​Peng's Family
Naomi's 2020 Newsletter
Happy New Year!! I think we can all agree 2020 was definitely strange, unprecedented, and not ideal. However, I was still able to have some great times both pre-COVID and post-COVID. I’m currently a senior and just started my last semester of college (crazy, I know) at Georgetown University, double majoring in Finance and Operations and Information Management (OPIM). It’s so weird to reflect back to January 2020 when we had no idea that our lives were about to massively change, but I’ll start there.
Naomi diving at Big East Champs
Memorial Day at Lake Santa Fe
Sunset at the Monuments
Training Trip
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As you may know, I am a diver on Georgetown’s Swimming and Diving team, and every year our team goes on a training trip during the second half of winter break before spring semester starts. This past year, we traveled to San Juan, Puerto Rico for about 10 days. The year prior our team went to Ponce, Puerto Rico, so it was exciting to change things up a little bit but still be able to enjoy warm weather in January. Training trip is always one of my favorite ways to start the year, as it gives the team a great opportunity to bond with each other without the distractions of school and other related activities. Typically, we have 2 two-hour practices, one in the morning and one in the afternoon/early evening. In between practice, we can do whatever we want—relax at the beach, take a nap, play beach volleyball, surf, etc.
Beach Day
Beautiful weather for outdoor practice
Elizabeth and I
This year we were given two “days off” where we only had one morning practice and the rest of the day to ourselves. One of these days we spent exploring Old San Juan and the other day we just used as an extended beach day. You can read my training trip blog post here!
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One notable thing about this year’s training trip was that we experienced an earthquake that shook us awake around 4 am the day we were supposed to leave. This wasn’t super unexpected because for a couple of days in a row, Puerto Rico was experiencing multiple small earthquakes near Ponce (about 2 hours from San Juan) but we didn’t feel any of them until this 6.4 magnitude earthquake. Luckily, we were all perfectly fine and no one was injured—but I would say that being woken up by a shaking building was still pretty shocking (no pun intended). As we arrived at the airport, we continued to feel the aftershocks of the earthquake but were fortunate enough to depart safely.
Unique pastel buildings in Old San Juan
Exploring Old San Juan
Looking back, training trip will always have a special place in my heart and I’ll cherish those memories forever. It’s not every day that you are given the opportunity to be surrounded by your best friends in Puerto Rico doing the things you love most.
Last beach views heading back to DC
Junior grade dinner
Big East Championships
Big East Championships took place in Long Island, New York again, so I was fortunate enough to not only have my parents fly up to watch me but Emily (one of my best friends from Gainesville) was also able to come for the day since she goes to school at Columbia in Manhattan. I placed 4th on 3-meter and the women’s team placed 2nd overall (behind reigning champion Villanova). We were very happy with our overall performance because we were able to tighten the gap between our final score and Villanova’s final score.
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Women's Team 2nd Place Finish
3-Meter Dive
Podium divers with Coach Marc
Big East Championships is a very exciting week and I am so grateful to have such motivating, loving teammates and coaches. We also miss a full week of school during this time, which made it difficult to balance schoolwork and competition. However, we are all dedicated student-athletes and after a long day of competition, you can often find our team in the lobby of the hotel grinding out homework or missed exams during the night or in between prelims (morning session) and finals (night session).
Parents came out watch me
Love the divers!
Divers with Coach Marc
Cheering on the Men's team during finals
Twister on 1-meter
Emily came to watch me!
Spring Break
For spring break, Elizabeth and I decided to treat ourselves with a little getaway trip to Cancun at an all-inclusive resort. At the time, COVID was just beginning to show up in the U.S. and no university had made the decision to close yet. Not knowing we would be required to pack up our things and move out from Georgetown when we returned from spring break, we enjoyed this week relaxing at the beach and taking advantage of the warm, sunny weather.
View from our hotel room
Elizabeth and I loving the beach
Relaxing pool time
There were also multiple pools including one with a swim-up bar, which was a surprising perk to our trip. The resort had a variety of different restaurants of all types of cuisines, so each night we made sure to try a different restaurant—our personal favorite was the steakhouse. As you can probably know, I love spending time soaking up the sun at the beach and so does Elizabeth, so this was a perfect way to spend our last couple of days before quarantine and COVID hit.
Always repping Georgetown Swim and Dive
More fun in the sun
Last flight before COVID :(
Quarantine
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Returning home to Gainesville to finish up the rest of my junior year remotely was definitely a challenge and required many adjustments for not only students but also professors. While not ideal, I made it work and was able to set up a monitor in my room to have an extra screen, especially since we were now attending Zoom University. In the spring the 5 classes I took consisted of Principles of Investments, Applied Financial Management, Decisions and Support Systems, Operations Management, and Christian Initiation. I enjoyed most of them, as I felt that I learned materials I could apply to the real world and my summer internship.
During this time I spent a lot of my time helping my parents around the house—cleaning, cooking and discovering new recipes, and various yard work projects. Since my dad was stuck working from home, he invested more time into our garden and we bought many plants to add to our backyard such as a fig tree, passion fruit vines, a guava tree, dragon fruit, and more. I helped my dad plant the trees and build a bamboo structure for the passion fruit vine to grow on! I also helped my mom out in the kitchen and started to cook more. Some of my favorite dishes I cooked were coconut shrimp, pineapple chicken, homemade sourdough bread, and spinach stuffed chicken. Additionally, I started playing tennis with my parents every night and eventually really enjoyed playing (once I got the hang of it). I know this made my parents particularly happy because I not only got to spend more time with them, but every night prior they would beg me to join them on the courts.
Building the passion fruit house
Spinach stuffed chicken I made
Memorial day at the lake
After I finished my final exams I was lucky enough to drive down to South Florida to visit my roommate, Belinda, at her beach house in Boca Grande. It was so nice to finally be able to leave my house and see someone new, as I hadn’t seen her since late February. We enjoyed our time together—exploring the island with the golf cart, swimming in the ocean, and going on long beach walks during sunset. It was a great way to celebrate the completion of our junior year!
Belinda and I in Boca Grande
Sunset views
Happiness
Georgia Trip​
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While we could not go on our planned Japan trip, we were still able to take a short trip to Georgia where my mom, dad, and I stayed at Lucinda’s place in Atlanta while Lucinda and Mikey were away in Boston. The first day we visited the Atlanta Botanical Garden which was within walking distance from Lucinda’s apartment, so it was nice to be able to get some fresh air after the 5 hour drive.
Atlanta Botanical Garden
Alice in Wonderland themed garden
The next couple of days we hiked around the mountains in North Georgia, including Black Rock Mountain, Panther Creek Trail, Arabia Mountain, and Tallulah Gorge State Park. While each of these hikes offered different yet stunning views, my personal favorite was either Tallulah Gorge or Panther Creek. Tallulah Gorge was not extremely challenging, but I enjoyed the gorges. Panther Creek was a longer hike, around ~7 miles out and back. At the end of the path, there was a beautiful waterfall with large rocks and many people bathing in the shallow waters. We rested for a bit while eating our packed lunch on the rocks and enjoyed the sounds of nature before heading back. After Panther Creek, we decided we still had more energy left so we stopped by Arabia Mountain on our way back. Arabia was a much shorter hike, only about a mile or two, but offered much different views, as it is mainly granite with some secluded lakes.
Black Rock Mountain
Panther Creek Views
Panther Creek Hike
Beautiful lake on Arabia Mountain
Tallulah Gorge State Park
Floor of Tallulah Gorge
Summer - DC/Internship​
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After spending about 3.5 months at home, I moved back up to Georgetown in my off-campus house in early June. While my original plan was to spend my summer in New York City doing an internship, it was changed from a 10-week program to a 6-week program completely online. Because my lease in Georgetown started in June, I decided to complete my internship in DC. For my internship, I was a Summer Analyst at Brown Advisory, an investment management firm. The internship was an overall great experience, especially considering it was done remotely. I had a variety of projects that covered many areas of the firm, which allowed me to increase my knowledge and exposure across the industry. Over the course of the 6 weeks, I completed 5 different projects in which I worked with ESG fixed income, municipal bonds, equity research, ISG (investment solution group), and Karina Funk’s large-cap sustainable growth fund. Despite being remote I was still able to connect with many employees to learn about their background and roles within the firm, and all of them were extremely welcoming and supportive. I also got to know the other interns pretty well, and two of them also went to Georgetown so it was nice to work with some fellow Hoyas and familiar faces.
July 4th with the Divers
Picnic at the Monuments
Brunchin' fun
Fall Semester​
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Unsurprisingly, Georgetown made the decision to go back completely online for the fall semester, which was a bummer for my senior year but also an understandable decision. I took four classes which consisted of Real Estate Finance, Global Supply Chain Management, Pacific World, and International Finance. Real Estate was definitely my favorite class, even though I had no prior experience with real estate. I really enjoyed being able to analyze tangible properties. Initially, online classes weren't terrible but eventually Zoom fatigue hit which I’m sure many of you also experienced. Sitting in the same room staring at a screen all day is definitely not the same as in-person classes but I learned this was the reality of living through a pandemic so I tried my best to make the most out of this semester. For labor day, our grade on the swim team collectively decided to rent an Airbnb in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for the weekend. It was refreshing to leave the Georgetown area for a bit, spending our time playing frisbee on the beach and grilling burgers at night.
Rehoboth Beach Trip with the Seniors
Additionally, because I did not have practice throughout the week or competitions to attend on the weekend due to the pandemic, I had a lot more down time. While I wished I could have had a normal diving season, I was able to spend more time with my friends—watching the sunset at the National Mall, carving pumpkins, and decorating cookies. I also had more time to go on long bike rides on various trails I had never explored before. I spent a lot of time running this semester, which especially surprised my dad because growing up he used to have to literally beg and drag me out of the house to go on a run with him. Once the weather is a little warmer, my hope is to run a half-marathon this spring!
Views from the Mt. Vernon Trail
Roomies :)
Joe Biden's Election Celebration
Wholesome pumpkin carving
Hallloween!
Thanksgiving Break
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Lucinda and I both went home for Thanksgiving, so it was nice to finally have our whole family reunited for a bit. Mikey also came along, as well as Albus which is always a nice addition to play with him and see how much he’s grown. For Thanksgiving this year, Lucinda and I prepped and cooked almost the entire meal, which included turkey, stuffing, brussel sprouts, sweet potato fries, a cranberry walnut salad, roasted veggies, and crescent rolls. My parents recently got an air fryer which definitely helped our cooking process. If you don’t own one already, I definitely recommend you invest in an air fryer - 10/10.
Family beach trip
Thanksgiving made by Lucinda and I
Albus loves me
Winter Break
Winter break was longer than usual this year, due to a delayed start in January. While it was sad that Lucinda was not able to spend Christmas at home, I was glad to have Cashmere with me. Cashmere is my friend Zack’s dog and since I made the decision to drive home to FL instead of flying, he asked me if I could take care of Cashmere during break. She is a lab terrier mix, a little over 1 year old, and one of the best pups out there. After dropping Zack off at the DCA airport, we hit the road. She slept almost the entire drive until we arrived in Atlanta where we spent the night at Lucinda’s place before heading home to Gainesville the next day. My parents also loved Cashmere too, and I spent most of my days either playing with Cash (short for Cashmere), teaching her tricks, or playing tennis with either my mom in the morning or my dad in the late afternoon. We took Cash to the beach too, where she especially enjoyed chasing after birds. She didn’t love the water, but at times would run into the waves to continue chasing after the birds only to realize she was surrounded by the cold, moving water and then quickly ran inland again.
Cash loving her Christmas presents
Cashmere's first beach trip!
Patiently waiting for while we play tennis
I was also able to catch up with many of my high school friends, since we were all home for break this year, as traveling was not much of an option. We had some socially-distanced gatherings outdoors and I was glad to spend New Years with Emily, Tess and Grace at Emily’s lake house.
After about another week, I drove back up to DC (without stopping in Atlanta this time) with Cash as my travel companion and although it initially seemed long, the drive went by surprisingly fast and Cash was back in Zack’s arms in no time. We’ve recently experienced a couple of inches of snow so my friends and I decided to take advantage of the winter storm and had fun making a snowman which I realized I hadn’t done in many years.
Cheers to a better 2021
New Years at the lake
Larry the Snowman
All in all, 2020 will definitely be a memorable one (maybe not in the best way), with online learning and masks-wearing the new norm. I’m looking forward to 2021, as I graduate in May and start my full-time job this summer in New York!
Wishing you the best,
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Naomi Peng