#yanning cheng

[eli530-001]

Trip to Chicago

During the Thanksgiving, I and a lot of my friends went to Chicago together and had a really great holiday there. We left on Thursday morning and spent nearly 4 hours on the bus. However, we found out that almost every shop, store and restaurant was closed that day and we went to the China town for hot pot. It had been nearly half a year since last time I had hot pot in China and I really missed the taste of it. Then on the next day, I and my friends spent almost a day wandering along the Michigan Ave and bought a lot of stuff for good price. The crowd of people in Chicago made me remind of my hometown Shanghai and I hope I will visit this city more in the future.

[eli530-001]

Reflections

During this semester, I’ve learned a lot of new things and I also tried many new approaches to the design process, which I consider as the most meaningful thing. When I was in college, we didn’t spend much time on the research for the precedent building for the project. While I was told at the beginning of this semester that I would have to make a large scale of precedent model as a way to investigate the program and form for a fire station. At first I couldn’t see the meaning of such big model-making process, but later my instructor asked us to combine the models we made and have up to 10 different design ideas towards the fire station. And possessing such many design ideas really helps me to choose the most suitable one to develop. I really enjoy my studying time here and I hope I would learn more things for the next semester.

[eli530-001]

Children’s Day

Children’s Day is on the 1st of June. Actually before I searched the google, I didn’t know why people celebrate that day in China. But when I was a child, it is my favorite festival. My parents would buy me those toys I wanted so badly during the other days and they would even take me to the amusement park and have a lot of fun there. Also if that day is on weekday and I was in my elementary school, we were served hamburgers and chicken nuggets instead of our normal daily meal. There would be a big party hosted by the school and some kids would have some performance on the stage for both students and parents. Though I already pass the age to celebrate the Children’s Day, I miss the time being a joyous and carefree kid.

[eli530-001]

Greeting from Yanning

Hi, everyone,

My name is Yanning Cheng and I come from Shanghai, China. Shanghai is a big international metropolis like New York City with convenient public transportation and hundreds of skyscrapers, which leads to my decision to have a completely different life in Ann Arbor, a suburban area with so many beautiful scenery. Unlike the New York City and Washington DC I visited in 2010 as an exchange student, life in Ann Arbor seems more peaceful and a little bit slower, which leaves me the opportunity to concentrate more on my academic study.

This summer I finished my undergraduate degree at Tongji University in Shanghai. Then during the happy holiday without any homework, I and my future roommates went to Shengsi, which is a beautiful tiny island by the sea near Shanghai. We enjoyed the sea food there and we even went sailing and fishing for our dinner. A few weeks later, I came to Umich and attended the summer institution, where I met a lot of new friends and I was able to get familiar to the whole university.

In the upcoming semester, besides the academic study, I hope I can have a much deeper understanding of American culture and improve my English with you guys.

Thank you!