Autodidacticism

That's probably not the right word, but I figured I would write about how I feel right now in AP Chemistry. Considering how long it's been since I last wrote, I probably should have some sort of update as well on life.

It's been about a month since school started and I have barely learned anything in AP Chemistry class. My teacher... Really the only thing that she's almost taught me is a couple anions. That's only because we had a test on it everyday, so we had to quickly learn all the names and the elements that made up the compounds. Instead of learning from the teacher, I've ha to teach myself. It almost feels like I'm back in AP Calculus with Hess, except it's worse because I don't really know Chemistry and it's actually challenging. I hope this AP book actually helps, otherwise, I'm screwed. Also, I get the fun of taking the Chemistry SOL this year. Remember those? I didn't know they still existed, but apparently I have to take the test for Chemistry. That'll be fun. Also, AP Economics is a similar situation, but there's the excuse that the teacher is kinda in Texas, so whatever. All of us in the class have to teach ourselves.

Oh, small update on everything. I get to do some more applications. My mom said I should apply to more schools, so I have a Stanford application, University of Illinois application, Caltech application, and I think I may have to do some UC schools as well. That'll be fun.

My attempt at writing something

I don't really know what this is. I attempted to write something for a college app, but I can't even use this. I can probably use some of this, but I have to reword it a bunch. Anyway, I think I've figured out what I should probably do in order to get better at writing these essays. I'm going to have to write like a Simon. Basically show off and make myself seem really awesome, but not to the point where I am Simon. I want to still be somewhat humble. Finding the perfect balance of these things... is probably going to be very challenging, especially with my extreme lack of writings skills. Oh well, I hope I can figure out the best way for me to write soon. If you decide to read what's below, you're awesome!

            I have never really understood myself. My parents told me I was born with a heart defect, the kind where you lack an entire third of your heart. That was the story I knew and I had never questioned it. To people that my parents told the story of my birth to, I was the miracle child. I guess that made sense, most people don’t live with a third of a heart, at least not for long. Still, I had only heard about how I lived, never really asking a doctor about how I was living. It wasn’t until recently that my parents had actually told me I had gotten the Fontan procedure. Sure, I had heard them talk about it to my cardiologist, and I had figured out that the procedure had been what had allowed me to live, but my own parents had never told me about my own life until that day.

As a young child, I seemed to enjoy games very much. From the moment I laid eyes on the Nintendo 64, I knew I had to get one. Again, though, that’s just from what my parents told me. I know I did enjoy being able to play with the game system, but I don’t exactly know when or even how I managed to learn about it. The only sources I have from those years are other people, my parents, perhaps other relatives, but not me. This excitement that I got from playing games led to me getting even more game systems and more games! I was just amazed at how quickly new devices and games were coming out. My parents always seem to forget to mention how much money each of those systems cost and how much they had to work in order to get that money. Of course, as a child, I had never really thought about that, I just wanted to play the new Gamecube or Gameboy. Perhaps I might have been more grateful that I was at the time if I had learned about those things.

            My childhood, what did I do back then? I wouldn’t remember things like that; most of the exciting things my parents mention are things that I can only find in pictures. Sure, they show me the pictures and I attempt to remember, but the memories just don’t seem to exist anymore. I don’t remember eating a watermelon papaya or even remotely remember how I used to wash myself with spaghetti. The pictures show my past, but that past is one that I just can’t seem to find in my own mind. These days, there are things I see that make me feel nostalgic, as if I had actually watched Doraemon or Zzangu on television, but that can’t be true. I’ve been in the United States and things like that are only in Asian countries. I really confuse myself sometimes.

-Sam Rho

Correges

I've calmed down a bit from my last blog post, thankfully. The other people at school who are already done... I'm going to consider them as being too smart for me. Some have already finished all their essays. Some are getting close to finishing their entire applications. It's safe to say, though, that I think I'm fine for now. I'll just keep on continually working on everything.

Small list of colleges I'm applying to so far:
Georgia Tech
UVA
Virginia Tech
MIT
GMU
Washington University in St. Louis

Small list of colleges I'm considering applying to:
Cal Tech
UC Berkley
Johns Hopkins

I shall see how things go from here... Perhaps I'll update a bit more often too.

-Sam Rho