Lili stared at the email with excitement when she found out she was accepted to be a part of the clay staff. After hoping for this position and being a devoted fan of the Humor Column, she has finally gotten to take her place as clay’s Humor Columnist.
Meet Lili McFarland, a 14-year-old who currently resides in Dalian, China as a third culture kid with her three siblings. She describes herself as creative, athletic, and at times, silly, along with her love for nature, animals, and writing. Although she was born in Canada, she has been living in China since she was six months old. Due to many people unable to pronounce Alethia, her original name, eventually led to Lili, a shortened version of her name. She wouldn’t consider her Chinese amazing, but for the most part, she can speak Chinese like a native kid.
Her ideal day would entail buying herself a pet dog that she has always wished for, spending a big chunk of her day reading, going on a trail ride on horseback, and maybe traveling back to Canada to visit family and friends. If she could possess one random superpower, she would choose to have the ability to fly. “It would be so much fun to see the world from the air, without being in an airplane,” she exclaims. If Lili could live in a fantasy world, she would love to live in Narnia and be able to talk to Aslan; there’s always a lot of adventures in Narnia, and she would thoroughly enjoy being a part of it. However, since living in Narnia would mean the White Witch could be near at any moment, Lili would either scream for help from Aslan or pick up a sword and start fighting.
For her freshman year, she will be taking Art 1 – Drawing 1, Geometry, Biology (Honors), French 3 Language and Culture, and English 3 Lit Analysis and Comp – Intrigue and Illusion as a third-year student. She thoroughly enjoys the positive atmosphere at TPS, where everyone is encouraging and kind. In the foreseeable future, she plans on working in a national park as a ranger and as an author. Perhaps because of her love for nature, she comments, “My favorite color is green. I love all shades of green; light green or dark green, they’re all pretty.”
Speaking of favorites, Lili enjoys crafting, creating art projects, dancing, horseback riding, reading, writing, and exploring the mysterious nature that God has created during her free time. Aside from school, she plays the violin, attends dance, and horseback riding lessons. Lili laughs as she recites her favorite quote created by her friend’s dad, “Danger’s my middle name,” and pauses, “my first name’s Hospital.” She doesn’t exactly have a favorite Bible verse, but “love God and love others” is a motto she strives to follow in everything she does.
Writing funny stories would always make it to the top of her free time to-do list. Last year’s humorous stories have always made her laugh, and numerous humor columnists have inspired her to take on this position and write humor articles like they previously did. Although it is only Lili’s first year with clay, she has read countless humor articles and hopes to make her articles the highlight of TPSers’ day despite whatever they might be going through. She wishes to “give TPSers a chance to escape their homework and the stress of everything else and just have fun reading something.”
Can’t wait to see what Lili will bring to clay’s Humor Column!