User:Tommy Gao
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tom Gao | |
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| Born | 高放 (Fang Gao) February 27, 1993 Haicheng, Liaoning, People's Republic of China |
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| Occupation | Freshman high school student |
| Spouse | 0 |
| Children | 0 |
| Website [1] |
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Fang "Tommy" Gao (Chinese Mandarin: 高放), better known as Tom, was born in Haicheng, China on February 27, 1993, and is a juvenile Chinese-American US resident. Tom lives in New York City, NY and a freshman student in Forest Hills High School. He is also a volunteered editor for Wikipedia of Wikimedia Foundation.
[edit] Early Life
In 1994, a year after birth, Tom's father, Carl Gao, traveled to the US. Two years later, his mom, Cindy He, left as well. Visiting Haicheng was his original passion, but for four years since his father left, he lived in a small farming village approximately 15 kilometers east of the city (1994-1998) with his grandparents. In January 1998, one of his grandparent's son, an employee of Haicheng Central Chemical Ltd., bought an apartment in East Haicheng. Tom, along with his grandparents, moved in a month later. Tom lived in the Haicheng Apartment until the summer of 2000, when he traveled to New York City with Cindy.
[edit] American Life
[edit] New York, NY
On June 26, 2000, in the afternoon, Tom arrived at LaGuardia Airport via Northwest Airlines. For the summer season of that year, he lived in a three-story house apartment in Elmhurst, NY. Later in September, Tom moved to a taller 7-story apartment building in Rego Park, NY after enrolling P.S. 174, also known as William Sidney Mount Elementary. Tom's grandparents also arrived to New York City possibly on April 2001, 8 months after moving in. During that time, the mass transit of the MTA Bus and NYC Subway fascinated him due to its extreme usefulness and abundances. He was also doing researches on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which happened on his second day of third grade in P.S. 174. Since mid-2001, relationship between his parents became worse and worse until their divource in 2002. On June 25, 2002, Tom's final day as a registered student in P.S. 174 and the final day of having a third grade occupation, left with Carl and the grandparents to Atlanta.
[edit] Urban Atlanta
After settling in Chamblee, Atlanta on the summer of 2002, Tom was to work for a branch of wholesale store of cheap, imported goods every weekend at stands occupied in Smiley's Flea Market in Macon, Georgia. His uncle, David Gao, came later from China possibly on October 2002 to live with the Gao family. Despite a new settlement in a new state, degradation is always presence. Atlanta has a rapid transit system called MARTA (Metro Atlanta Railroad Transit Authority) with bus routes and subway lines, but it lacks plentiful stations, stops, coverages in the metro. Unless a resident lives in the city limit of Atlanta, a car is definitely a resource needed for easier travel. Tom enrolled in Dresden Elementary. Despite the countless numbers of Mexican immigrants enrolling and/or living in his community, he moved to Tucker, Georgia on the autumn of 2003, a town three miles east of Atlanta, enrolled Livsey Elementary, and settled in a larger house. Despite a better environment and school, the house Tom and his family lived in was occupied by more than three other individual member. Ten weeks later, an Atlanta Police Department sheriff was called over to handle the occupants exceeding the occupation limit of the house. Tom and the rest were told to move in a one month period. On the noon of November 20, 2003, Tom left the house the final time as he left for Lawrenceville, Georgia.
[edit] Rural Gwinnett
On November 20, 2003, Tom moved to Lawrenceville, Georgia, a city in the heart of Gwinnett County. Distance travel became more difficult without a personal vehicle since the county do not provide subway and Gwinnett County Transit consists far less bus routes than MARTA. From there, he completed his last grade level of elementary acadamy (fifth grade) and graduated on May 23, 2004 in Craig Elementary. Two months later, he was promoted to Alton C. Crews Middle School. "Six grade was considered an easy year in middle school." Says Tom, " except for the "spam" note I gave to some girls on the following April and I ended up doing laundry for the assistance principal!" During that time, Tom often listened to WVEE V-103 The People's Station, which is a popular radio station in Atlanta for rap & hip-hop music. Rappers such as Ludacris, Lil Jon, Sean Paul, 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, and Usher became his favorites. As of seventh grade, during the late 2005s, Tom became influenced with meterology and climatology, often examining progress of weather off of AccuWeather, The Weather Channel, or NOAA, and no later Tom was known to the most school members as "The Weather Man".
[edit] Early Teenage Period
Since Tom's 13th birthday on February 27, 2006, he begin to gain interest in enhancing computer such as saving cash to buy upgrades like ATI Xpress 3200, 500GB hard drive, AMD Athlon 64 X2 CPU, and newly-released PC games such as Half-Life 2, FlatOut 2, & Call Of Duty 3. As stated in previous, Tom continues to let weather fascinate him.
[edit] A Sensation of Old & New: First Return to China
On June 6, 2006, Tom planned to fly back to homeland China during his summer vacation after his completion of seventh grade. On the first five days, he stayed in Beijing and visited landmarks such as the Tiananmen Square, Great Wall of China, and other unstated locations. On June 11, he rode to Haicheng, making his first return to his city of birth since leaving to United States in 2000. A family reunion of grandparents, aunts and uncles as well as some old childhood friends later came. He also visited the front of his originally lived apartments, some past points of interests, attended schools, and the village he grew up with his grandparents since a decade ago.
Three days later, Tom left Haicheng via train and south into the city of Dalian. In Dalian, he came upon plenty of unseen points of interests. Xinghai Square, Pole Aquarium, the Chinese Walmart Supercenter and Dalian Forest Zoo are a few visited places enlisted. June 14, four days after arriving at Dalian, he purchased a second-class ticket and boarded the cruise ship S.S. Haiyan (operated by Yangtze Cruise Inc.). S.S. Haiyan left in late morning, sailing across the Bohai Sea, and docked in the evening in the city of Yantai,Shandong.
The following day, Tom boarded a charter bus en route to Qingdao, Shandong, where he considered as an excellent part of his vacation upon visiting new cities in China. He booked a four-star hotel, visited numerous places such as the Zhan Qiao, Laoshan and May Fourth Square and feasted primary on Shandong-style seafood. Tom stayed there for six days before taking a charter bus to Weihai, Shandong, where he purchased a third-class cruise ticket and boarded the "S.S. Shengsheng" en route back to Dalian. After a night at a nearby three-star hotel, Tom purchased a morning train ticket and arrived back in Haicheng.
For the last four days of his trip, Tom visited Xiafangshen, a town near Haicheng where he lived his early years, Qian Shan in the neighboring city of Anshan, and visited some old relatives in or near Haicheng. On June 26, 2006, Tom got up early, called a taxi, and left for Shenyang, where he checked in at Shenyang Taoxian International Airport, took a short, domestic flight to Beijing International Airport via China Eastern Airlines and transferred to an oversea flight back to US via United Airlines.
[edit] A Great Sensation of True American Life (mid-2006 to early 2007)
After returning from his 2006 summer vacation in China, his new house waiting to settle in (purchased earlier in the year) was still undergoing final renovations. On July 4, 2006, less than two weeks after returning, he officially moved in.
[edit] New York City (Summer of 2007)
[edit] Early High School Period
Tom officially started his 9th grade freshman period in Brookwood High School in Snellville, GA on August 13, 2007. This period lasted for approximately three and a half month until November 20, 2007, in which he resigned before moving to New York City and applying for Forest Hills High School on November 26, 2007. For that period he attended four "honored" classes: Honored Geometry, Honored Geography, Honored English and Honored Biology.
[edit] A New Home In A New Place (November 2007 and so on)
[edit] The Return (Spring Break of 2008)
Tom, after five month of living in Kew Garden Hills, NY., managed to return to Atlanta, GA. for his spring break vacation which lasts from April 19, 2008 to April 27, 2008.
[edit] Education History
The earliest school education Tom received was assumed to be in 1997 in Xiafangshen, a small town 20 kilometers from Downtown Haicheng. His elementary school period lasted from 1998 to 2004, middle school period lasted from 2004 to 2007, and high school period lasted from 2007 to 2011. He is currently not enrolling in college yet, but he is planning to enterNew York University or Queens College no earlier than 2011.
[edit] Acadamy Enrollment Records
[edit] Settled Places
| Time | City, State, Country | Type of Settlement |
|---|---|---|
| 1993 - 1994? | Xiafangshen, Liaoning, China | Apartment building |
| 1994 - 1998? | [unknown village name], Liaoning, China | House |
| January 1998 - July 1999 | Haicheng, Liaoning, China | Apartment building |
| July 1999 - June 24, 2000 | Haicheng, Liaoning, China | Apartment building (a few blocks from the original) |
| June 25, 2000 - September 1, 2000 | Elmhurst, New York, USA | Apartment house |
| September 2, 2000 - June 25, 2002 | Rego Park, New York, USA | Apartment building |
| June 26, 2002 - September 5, 2003 | Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Apartment house |
| September 6, 2003 - November 20, 2003 | Tucker, Georgia, USA | House |
| November 21, 2003 - July 3, 2006 | Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA | House |
| July 4, 2006 - November 20, 2007 | Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA | House (same subdivision) |
| November 21, 2007 - January 25, 2008 | Flushing, New York, USA | Apartment building |
| January 26, 2008 - Present | Kew Garden Hills, New York, USA | Apartment building |
[edit] Contributions
[edit] Crews Middle School
From 2005 to 2007, Tom participated in the annual school event called the CMS Technology Fair and together with many other schoolmates, helped in winning the Intel Schools of Distinction Award. Tom has a great interest in office suite computer softwares and kept good knowledge of applications from Microsoft Office series by Microsoft. In all three Tech Fair events, his role was to demonstrate programs associated with Microsoft Office, notably Microsoft PowerPoint projects on the school's IBM NetVista desktops and Lenovo ThinkPad laptops.
| Year | Microsoft Office Edition | Office Program(s) Demonstrated |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Microsoft Office 2000 | Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage |
| 2006 | Microsoft Office XP | Microsoft PowerPoint |
| 2007 | Microsoft Office 2003 | Microsoft PowerPoint |
[edit] Wikipedia
Tom first used Wikipedia during the first marking period of his seventh grade in 2005 in term of a social study project. After his vacation back from China in 2006, he started to use this open-source reference site more frequent fue to first outputs on the Google search engine. After learning that its article context are capable of being edited, Tom registered his first free Wikipedia account User:tommygaofang on September 2006. For the first few months, Tom focused on inputing information on films, notably the 1995 Jet Li film My Father Is a Hero and the 2005 Tom Cruise film War of the Worlds. After a bit of experience, Tom began to enhance his contribution on Wikipedia by uploading self-made photographs and images. On October 10, 2007, Tom established a new account. The original User:tommygaofang account was replaced by User:Tommy Gao. At first, a small paragraph of autobiography was retrieved from the original account. But on April 1, 2008, the single simple paragraph was erased and replaced with more detailed and factual information, including various subjects and topics as well as a self-photography. The old account User:tommygaofang still exist, but consists of only a redirect link to Tom's current account and no autobiography.
[edit] See Also
Tom Gao
