Peng's Family
Lucinda Peng
Hello everyone! This is Lucinda. I’m a junior at Eastside High School, officially starting the International Baccalaureate program. Sophomore year, I took three AP (Advanced Placement) classes, and did well on those tests. That was fun compared to now in junior year. I’m taking six AP classes, because I decided to take AP Physics C as my zero period (from 7:30 – 8:25 AM)... FUN… But enough with the school things, I’m 16 years old now… meaning that I have my driver's license and can drive myself everywhere! Don’t get too excited (or worried, if you’re an adult) I mainly just drive myself to school… and then home again after cross-country, or to violin lessons, ACYO, Chinese school, Running Club, and the gym.
Lucinda at Winter Violin Recital
Cross-Country Race
All of my extracurricular activities provide me with an extremely busy but fun life. I still take violin with my wonderful teacher Kim, and am in the first violin section in ACYO (Alachua County Youth Orchestra). For the spring recital, I got to play my first Mozart Concerto, which was a huge achievement for me, having only played for about five and a half years.
I have started helping out in Running Club at Lincoln Middle School, where I used to go. Every Thursday I go to Lincoln to play games or run with the eighth graders, like Naomi and her friends. I also decided to continue Chinese dance, but I stopped going to the actual school part. Instead of learning Chinese, I am now teaching Chinese once a week during lunch at Eastside through Chinese Club, which I’m president of. We recently had a dumpling party where we learned how to make dumplings from scratch.
Chinese Club Dumpling Party
Lucinda, Dr. Schmidt, Shaleen, and Hope at NHS Induction Ceremony
Cross-country was the best way to start junior year. Running with friends helped relieve so much stress and gave me some social time too. It’s my third year running varsity, and we’re already on our third coach, but I think that we’ll be able to keep this one at least for another year. Coach and the seniors kept everything incredibly organized and exciting, and I’m very grateful that they’re always there, no matter what. I had a great season this year, not pulling off a personal record, but I came pretty close with a 20 minute 44 second 5 K. I ended up first on the team, and was put in the Gainesville Sun on the all-area second team for my time. This year was not only notable for the times that I ran, but also because our amazing teamwork. The girls team finished the season as 8th place team at state, making us the best girls team Eastside has ever had, but individually, not a single one of us was the reason why. At the state race, the top five girls (the ones that earn points) were only 14 seconds apart. We didn’t have one super fast runner that we heavily relied on. It was all of us working together, so that we knew even if one of us had a bad day, as I did at districts, the team, as a whole was strong enough to get us through.
Cross-Country team at States
Chinese Dance
My friend Holly and I learned a traditional Tibetan dance that her mom taught us. We performed it at a talent show, Spotlight on Youth, and the annual Chinese New Year celebrations at the Philips Center at the University of Florida.
Tibetan Dance with Holly
ACYO Spring Concert
This summer, instead of traveling to exotic places for a few weeks as we have in the past few years, I stayed at Gainesville and ended up having a very fulfilling summer. I took Calculus 1 at the University of Florida (UF), signed up for the Summer Sports Performance Camp at the Shands Fitness Center, and attended an America Society of Biomechanics conference.
As boring as it sounds taking Calculus over the summer, I actually really enjoyed it myself. I took the class with many of my friends who also had nothing better to do with their lives (just kidding), so we always hung out before and after class, especially on the days we had tests. More importantly, I kept track of my time, budgeting it between class, fun, working out, homework, and researching biomechanics studies as well. I experienced a bit of real college life – I had to drive to UF, get to class on time, park in the tiny parking spaces, and force myself to listen during class since the TA didn’t seem to care if the class was actually paying attention.
This summer I did a lot of biomechanics related activities because I finally got to do my running project. Ever since I got a stress fracture in freshman year, I had wanted to learn more about running injuries and running forms, but since my family didn’t know anyone that could help me, we kept pushing the idea off. This summer I decided to give it a shot and I talked to Dr. Chris Hass about my ideas, and he has been nice enough to take the time to help me with my running project. He also was one of the organizers of the American Society of Biomechanics conference in town, so he allowed me to go to that. All the talks were really interesting and have greatly increased my interest in the field, so even though college is still a while off, I’m considering majoring in Biomechanics or a similar field.
Naomi and Anneliese at the lake
New Year's Day at the Lake
Christmas at the lake
As usual, we spent a few lovely days over the course of this year at our friends Ginny and Marcus’s lake house, hanging out with Anneliese and Emma. The first thing that happens every time: Naomi and Anneliese’s height comparison. After that, the cheerful chatter and giggles seem to never cease. When it’s finally time to leave, no one wants to go… we tend to “forget” something super important, or decide to take “a few more pictures”, or wait for the sunset since it's only 30 minutes away... and no one would ever think of hiding under beds and pillows and covers to prolong the time at the lake house for just a few more minutes. It’s such a happy, carefree place to hang out with such wonderful people.
This summer was the first time I went on a cruise! However, the cruise was the opposite of my math class. It sounds amazing, but the actual boat part wasn’t too exciting. I found out that I get sea-sick quite easily, but even so, the escape was a very relaxing experience. We got to eat, and eat, and then eat some more. As you can imagine, the food was delicious, and the view from the deck was so peaceful, tranquil and pretty. The wind in my hair, the sun shining brightly, and no connection to the real world made it perfect for my de-stressing time after school ended. We stopped at Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, and CocoCay, the cruise company’s private island in the Bahamas.
In Nassau, we took a tour of the city, visiting the historic sites, like different forts that protected the city, and more modern attractions, like Atlantis, a colossal hotel and water park. Our tour ended when we got to the beach, which had pristine water, and pure white sand. The beach was beautiful, yet since we live in Florida, it seemed like any other beach when playing in the waves and building sand castles. When just relaxing and looking out at the ocean, I realized that there was a huge contrast between the Bahamas’ blue, clear, picture perfect beaches and northern Florida’s grayer, more mundane ones.
BEACH in Nassau, Bahamas
Fort in Nassau, Bahamas
At CocoCay, my family spent the day snorkeling and just relaxing on the beach. The little fish swam in schools around us, while the larger ones were more solitary. We saw shipwrecks, where many of the fish clustered around because there wasn’t as much coral as I expected. Looking at all of these fish was fascinating, and I remembered this when Mr. Everett, my AP Environmental Science teacher started teaching about biodiversity and how humans are destroying it. We are killing off species at rates that the Earth has never seen before, and in order to preserve all of amazing species that are left, we need to be conscious of all our actions and how new highways that might save five minutes of driving are cutting up territories that animals live in into tiny isolated pockets. Many species don’t survive well at the edge of an ecosystem, so this greatly decreases the territory that they can occupy. I love when classes have an impact on how I view the world and are actually practical classes that I can link to others or the real world.
The world can be viewed from many perspectives and we need to experience as many of them as possible to get a more rounded view of the world. This cruise, although the part where we were on the boat wasn’t that great, helped me connect the recreational and environmental perspectives of the world.
Family on the cruise
Naomi and Lucinda in CocoCay
Just arrived in Nassau, Bahamas
Fun Day at CocoCay
Over Labor Day weekend, we went to Sarasota with many of our Chinese friends. The parents had a conference there and us kids hung out by the beach and the pool together. Alicia and I took long walks on the beach, listening to the waves crash and catching up on each other’s lives. I also went to part of the conference, listening to some of the parents’ projects, learning about their fields. It was surprisingly interesting, and I enjoyed the opportunity to think about different issues that had never occurred to me before. On the way home, we stopped by at the Tampa Aquarium, getting to see many exotic and native animals.
Beach day in Sarasota, Florida
Naomi and Lucinda at the Florida Aquarium
As usual, my dad traveled around the world many times this year, mainly going between China and Florida, but he also went to Alaska and Japan (unfortunately without us). He brought home many beautiful pictures that have made me incredibly jealous of his time in the snowy Arctic. Of course, his time traveling is generally not the same as my time traveling, as he always goes for work, attending conferences and so forth. He keeps busy, always doing projects, checking his email, never shutting off his computer, but I guess that’s what professors do.
Gorgeous Alaska glacier
Swans in the marshes of Alaska
Beach dominated by Sea Lions in Alaska
At Itsukushima Shrine (厳島神社)
Atomic Bomb Dome: the remains of the first Atomic Bomb
My mom has continued playing tennis with her day league team, and also played mixed doubles with USTA over the summer since she didn’t have to drive me around anymore. She volunteers at school, and made an awesome video slide show for our sophomore banquet. She is on the board for ACYO (the youth orchestra), and somehow manages to keep the house clean (a seemingly impossible task). This year, my mom did some traveling by herself too! It was my grandfather’s 90th birthday and grandparents’ 60th anniversary, so my mom went back to China for a week to celebrate with the rest of our family. For her own birthday, Naomi and I took her to Do Art and the beach to relax and have fun.
Mom on the tennis courts
Mom and Lucinda at Sophomore Banquet
Grandpa’s 90th Birthday Celebration
Lucinda, Mom, and Naomi celebrating Mom’s birthday at Do Art
This school year I’m still continuing with forensics -- speech. In the spring, I placed first at an all beginners’ competition. I went to state, not placing high enough to go to nationals, but it was an amazing experience for me. The wonderful transformation from my shy self to a more outgoing, confident self is continuing even now, as I prepare for the coming year’s competitions. I’ve become more confident as a speaker and more proficient as a writer thanks to my wonderful coach Ms. Christian, and last school year with Mrs. Iwinski and Dr. Dawn Jourdan as well.
Fancy night on the cruise
First place at Beginners’ Forensics Competition
This year has been a more low-key year compared to previous and hopefully future years too, but it has taught me much about life. I’ve grown as a person, gaining maturity, confidence, and perspective.
Happy Holidays everyone! No matter who you are or where you are, I wish you a safe but exciting year and hope to see you soon, especially those who I’ve not seen in a long time!
Love,
Lucinda Peng