Hi Everyone!

My name is Lisa and I’m very excited to start this new semester and get to know a lot of new people. I hope I seem approachable and nice, but I’m sorry if you can’t seem to catch my eyes in the halls; I have horrible tunnel vision when I’m walking and I will probably see you at the last minute and feel bad because I kinda just ignored you.

I’m from Queens, born and raised. I did live in Shanghai, China for four years when I was little but I hardly have any memories of that time of my life. Much of the influence from those years carries with me in my ability to speak and understand both Shanghai-nese and Mandarin. That comes in pretty handy when I’m forced to Skype with the half of my extended family who still live there and help strangers with directions on the 7 train.

My first love was reading. I grew up a block away from a branch of the Queens library, so I spent a lot of fond hours there (I also lost my library card a ton of times and have a sneaking suspicion that my mom still doesn’t trust me because of it). If you ask me my favorite book, I probably won’t be able to respond; my brain will overheat and crash. But, in general, it’s any book that makes me redetermine my perspective on a subject or is amazing enough to make me shed a few tears. I’m more likely to have an answer if you ask my opinion on a book I’ve read or am currently reading. I also love rollerblading, badminton, handball, and tennis even though I’m only slightly good at all of them. If you’re serious about playing any of those sports, you’d probably be irritated at me because I just like hitting the birdies around for fun.

I didn’t listen to music too much until I was almost in middle school. Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend was the first song I was hooked on so I still have a soft spot in my heart for it. Since then I’ve found alternative pop (ex. Paramore’s That’s What You Get) to my liking. I think that I’m incredibly mainstream with the music that I currently like but my favorite song is Kate Nash’s cover of the Arctic Monkey’s Fluorescent Adolescent. Mostly, I’ll listen to anything that you can jump around to and not cry about. That means that you won’t find Adele on my iPod.

The past few years I’ve found a love for running and volunteering. My goal for these next years are to run some 5ks during my spare time for causes that are close to my heart. I’m also excited to try new things like hiking,biking or what have you. I’m also hoping to make the next few years really memorable with a lot of great new friends! Thanks for reading this small essay of my life and I can promise that I’m even more vibrant and talented and stunning in real life, duh.