Author’s Note: The first post on my website. It’s very cringy for me to go back and reread my old posts. Enjoy.

4 Minutes Read

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My name is Manting Xiong. I’m a 19-year-old Hmong-American. I was born in Concord, North Carolina but I was raised up in Chico. I’m the youngest in my family of four. I have one older brother that is 22 and he recently graduated from Chico State with a major in Liberal Studies. I was involved in Chico High’s boy’s volleyball team and the acapella choir. I’ve been involved in these two extracurricular activities for all four years of my high school career. For choir, I would spend a great deal of time in the choir room, and for volleyball, I would spend time in the Lincoln Gym.

The choir room, room D5. This was the first place at my high school that became a sanctuary for me. This is really ironic because I was never into singing or anything remotely close to the choir before joining the class. I remember walking into the choir in my freshman year and having a different kind of atmosphere. I had an “Oh Shit” moment from the first time of having that class, after the class ended, I realized that I shouldn’t take this class lightly. Aside from that, the room was not standard per se. If everything in the room was taken out, it would look like there were three giant steps going up. The middle of the room was occupied by risers. The risers for me were the volleyball version of the court, whenever I got on the riser or the volleyball court, it was time to be in serious mode, well, I tried to be serious most of the time.

The walls in the class were painted white and looked kinda old but well-kept. The left side of the wall has usually been filled with music stuff. I said generally because I don’t know if it’s changed or not. The right side of the wall was filled with photos of the small groups in the choir. These small groups meet once a week during lunch to rehearse their songs and they perform all over Chico. The back wall was the class photo album. The wall from left to right was filled with photos of the choir students out in different performances throughout the school year. The front of the room near the riser had a whiteboard and a grand piano. The choir room was also the piano room too because, on the left and right sides of the classroom, there were electronic keyboards lined up next to the walls. I had a lot of great memories in the choir, I came there to cry, laugh, sing, eat, sleep, bond, and study.

Unlike the choir room, I was only able to enjoy being in the Lincoln gym in the spring semester of school. During the spring semester of each school year, I would go straight to the Lincoln gym and get in some extra practice before practice. The Lincoln gym has six basketball hoops spread throughout the gym. The Lincoln gym has bright lights and speakers that were attached to the roof of the gym. The Panther C can be found in the middle of the gym. The Lincoln gym was small and can only have one set of bleachers on the right side of the gym. The bleachers were jet black and weren’t the most comfortable to sit on for long periods of time. On the volleyball court, I’ve shed blood, sweat, and tears throughout my experience in high school.

This weekend I went to One Mile with my new friends I made from EOP Summer Bridge. We barbecued at One Mile and went swimming in the cool yet warm water. During the barbecued portion of the trip, it was just my friends and I with a couple of cars occasionally passing by. Although I didn’t notice that much because I was stuffing my face with delicious food. When we moved to the pool area, I saw people I expected to see being from Chico. I saw people of all ages, children, adults, college students, homeless people, and random people. Most people came there to swim while others brought blankets to sleep on the cool grass. I also saw people going there to just dip their feet in the water and relax.

One Mile isn’t special to me because I grew up coming here a lot in my middle school years, I had great memories here already back then and I hope to make more in the future. One mile is always a good experience, you get to swim in the cool water, see different types of people, and enjoy nature and it’s a good place to come and relax. Eight out of ten would recommend with company.