate-determining exam, and every student was being lectured by his/her family and teachers about the importance of the next day; it almost felt like a warrior was being sent onto the battle field to conquer their enemies, and it was between life and death! I dreaded and dreaded, the next day came in the flash of an eye. My fellow classmates and I walked nervously into the exam room and starred at the examiner uneasily and gravely. He handed the papers out and called out the starting signal. We highly concentrated on our questions and didn't dare to look away even once. It felt like a millenium had passed when we wearily handed in our paper of destiny.
     Two weeks passed by, and it was finally for the moment of truth to be revealed as I strolled over to the school on a bright sunny day to retrieve my results. Shocking! I cannot believe my eyes when I saw the scores written in crimson ink. I gradually looked up at my teacher and faintly asked," Is this real? I had the highest scores out of three hundred and fifty people? This is got to be a mistake, I have never been that special!" My admirable teacher smiled at me and put her hand on my shoulder, her eyes shone with pride and praise. My family was completely lost for words when I held up my test report to them with dignity and victory.
     That feeling of winning still blazed through my heart after years, and it had changed my way of life by making me a more confident person. Because now I know I have the potential to become the best that I can be in anything. Especially for my college life, I now believe I will accomplish my goals in academics in the future. I've fought so hard for this many years and there's no way I'm going to back down. I'm destined to reach the end with victory and pride!