Meet Si Ning!
We just covered Annabelle, a rising freshman at Mount Holyoke College (if you haven’t read it, it’s just over here). Now, let’s meet someone at the other end of the spectrum in terms of experience – a fresh graduate! Introducing…..Si Ning!
Introduce yourself!
Hi! My name’s Si Ning, and I’ve just graduated from Cornell University, that big beautiful university in the middle of nowhere. During my time in Cornell, I double majored in Economics and Government and double minored in Spanish and Southeast Asian Studies. If they had a PE minor, I would have totally gone for that too – one of my happiest achievements in Cornell is having fitted in six semesters of belly dancing, two semesters of swimming and massage each and a semester of rock climbing into my schedule there. Do feel free to discuss with me any and all of these subjects!
What did you do in high school?
I was pretty much the ultimate bookworm during my time in SMK Taman SEA – I still am, in fact, as I voraciously devour any novel which catches my eye. I took part in some Scrabble competitions (though if you were to ask me now, I’ve totally forgotten all those interesting Scrabble tactics and vocab) and was the sub-editor for our school’s editorial board. In short, I like reading, writing, word games and academic stuff. That hasn’t changed much over the years!
Favorite bands/music/books?
Gothic symphonic metal is my one true love. Sometimes random songs from other genres will catch my fancy, but it is bands like Nightwish, Within Temptation and Lacuna Coil which I return to at the end of the day. One of the more enjoyable perks of being in the US was that I got to attend some of their live concerts; one less enjoyable experience was accidentally getting caught in a mosh pit in one such concert. I like not getting squished to a pancake by excited metal fans, thank you very much.
As for books, I can’t really pick a favorite – there’s just so many awesome ones! While I am certainly more partial to sci-fi/fantasy novels (Tolkien, Terry Pratchett and Piers Anthony have contributed quite a lot to my little library at home), I’m happy to lose myself in the occasional Dean Koontz suspense thriller or Georgette Heyer romance novel. Browsing through secondhand bookstores like Pay Less Books was my favorite weekend activity, as I could find so many great books by lesser-known authors that way.
What do you like to do for fun outside of USAPPS?
Learning. I love acquiring new knowledge, just for the sake of knowing more (classes don’t really count – I tend to end up learning for grades there). Currently, I’m taking shameless advantage of the free resources available online and learning German via duolingo.com, coding via codecademy.com, public speaking skills via coursera.org, etc.
