My name, based on legal documents, is Yue Xu. Many people call me Sandy because either they can't say my real name, or their prononciation for it is so far off that I don't even know to respond. So you ask, "Where does Sandy come from?"

I started to take English in Middle School. The teachers, who were learning the language as well, were only allowed to speak English during class, so they wanted each student to have an English name to keep the flow steady. My teacher, Miss Hu, was an amazing person. We all respected her tremendously, and looked forward to her class each day because she was nice, caring, and helpful. One day in class she wrote many different English names on the board, and we were told to pick our "new" name. I picked Sandy, and when I came to the US I kept the name.

I will be a senior in Bayport-Blue Point High School (BBPHS) in the coming fall. BBPHS is a very tiny little school located in a very tiny little town, technically two, Bayport and Blue Point. Small towns are good. There are not many people in my classes so it's easy to keep close relationship with every one around and everybody knows everything that is going on. However, since it's tiny, BBPHS is not able to offer many advanced classes, or to afford the expensive contests like other top high schools, but every teacher tries so hard to help every single one of their students, gives the students all the knowledge they have, and continuously encourage us to explore more. That's all it matters to me. I love my school.

As you can tell from my name, I'm Chinese. I was born in Wuhan, one of the biggest, hottest, and "densest" city in China. (If someone is "one of a million," then I could be "one of eight million," or even "one of 1.3 billion.") I've been living in Wuhan for all my life (which is about 16 years) before moving to Long Island, USA. My friends say, "Wow, other people move from streets to streets, you move from continent to continent." Yap, It was a very big change to me. I had to get used to the food and customs. At first, I thought cheese tasted like gum and hated it. (I like it now, but only with pizzas.) The most difficult part was to understand the teachers in class. Although I took English classes when I was in Middle School, and my school, Wuhan Foreign Language School, offered the best English classes in the city, yet it was difficult for me to catch up with the teachers and handle the many new words they use. I still remember it clearly, on the first day in the biology class, I had no clue what the hell a kidney was. I almost failed the first quiz in that class because I didn't understand a thing my teacher has been teaching. Anyway, there have been some good changes. When I was in China, I've always been a science and math person. Chinese literature class always made me sleep because of the boring grammar part which filled up three quarters of the class. I didn't like history or geography either since the way those Chinese teachers taught us really didn't make me think that those subjects were worth paying attention to. However, since I came here, I even score higher in history than math and science, because the history teachers totally interpret the history events in their casual language and it's like listening to stories when staying in the classes. We can freely discuss with the teachers and state our own opinions on the topics, and the teachers love to hear our true thoughts or even fancy stuff. Since I always try to be creative and insightful, my history teachers love me so much and they love to discuss about Chinese newly happened things with me. English is fun too, though it gets boring once in a while. We read real literature pieces, every day. We learn the useful part of arts -- reading and writing, appreciation and creativity. Teachers believe that grammars can be learned efficiently through reading and writing. Additonally, I learned to appreciate the beauty of nature and everyone, everything that is involved.

Feel free to e-mail me. Back to Sandy's Page.