I was born in Toronto on August 31, 1983 as a first-generation Chinese born Canadian in my family. In 1987, my family moved to the subburbs of Thornhill slightly north of the city before my brother was born. I've lived here in Thornhill ever since.

Despite the fact that it actually took me longer to read and write than most children my age (not until the third grade for me), the skills quickly became my passion. Throughout the years, writing became a skill I constantly went back to, penning short stories, novels, and poetry.

In junior high, I realized my appreciation for the arts and often immersed myself in music and theatre, both as an appreciation and partaker of. This continued into high school where I became a constant in the drama department as well as a member of the concert choir.

Upon graduation of high school, I found myself caught in a personal debate that many new graduates find themselves in, what to do afterwards. What field should I enter? I auditioned for a number of theatre programs in the major universities ad colleges in Toronto, but it didn't seem like I had enough skill or background to compete with the other auditionees who had been acting and singing most of their lives.

I ended up taking a year off of school to gain work experience and for much needed self-discovery. As it turned out, my first love of the written word was there once again beckoning my return to it. Further self-discovery enlightened me to the field of journalistic writing, an informative way of speaking to people, of discovering an issue and making people aware of it. I've always wanted to be in a field where I would be able to help the people around me, to influence and affect positively. The human mind is something that has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. I saw the field of magazine journalism as a chance for me to further explore what makes one person different from the next.

In 2003, I enrolled in Humber College in their three-year Journalism Program with the desired focus of magazine production. Unfortunately, in 2004 I became burdened with unexpected financial troubles that resulted in my having to temporarily withdraw from the program in order to work for a year. In 2005, I eagerly returned to school in order to complete my half-finished year and continue to work towards my diploma. While learning and developing the skills to write a proper newspaper and magazine article, I also ended up learning broadcast news skills as well, to write and deliver a story for radio and create a video newscast. Two areas I found myself able to use my acting background.

A joy I quickly found while studying at Humber is the interview. It didn't take long for me to embrace the interviewing process, of learning about an issue, project, or event from those involved, of asking illuminating questions and learning more about my fascination with the human mind by people's responses.

Another skill I was able to hone while in the program, is photography. Like most people, I often would bring my camera with me taking pictures of friends and family and anything that caught my attention for fun. In class, I learned to focus my eye to journalistic and creative photography. A new found love that provides me with even more of a reason to have my camera with me wherever I go. I found an appreciation for the program PhotoShop and photo manipulation, as well. Being predominantly self-taught with the program, I play around with it every chance I get. The results of which now reside in the Photography section of this portfolio.

During the production of The Green Banana 2006, I accepted the position of Online Assistant for the Green Banana website, it was a role that was given to me by surprise. My knowledge of HTML was fairly limited previously and I had only begun learning proper web design in my Web Based Journalism class that occured at the same time as the maazine's production. Despite my limited knowledge, I took on the position as I'm always up for a good challenge. It took me a few tries before I got the hang of using DreamWeaver for web design. The results can be seen on the Green Banana website and with this portfolio.

In the winter of 2006, I began my final year at Humber, a year that would find my spending numerous hours a day in Humber's new state-of-the-art Digital Broadcast Center and Newsroom as my class threw ourselves head-first into production of Sweat, the official magazine of the Ontario Colleges' Athletic Association, and Convergence, the official magazing for the School of Media Studies at Humber College, simultaneously. For Sweat, I contributed a sidebar story about how top college athletes should properly deal with losing after a big game, I was also the online editor. My contribution for Convergence was far greater as my story contribution, entitled Television Influencing Life, explored how the popularity behind forensics television like the hit series CSI has brought new university interest to the field of Canadian forensics. On the production end, I took on the role of section editor for the "Hype" section covering advertising.

As the spring of 2007 rolled around, our two magazines had been released despite technical delays, and it was time to run the production wheel for The Humber Et Cetera. Since I managed to show my capability with web design with both the Green Banana and Sweat websites, my first production position on the Et Cetera masthead was that of online editor. It was my editorial decision to redesign the newspaper's website from what it had been originally to keep the content more streamline and matching that of professional news websites. I managed to get most of the Et Cetera's editions and all content online in a timely fashion coding page by page manually to keep consistency. My efforts in doing such were even praised in a Letter to the Editor dated March 1, 2007. When mid-semester rolled in and it was time for an Et Cetera staff switch-up, I was given the position as In Focus editor. The In Focus section is quite similar to the Ideas section of the Toronto Globe and Mail in which a central topic of concern to college students is put into "focus" and all stories contained in the section center around said topic. Considering this, the section itself didn't run like most other sections would in a newspaper. Despite the confusion with topics, my inexperience previously working with external reporters, and the fact that I was running solo as In Focus editor (where editors for all other sections worked in paired teams), the final six editions of the Et Cetera for spring 2007 turned out to be quite successful. The year capped off for us with a four-page special edition pull-out dedicated to Dr. Robert "Squee" Gordon, Humber College's president who will be retiring this June. The final edition showcased some of the best writing from the In Focus writers thus far and will go down as the most memorable edition not only, hopefully, for Dr. Gordon, but for the writers and myself as editor.

On June 21, 2007 I finally graduated from Humber Journalism - Print and Broadcast finishing my college career and finding myself equipped and ready to enter the field of professional journalism. Earlier that same month, I became the online intern at St. Joseph Media for Canadian Family Online and Gardening Life Online. My stint as online intern had me fully involved in the online editorial process, building stories and content for both high-demand websites, moderating forums, updating Q&A portions, and writing my own content for Canadian Family. Part-way through my internship, I was informed by my editor that she would be leaving and for the next while, I would be running both websites solely on my own. The news came as quite a shock but it was a challenge I knew I was ready to handle. With a detailed list of content that needed to be built and when and a schedule of updates, I set to work continuing with what I had already been doing previously with the tasks of updating homepages and mainpages for both sites added on. Successfully, I met this challenge head on and even found myself working ahead of schedule finishing updates weeks before they were set to go live. I completed my internship in mid August 2007.

My current goals include spending the following year working on contract with the skills I have gained during my four years at Humber before I head out to Australia to upgrade my certificate to that of an Honours BA.

Currently, I am available as a freelance writer covering press and reviews for bands, musicians, and artists alike and as a photographer and web designer as well.