Utterly Random Post!

Yeah, in case I haven't mentioned it already, I'm kind of a night owl.  I usually go to bed about now, but tonight I decided to write a completely and utterly random post before that!

It seems like I spent the entire night doing school.  I think it's because...surprise!...I was doing school.  (Since I do school online, I totally have the freedom to stay up all hours of the night working on my homework.  Which is pretty nice for me, right?)  It honestly took me FOREVER.  I didn't finish until a little after 3:00AM, I believe (it usually doesn't take me that long, but I kind of got really caught up in my Computer Sci. assignment, heh heh...)

Anyway, by the time I finished I decided to play WoW for a little while.  I didn't even realize it was 4:00AM until they began the countdown.  You know, the, "We're updating the game now and starting a countdown.  So here's your chance to get to a safe place so you don't get killed by monsters when we automatically disconnect you from the server at the end of the countdown."

I wonder if they specifically hire people to do the countdown?  Do you think they pay people to do that and that only?  Because I could definitely do something like that.  I'm up at this time anyway, right?

Nevermind, I bet you have to be 18 or older.

It seems like all jobs anymore require you to be 18 or older.  Even jobs with the most menial task require you to be 18 or older!  Want to work at a game store?  Sorry, you need to be 18+.  Want to be one of those people in movies walking in the background?  (And yes, I did once see a job for that.)  Sorry, even though you've known how to walk since you were 1, you can't do that unless you're 18+.  How about shelving books at a library?  Nope, because even if you've been obsessively alphabetizing your books since you were 8, you're still not qualified for the job unless you're 18 or older.  I mean, WTF?!  It's totally not fair!!!

I want a job!  I want to be able to get a laptop so I can play WoW and actually see the graphics!  I want a PS3 so I can play all the video new games!  I want to have the money to pre-order the LIMITED EDITION of Sims 3 Pets!  Not to mention that I want to special order one of those umbrella-sword-canes, because they're just cool...

Anyway, in short, how am I supposed to buy cool stuff when 90%+ jobs out there require a minimal age of 18?!  Grrr...it's just not fair!

I wonder if I could file a lawsuit for age discrimination?  *Pause* Nah, you probably have to be 18 or older for that...

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Applying to College Should Be a Horror Movie

They should make a movie on the horrors of applying to college.  Trust me, "Halloween" would hold nothing against a movie on a senior about to apply to college.

Why do I say that?  Because, more often than not, very troubling thoughts race through my head.  In fact, right now I'm thinking:

• Oh my GODDDDD I only got a 32 on the grammar portion of the ACT!!!  Not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES...IN A ROW!!!  Seriously, is this divine intervention or something?!?!?!  What are the chances of me getting EXACTLY 5 QUESTIONS WRONG ON THREE DIFFERENT PRACTICE TESTS?!?!?!  IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!?!?!  (Evidently so.)  Not to mention that grammar is my best subject!!!  How am I supposed to get a 34+ on the ACT when I am getting only 32 on my best subject?!  Math is my worst subject...so if I'm only getting 32 on my best subject, what am I going to get on math?!?!?  *Mournful moan*


• THIS AP STATS HOMEWORK IS KILLING ME!!!  My college Japanese class is actually LESS WORK than my AP Stats class!  Arrrrgh!


• I have a painting due for art...AND I CAN'T PAINT!!!!!!


• I'll only be graduating with a 3.5 WEIGHTED GPA.  How am I supposed to get accepted at the best all-girl's school in the country with only a 3.5 GPA?!?!?!  And the fact that I'm only getting a 32 on my best ACT subject certainly isn't helping the matter...well, I guess a lot is going to depend on my college essay...


• OH NOOOOOOOOO I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M GOING TO WRITE FOR MY COLLEGE ESSAY!!!!!  I have absolutely no significant experiences whatsoever!!!  My most significant experience was when my boyfriend dumped me, and that's not even good significant!  Seriously, I rarely even leave my house, so how am I supposed to even HAVE a significant life experience?  Are those things common by age 17?

After coming to terms with all these troubling facts, I often end up kneeling on the floor with the word "DOOM" over my head, as a hollow "bong" rings once in the background.

Not really.  But figuratively speaking, it certainly does feel like that sometimes.

You know, I once went to this poetry reading at my boyfriend's high school.  When he was in high school.  This one guy of Asian descent (a senior, I believe) wrote a poem about the torture of writing his college essay.  At the time, I was young and innocent and had never heard of this dreaded thing called a "college essay" (God, I long for those carefree days).  However, I now understand his pain.  There is nothing...NOTHING...more painful than the brainstorming and writing of the dreaded COLLEGE ESSAY *da da dum*

*Pause*  Well, except for maybe when your boyfriend is sleeping with your only other friend in the world besides for him, and then he proceeds to dump you on the most important day of the year after brutally insulting you and telling you that you will never accomplish anything worthwhile in life...but let's not even go there, shall we?

Anyway, back to my college essay.  I have been racking and racking my brain, and so far I still have no ideas.  Significant experiences?  None.  Things that I'm passionate about?  Well, I'm not really hardcore PASSIONATE about anything.  What makes me different from other applicants?  Well, for starters, they've probably all had significant life-changing experiences by now.

Hey, do you think colleges would accept me if I wrote an essay about my complete LACK of significant life-changing experiences?  Yeah, it'd definitely be unique.  On the other hand, I'm not quite sure if the college admission people would see significance in an essay about someone with a complete lack of significant experiences.

I suppose I could still always write about how my boyfriend dumped me, if worse comes to worst.  At least I learned something from that experience: as a general statement, guys are egocentric cretins unless proven to be otherwise.  (No offense intended.)  *Pause* Somehow, I'm not sure colleges will go for my conclusion.  Especially if it's a guy that is reading my essay.

DAMN IT IT'S SO HARRRRRRRRRRRD!!!!!!!!!!   Coming up with an essay idea sucks!  I have problems just coming up with ideas for personal narratives for school!  And now my fate hangs in the balance of a personal narrative!  It will make or break me!  It will change my life for better or for worse!  (But no pressure, right?)

Anyway, I guess I should probably get back to brainstorming.  Geez, I should write my college essay about how HARD it is to write a college essay.  Surely this counts as a significant challenge in life , grrrr...

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3-Day Weekends Aren't for Relaxing...

...they're for finishing the stuff you haven't gotten around to doing yet.  For example, if you've been busy with school (like me), now would be the time to start writing that college essay or start studying for the ACT.  Playing World of Warcraft or watching anime all day in your bunny slippers can wait.

Perhaps you think I'm an ergomaniac.  However, I prefer the term "high achiever."

Think about it.  No one ever got anywhere by sitting around having fun all day.  If you want to be successful, you have to WORK towards it.  Did Thomas Edison invent the lightbulb by playing video games?  (I'm fairly sure he would not have been doing this, even if video games did exist back then.)  Did Einstein discover that E=MC^2 by watching football?  No, they did not.  Success comes to those who work towards it, not those who sit around waiting for a genius revelation to hit them.

I'm not saying that you should never take time off.  If you have been incredibly overworked it's probably NOT  good idea to do extra work over the 3-day weekend.  The last thing you want is to crack under pressure during the week.  I'm just saying that, if at all possible, it's probably a good idea to use a 3-day weekend to do all that stuff you've been meaning to do.  Not only do you get that stuff out of the way, but you can also start the week with a feeling of accomplishment.

You're probably wondering what I achieved Labor Day Weekend.  Well, for starters, I leveled up my Night Elf Druid to 15.  Only I had to do it twice because the first time I accidentally chose the wrong animal blessing for The Ritual Bond quest.

JUST KIDDING!!!  Although that really did happen, I waited until I got other, more pressing matters finished before I logged on to WoW.  I finished my AP Stats homework, started studying for the ACT, straightened up my room and desk, started filling out my brag sheet, neatly organized all my email for the past 2 years into folders, etc.

Yeah, I actually made a to-do list for the things I wanted to get done on Labor Day Weekend, haha.  But now I can enter the coming week with a sense of SUCCESS and ACCOMPLISHMENT.  (Totally picturing myself on a golden pedestal with colorful streamers going off on either side of me, lol.)

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The "Brag Sheet"

It's Labor Day weekend and I am filling out what is commonly known as the "brag sheet".  In layman's terms, it's the "answer-all-these-bizarre-and-surprisingly-hard-questions-so-that-we-can-write-you-a-really-good-recommendation-letter" form.

I understand the point of this form, but I don't even know what I'm supposed to put on some of these questions.  For example, "Which of your activities (including hobbies, clubs, work experience, community service, family commitments, athletics or any special interests) have meant the most to you?  Why?"  If you recall, I mentioned on my very first blog post that I have belonged to zip, zero, zilch extracurriculars throughout my entire high school life (except the gaming club which I have very very VERY recently joined).  So exactly what am I supposed to put for that?

And here's another one, "Describe a challenge you have faced in your life.  How has this experience impacted you?  (This could very well be a college essay question you will soon see!)"  Okay, I totally get what they're talking about with the college essay thing.  All the winning college essays I have seen have all been about this.  But the thing is, if I actually KNEW of a worthwhile challenge in my life, I would know what I'm going to write about on my college essay (which, by the way, I am greatly struggling with).  The biggest challenge I have ever faced was getting on with my life after my boyfriend dumped me, but I highly doubt that anyone is going to see the worthwhile-ness in THAT (not to mention that I don't really want the college admissions office knowing personal issues like that).

Oh, and what about this one?  "How will you set yourself apart from all other applicants?  What talents, characteristics, and/or traits do you have that will impress a college and make you UNIQUE?"  Again, if I knew that, I would be furiously writing my college essay right now instead of updating my blog content.

I'm not going to bore you with the rest of these questions, but let's just say that they are all pretty hard.  Perhaps I'll take a break and come back to this form later.

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Follow up on Senior Year

Well, school has been in session for about a week and a half, and I have to say that it is going surprisingly well.  I changed a couple of my classes (the one was AP Bio because I wasn't understanding it, and the other was an elective), I have some AP Stats and Japanese homework this weekend, and I do have to find an idea for my college essay...not to mention that I still have the big, black cloud of college gloom hanging over my head.  But besides for those few things, my senior year is great.

I'm finding out about all the clubs.  The school is having a club fair not this week but next, which I am definitely going to.  I have already decided on the following clubs:

• Anime Club


• Gaming Club (already doing this)


• Asian Culture Club


• Peer Mentor Club (very recently joined)


• Book Club (maybe)

And I also plan to start a Korean drama club.  And the school is starting a school newspaper, so I'm volunteering to be editor-in-chief for that.  I have to kind of "try out" for that by submitting a piece of my nonfiction writing.  Considering that I've never really written anything COMPLETELY nonfiction (well, except this blog), I will probably be working on that this weekend.  (Although I have never written anything completely nonfiction, I did once write a slightly exaggerated story of how my boyfriend was cheating on me.  At the end he was vaporized by aliens.  In fact, I tried to get it published back in February.  Rather unfortunate that I didn't win that contest...)

It would be really great if I could get on the school newspaper.  It would be really REALLY great if I could be editor-in-chief.  Considering that I want to be an English major, not only would being editor-in-chief be good experience for that but it would also look really good on my college app.

So yeah, my senior year of high school sounds like it's going to be very eventful and fun.  (Remember that I'm trying to get every last bit of fun I can out of my senior year.  I'm striving for the true senior experience!)

But most probably the best part of my senior year so far is THE TIME!!!  It's so nice!  Instead of cramming ALL THE TIME for classes that I don't understand, I can actually do other things!  I actually have time to take showers regularly, eat 2+ meals a day, AND get over 6 hours of sleep on the weekend.  How cool is that?

And not only do I have time for life necessities (which I was kind of skipping during my junior year due to physics), I also have time for fun.  Yes, I can do real, actual fun activities during the school year!  Do you know that I actually had time to watch anime last night?  That's right, I could actually watch anime during the school year!  I haven't been able to do that since my sophomore year!  Awesome awesome awesome!

I have time to play computer games, video games, watch anime, read...it's so incredibly AWESOME!!!  I would also have time to play WoW, if only I had renewed my subscription time (soooo scatterbrained...I'm always forgetting when my pre-paid time cards expire, lol).

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Retest

Based on the many suggestions I have received from numerous people, I have decided to retake the ACT.  Why am I retaking the ACT instead of the SAT?  Because the SAT is HELL.  Not to say that the ACT is pleasurable to take, but it's a whole lot better than the SAT.  Why?

Well, for starters the SAT is a whole lot longer.  Seriously, I took it and got, like, 3 breaks. It just goes on and on FOREVER.  You know when you have those nightmares where you're doing school, then you wake up and you go to school, and then the entire day just seems to last forever?  That's what the SAT feels like, only at least 3 times worse.

And then there is no predictability with the SAT.  All the sections are completely randomized.  How can you mentally prepare yourself for the next section when you don't even know what that is?

But perhaps the worst aspect of the SAT is the confusing wording.  Seriously, I read the math problems and rarely do I even know what they're asking.  It's like, "WTF?  Can you re-word that in English?"

It takes a certain person to be able to take the SAT and do well on it.  Unfortunately, I am not that person.

My ACT scores where a lot better than my SAT scores.  Even still, I'm still not very satisfied with them.  I scored a 26, which isn't necessarily BAD, but it's probably not good enough to get me into some of the top schools in the country.  All the schools I'm applying for are very  selective, except my safety schools.  Considering that I will only be graduating with a 3.55 weighted GPA because I slacked off my freshman year, I need all the help I can get.

So, this time around I am aiming for at least a 30 (but I would really like a 34+, so I'm obviously going to study my brains out...again!)  These were the scores I got my first time:

ACT Score: Round 1
ENGLISH: 31
MATHEMATICS: 19
READING: 27
SCIENCE: 26
COMPOSITE SCORE: 26

Yeah, I really need to improve my math score.  I'm two years ahead in math, but for the life of me I can't wrap my head around word problems (so unfortunately I could not do AP Calc).  So I self-studied word problems for an entire month before the test.  *Pause* Come to think of it, that's really the only thing I studied (I brushed up on my English too, but I spent literally 1 hour studying for reading and science.  That is, 1 hour total, not separately.)  Oddly enough, despite my obsessive studying and cramming the night before, my lowest score was in math.

I probably could have received a lot better score if I only had more self-confidence in myself and my answers.  Not to blame anyone, but perhaps if my boyfriend (now EX) hadn't insisted that I would fail at the ACT despite my efforts, then maybe I wouldn't be retaking the ACT right now. *Irritated irritated irritated*

*Ahem* Anyway, enough with analyzing my past scores.  This time I plan to:
1. Brush up slightly on English (can definitely get a higher score on that)
2. Have my math teacher tutor me with word problems
3. Focus on first mastering the subject and THEN working with time (wasn't doing this first time around!)
4. Actually STUDY this time for reading and science.  If I got a 27 and 26 with only studying a half hour for each, imagine how high a score I could get if I seriously studied for them.

My goal is 34.  Of course, I would also be happy with a 32.  But anything below a 30 will greatly irritate me.  (Remember that I'm applying to some of the best schools in the country!)

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