I was born in Toronto to a pair of Chinese-Canadian immigrants who worked hard and always gave me the support I needed to follow my dreams. Growing up I had varied interests. Inspired by a drama teacher, I began acting in theatre and television, and competed in singing competitions. In academia, I was drawn towards philosophy, psychology, history and law. Then I started backpacking the world, wherein a budding interest in politics and international relations blossomed into a career goal: journalism.

Following in the footsteps of New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof and CNN’s international correspondent Michael Ware, I figured the best way to prepare and challenge myself was to get a top notch legal education and then pursue my dreams of becoming a broadcast journalist. I wanted to learn “superior research and writing skills, critical thinking, and knowledge of government and the legal system.”

I fast-tracked high school and undergrad, took the LSAT at the tender age of nineteen, and became one of the youngest students admitted into Canada’s top law school, Osgoode Hall Law School. I received a world class education from professors who wrote the book on Canadian constitutional law. My peers elected me into student government where I served as vice-president of the Legal and Literature Society for two years. Travel opportunities came in the form of exchanges to Hamburg, a French language study at La Sorbonne in Paris, and a scholarship to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for a summer.

While living abroad I spent my weekends travelling. Visiting distant worlds soon became second nature. In the Middle East I hitchhiked through the West Bank, scaled the red rose city of Petra, scuba dived in the Red Sea, and kissed the sphinx of Giza. During my school breaks, I took extended trips to Africa, Asia and South America. I hiked the Rongai route up Mount Kilimanjaro, slept to the lullaby of hyenas surrounding my tent in the Serengeti (no leaving for the bathroom on those nights), bungee jumped into the Nile River and witnessed the Nairobi election riots of 2007; ask me one day about dancing in a Peruvian village, sleeping in a reed hut without electricity or running water, tracing the lines of Nazca or hiking the Andes to the see the sunrise over Manchu Picchu; or let me galvanize you with tales of falling off the Great Wall of China, climbing the temples of Angkor Wat, and making road kill of a kangaroo in the outback (natives confiscated the jack for dinner).

Then I graduated, completed my articles in a real estate law firm and became a lawyer admitted to the bar of Upper Canada in 2007.

At this milestone moment, many would not abandon law for a profession that provided a comparable amount of stress for less income. Except me. You see, the question wasn’t if I would transition into journalism, but when. Sitting in my office at a boutique corporate law firm, I stumbled upon a brochure for a broadcast journalism program at Seneca College. It was starting in a couple of weeks. No better time than now, I thought. I left my stable job and steady income for a shot at my dream.

At Seneca I learned from a roster of broadcast news veterans all the ins and outs of shooting video, linear editing, camera angles, interviewing, script writing, and focussed story-telling. When I completed the program, I accepted a prestigious internship with the Associated Press Television Network in Paris, France. It was my first taste of real journalism. It was invigorating. I did up to three stories a day, attending press conferences at Palais de l’Élysées in the morning, interviewing the French Minister of Finance Christine LaGarde and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner in the afternoon and reporting on France’s reaction to the 2008 US presidential elections at night. I covered strikes and demonstrations, Chanel fashion events and movie stars, and interviewed directors and policy advisors at the OECD and World Bank. I absolutely loved it and it entirely confirmed my desire to pursue journalism as a career. I followed up my internship with another one at WHDH-TV NBC 7 in Boston, MA, and landed my first job as a radio news anchor and traffic producer/reporter at Metro Networks. Soon I was busy producing traffic reports for WCVB-TV ABC 5, broadcasting traffic reports to Sirius Satellite and Cape Watch Traffic, shooting aerial photography and doing airborne traffic reports from a helicopter, as well as writing and anchoring the news for several stations across New England. I landed my first job as a general assignment reporter at WICZ Fox 40, serving New York’s Southern Tier.

Currently I am a political reporter at WWLP-TV 22 News, an NBC affiliate, connecting Western Massachusetts with issues affecting them at the Massachusetts State House.