In the summer of 2007, a small male baby was born in Shanghai China. He was nothing special and was rather small - only 5 pounds. His parent named him Xxxxxrxx, which means “lucky brought from heaven”. He had fine hair all over his body and his bright brown eyes gazed at the world.

His dad, graduated from UC Davis Law School, was an experienced lawyer practicing law in China and the state of California. His mom, a pretty young housewife is from Chuzhou, a beautiful small city. The family lived in an apartment building at the suburb of Shanghai.

As the baby grew up, he was enrolled in an international school and accepted bilingual education. Starting from the age of five, he begun to read many books. His favorite book is “The Giver”, a book about a kid from a world in the future, a perfect, but bland world. He would often like to imagine that he would be the boy, and what would he do. He also likes to write stories and dreams of being an author or a scientist, advancing the world and remembered by all people.

He loves sports, including swimming, Chinese martial arts, and rock climbing. As the winter comes, he goes to snow skiing. He liked it very much, and he thought that skiing was very fun and enjoyed rushing down along the trail. Skiing was like flying in the sky, but without fear of falling or regardless of the wind blowing in the face. He also likes the snow, and loves to throw snowballs and to play in the snow.

As he turned into eight, he started to learn musical drama. Musical drama is a blend of acting, dancing and singing. He learned and performed several musical dramas, and played Dodger in “Oliver Twist” and the Prince and Wolf in “Into the Woods”. He thought of acting as expressing his feelings by trying to mimic someone or to be someone else.

When he was eleven, he started to learn horse riding. He liked the experience of having a real animal, caring for it, and controlling it earnestly. He rode a horse named Deli and learnt how to walk, trot, and canter Deli. Riding a horse was fun in its own way. What was fun was knowing that you are riding something that is alive, and not just something you can issue your complete control over.

He is the best in Math and Science, and keeps getting straight A’s. He enjoyed solving puzzles and the feeling of finally finding a long sought answer. He has learnt many things from trigonometry to quadratic functions.

Socially, he is regarded as an amiable and adorable boy, loved by his parents, teachers, neighbors and classmates.

This boy is me, Xxxxxx Lx.

Many places have I visited, but none have I been deprived of my energy. Many places have I visited, but none have I seen such ruins. In my trip to Dunhuang (pronounced dwen-hwon), a famous historic town in the middle of ancient Silk Road, I have been to beautiful places and ancient grottos, petted camels and visited oases in the desert plains. But my greatest challenge was when I trekked across part of the silk road in the Gobi Desert. I have been enlightened in both physical and spiritual ways.

In physical terms, I say that it was plainly torture. I had to spend three days walking over seventy kilometers. After completed the first twenty five kilometers in day 1 for more than five hours, my feet were numb and my toes were sore. I felt like that I had just waded through a freezing lake in Antarctica. They say that walking is not tiring, even if you walk an entire day and for days on, as long as you have sights to see and places to rest. But when I took my trek out of Dunhuang, it was just a vast sea of rocks, sand, and broken fences. There was only one station to rest in the halfway point. Not that it was tiring, there were also no showers or enough clean water since we had to camp in the desert. Showers don’t seem to be very important when you first think of it, but when you don’t have it, it feels agonizing. It is most excruciating when you are walking on sand all day. Sand gets everywhere in your clothes and shoes and it seems that if I empty all my clothes, then it will form a desert. Despite the grind of those three days, I overcame the tediousness and torture, and felt confident and happy. I had finally finished one of my greatest challenges in my life.

I also realized when I was trekking that I was walking once the former glorious Silk Road. There was never really a road, but centuries ago there were merchants everywhere coming to China to trade for skin, silk, and spices. The Silk Road was prosperous and there were caravans after caravans in it. But now, I don’t see anything. There were no caravans, no cars, nothing but sand, rocks and broken fences. In the Tang Dynasty, China was trading to all countries, offering silk, salt, and luxury. But now China can only buy from other countries and make products for them. I wish that China will establish trade relationships and continue to be great again.

In the duration of the three days, I have not just considered about how I have been impacted physically by this challenge, but also how I hope that I can contribute to China and make it great again, which is an even greater challenge.

What makes you happy? You ask me? Well, lots of things make me happy. Watching movies, petting cats, planting succulents, and of course helping others. But what makes me really happy? Well, that is a tough question. I guess that everyone has something that makes them happy. But that depends on how you define happiness. Is happiness the feeling of satisfaction or the feeling of excitement or something else altogether?

If it were to be satisfaction, then I would say that finishing a project or something that you have put together would be what makes me happy. Think of something you dread. Let’s say if you were required to write a German essay only when you have learnt German for a few months. A fifty-thousand-word German essay explaining how oranges are different from tangerines. It is hard, right? Well, if you spent countless hours working on it, poured your soul into writing it and finally finished it with excellent quality, then you must be extremely happy to have finished it. It feels like a masterpiece and you just can’t help to smile each time you think of it. You will want to show it to everyone and share the joy of it.

If it were to be the feeling of excitement, then I think that the joy of waiting is what makes me happy. Everybody likes Christmas, right? It seems excruciating to wait for it to come but when you actually get to Christmas, you are only happy for a spark of a moment. Think of it like this: You spend two whole years to practice for an exam, and then you take the exam and get a perfect score. Your joy comes not from the taking of the exam and the celebration afterwards but rather the preparation of the exam. When you relate back to the exam, you remember the preparation, not the celebration.

So, what really makes me happy? I can only say that in my perspective, happiness comes from satisfaction and excitement, but who can really say for sure? Now, my pleasure comes from waiting for the admission offer from Andover Summer Program!