8.5 days until I get back home!!!! I'll see Mom and Yee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Must have a good bonding time with them this winter break... What a mixture of feelings I have! Anticipation, happiness, anxiety, joy, love, and nostalgia are all mixed together making a very strange flavor. Ahhh... I cannot wait to go home.

Curiosity had been growing for a time until Pei finally had the courage to decide that it is the time for learning something exciting other than the hydrogen bonding in DNA molecules and Beta sheet proteins. The adventuress made her mind to explore the tower- the tall buildling with the clock where the music of the bells come from- across the main library. She trod through the pure white snow and stood in front of the tower admiring the beautiful architecture and imagining herself surveying the campus from the top of the tower. It says on the door that it only opens on Tuesdays...today is a Thursday...is it really closed to the public? She wondered...stepped up to the door...slowly pushed it to see if it would open. She hoped that nobody would think that she's trying to break into the tower and vandalize the mysterious instrument inside. The wooden door was locked. She stepped back, turned her back disappointed, and made her mind to head to her favorite spot in the 2nd floor of the library. Something moved that startled her. The door magically opened up? She slowly turned back expectinig the Hunchback to appear in the door...seriously, she was scared. Instead of the scary Hunchback, there was a lady in her 50s or so standing in front of the door smiling. The lady invited her into the tower to her amazement, the inside of the first floor was actually pretty small and plain unlike what she had imagined. However, there was a strange looking instrument sitting in the middle of the room... It had wood keyboards for the hands and the feet.

The lady and Pei had a little 10 minute conversation. They chatted. In the short 10 minutes, she learned something brand new... A new idea, a new goal, a new hope... She learned about compassion and love toward other people. The lady told her two stories, one about her 91 year-old father who passed away just last month and the other about a Chinese professor in Forestry. The stories touched her...

When she walked out from the Beaumont Tower, she smiled and knew that the rest of the day would be wonderful. She knows that she wants to dedicate her life to help people, to make them feel better about themselves, to give them positive views on life, to support them in all different forms depending on the situation, etc. etc... When she grow up, she wants to go to mainland regularly to help and teach a younger generation of doctors on how to be better and more empathetic people. It's an art that her dad constantly reminds her to master... It will take a while, but she will never give up. The conversation really made her think about who she is and how she wants to do with her life.