“I love New York, even though it isn’t mine,the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.”
Truman Capote.

So many people come to New York with something to prove. There’s no other self-glorifying city that says that if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. The persistent fascination with the city, the way people project so much into it, makes everyone to think that New York belongs to them. But there is the other side too. It is difficult to live here. You have to work harder than you have thought. You have to face limits and postpone your wish for more space or stability, warmth of relationships and silence. You need to speed up and meet deadlines.

But this is all about how much you love this city. How much it really matters for you? I like that walks across the Brooklyn Bridge, hours spent at Met , walks along crowded streets where it seems like every person came from a different corner of the world. New York is cinematic. It’s concentrated. It’s diverse. It’s where a lot of important things have happened, and so, it is full of history and legends. It’s a place of ideals, “where anything is possible.” This is why I’m here. Even though it’s so easy to love it and hate it at the same time, for now I wouldn’t want to live anyplace else, for all the big reasons and for all the small ones. I do, because it is still possible to build things here.

At this point of age, questions come to us rapidly. Questions that don’t have answers. Questions that drop us into oblivion, make us wondering in the passage of time, or they could be the salvation to our naked souls. One of those cliche questions is “What is life?”. We have at least thought of this question once, and each of us made our own answer, one that we cling on. Mine is death. Death is the point where our lives end, and it’s the motive that makes us try to live life to the fullest. The ending makes us want to value what we are having, Without death would we ever take to time to create all those philosophies? Would everything be as beautiful as it is now? To be able to live and to die, that’s life.

I like to look at people around me when I take the train in the moring. I want to know where they are going and what is happening in their life. Some people are quite energetic in the morning, while some people are trying to take a nap on the train. Old, young, male and femaile all jamed in one small space. It is funny how we are all in the same space and time at the moment, yet we are so different in what we are trying to accomplish. They are in forms of  families, couples and loners. If one person’s life is a movie, I wonder how does it change the story by having people on the train in it.

“If you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

What truly interests me, or what I am truly passionate about is the arts. As I child every time my family traveled anywhere I always asked my parents if we could go to a local museum. When I saw a movie that I liked I hunted down the book it was often based on, or a book that remotely related. It was not until I was older that I realized that it was not the common interest of my peers; they all liked sports or watching tv I wanted desperately to visit a new museum. The older I got the more I realized how intrinsic this passion of mine was to my identity. It was this realization that allowed me to focus myself on something I loved, and it gave direction to my life. My goal in life is to follow this and to work towards having a career where I can be involved with art. So that is why I am studying at Baruch towards a major in arts administration.

Here is my Monologue that I’ve developed in my freshman seminar class.

Hello every one, my name is Yao Feng Li, I guess you can call me Yao.  I was never afraid of showing my flaws to others, and this maybe difficult for some. Instead of being embarrasses about my flaws , I would rather turn them into jokes that share with other and laugh about. I am not that artist of  making the video “classy” enough for some viewer, but this is my first attempts of making a video about myself, and I was never nervous when I was editing it. Also I am a fan of cold jokes( It means that the joke will make you shiver because of how bad it is ), so in my video, 99.99% of jokes might cause damage for your logical brain.

Here you go;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvzfGiS5awA

Thank you for watching

http://slide.ly/view/d172f68097aa363e54523ada85d0cffb

I made a slide show about who I am.

Before explain who I am, I want to describe who influence me and build my characteristics. I cannot say my life without my sister. She is one year older and influences me in almost every way. In Fashion, music and even attitudes, she inspires me all the times. I would not be a person who I am right now without her.

Friends. They are definitely parts of my life. The places I went with them, experiences we went through together, and little talks between us made my life. All of them are precious to me because they show what kind of person I am. They are the people I can truly believe on and rely on whenever and whatever happened.

So, who I am? I am a simple person. I like food, and love to eat delicious foods. I try to eat healthy, less salt and less fat. I also like fruits and everything except raison. Ice cream, and chocolates are what I like the most. Whenever I’m down, I eat chocolate or ice cream and they make me feel much better.

New York is the place where I live in. Everyone in the world might admire the life in New York, and I also had a dream about New York. The real life in here was different from my expectations, sometimes made me disappointed, but I’m trying to love this city. Also, New York is the city where my college is located at, Baruch college. I hope to learn and experiences many things here so that I can be a much better person.

I like to travel and navigate. Going to new places makes me to escape from my reality. Ironically, I have no sense of direction so always travel with fear of lost.

My experience in Tae kwon do, which is Korean martial arts, teaches how to stay calm and be nice to whomever because that’s what Tae kwon do emphasis.  Also the experience of learning Tae kwon do gave me a chance to perform it on my high school international festival, which is unforgettable.

I like to watch soccer games. I used to watch EPL and sometimes La LIga, but recently I cannot watch it often. Still, I love soccer and love to feel the passion from the game. However I don’t like to play soccer because I hate running and sweating. I prefer to play Bowling then soccer. My highest score is 96, which means I’m not good at it but I like the thrill when I hit strike.

The above things explain me. Hope to have more chances to talk about who I am and learn more about my classmates.

Click “Who I am” to see slideshow:  Who I am !!!

The first photo shows the two sports that are my life. The two sports that helped me found my identity and voice in this unfamiliar world. I am an athlete. My two favorite sports are track and field and basketball. I started playing basketball when I first came to this country and fell in love. It helped me adapt and made new friends in and out of school. I fell in love with track the freshmen year of my high school and competed all four years. I started off not knowing anything about the sport and worked my way up to become top 5 distance and mid distance runner in the city and the borough of Manhattan. I was named MVP scholar athlete for the borough and I am also a 3x borough champion and 2x city champion.

The second photo shows my love for fashion. I am love to dress, whether it’s the dapper look, the casual, the athlete look, classy look, formal, it could be anything I could switch it up. I love to express my self through fashion, cause it makes me feel good. I am also part of a clothing line called “Fruition”.

The third photo shows that I am a quote lover. I love quotes and love to come up with my own. I like to motivate and inspire people because I like the role. I also love quotes because whenever I feel like giving up I just have to read a few quotes and realize what I am doing. I love the inspirational stuff because it what makes me who I am today. If it weren’t for these quotes from a few major people in my life, it would be totally different.

The fourth photo shows that I love music. Music is that one thing I can’t get rid of. Music calms and soothes me. I love almost any genre, but I mostly listen to hip-hop, dancehall, Indian, r&b, soca, and my cultural music.

The fifth photo shows that I love food. I mean who doesn’t. I love any kind of food. Except I have a few restrictions because of my religion. I am a Hindu, so I cant eat beef and pork. But other than that I eat almost anything other than those two. My favorite food is curry chicken.

The sixth photo shows who I am. I am a born and raised Guyanese. I was born there and lived 10 years of my life there before migrating to the U.S. I love my country and culture and I rep it everyday. I am a proud Guyanese.

The seventh photo shows that I am a very ambitious individual. I always try and reach for the stars. I always push my self to give a 100% no matter in. I understand that the path to success is not straight and that’s why I never give up. If I want something I go work for it.

The last photo shows that I am adventurous and love to travel. I love to explore new places and go visit new sites and countries. I have not traveled the world yet but one day I will. One of my dream places to travel to is Panama and Italy. I have only traveled to a few places; I went to the Bahamas, Trinidad, Guyana, Canada, Florida, Suriname, and Oklahoma. I have also visited a few interested sites.

This post is created with HTML codes so there’s chance of technical issue

http://slide.ly/view/5a22728fae058d1eb0ff64c246dd91a8?utm_content=gallery

<a href=”http://slide.ly/view/5a22728fae058d1eb0ff64c246dd91a8?utm_content=gallery”>HERE’S SLIDESHOW<a/>

Here’s my slideshow of the description of me.

The animal in the picture is called “SLOTH” and it represents the laziness.
Sloth is known for the laziest animal in the world due to his extremely slow movement.
You can check its highest speed at> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot8YhBWUfGs

<a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watchv=Ot8YhBWUfGs”>Fastest Sloth Ever<a/>
It perfectly shows my characteristic.
I rarely move, I do minimum work to get things to be done.

Second picture shows  one of my sport that I am good at.
I started to play golf when I was 10.
My dad brought me to golf range every 6’0 clock in the morning and it was my first experience in golf.
I kept playing in various forms of activities.
In back in Korea, I joined golf club as club activity.
After I came to this country, my dad bought me entire club set and it was the real time of starting golf.
I played 3 Varsity years and served one term as captain.

I know I am not a good pianist but I am a passionate musician.
I can barely do read and play in proper tempo but I can do composing and arranging .
I managed an ensemble in my high school.
I used to play when I was really young and started to play again since 2009.
The hardest song I’ve played so far is Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu.

I can play baseball too.
Many of people think I don’t have enough “Thickness” to play.
It is true and I cannot throw fast.
I quit baseball team in my freshman year but I can still play in non-competitive level.
I’d say it’s just for learning how to move the body efficiently.

I used to live in NJ with my family and moved to Massachusetts for HS.
Now I’m here back to NJ.
First I thought commuting from NJ is easy and simple.
In fact, it is but it is not.
It takes hour and half to go to school in morning.
If there’s something wrong in Lincoln Tunnel, I am screwed. Life is over.

I am a big eater.
People often get surprised by my eating capacity.
I used to eat 2 orders for one meal. Then NY food price screwed my budget.
I love to add patties in burger and burger with 4 patties in five guys is my record.

I am an audiophile.
This German brand called Sennheiser turned me into a big audiophile.
I regret spending money on those luxurious headphones but it sounds good anyway.

Lastly, I am a passionate gamer.
Korea. known for #1 gaming nation, many people plays games and some make money out of it.
It’s their life and their culture.
I am also a part of this big movement.

http://slide.ly/view/02b3aa01b716d898c895d8fcee0578c8

Hello guys,

This is just a short slideshow that show some of the stuff I like to do and like. Most of them are not obvious stuff that we went over together.

I don’t like going outside but I do like going on adventure alone. I grew up with video game and am still a gamer. Since I can lucid dream, I enjoyed sleeping a lot. My personality type is INTJ. The kid in the hat you can guess who he is.

I don’t like telling people what I am like so I am not gonna say anymore. The rest are for you to discover.