Victory comes at a Price

I guess you could say that last Sunday I had a sort of Pyrrhic victory: There was a hackathon that was going on that weekend, so I spent most of my Saturday learning how to code an Android app in Java and by the time Sunday came around, I had been working for nearly 16 hours on coding that app. Of course, I didn't expect to win and, in fact, I was hoping to lose because that would mean that I wouldn't have to code anymore. After spending so long with that program, I just couldn't stand the sight of it anymore. Fortunately... and yet unfortunately... we did actually manage to win the first tier of the hackathon, getting in the top 5 of the 13 teams competing at USC. As a reward, we were given $100 as a team for all working on the program all weekend, but we were told to continue developing the app for a final presentation on the following Thursday, which just passed by a few days ago.

I can't believe that the most I've stayed awake for this program, though. I was initially going to just help out a little bit while we got an actual person who knew how to code in Android/Java to do the work, but since we were not able to find people who could actually code, another freshman studying Computer Science with an emphasis on games and I had to do all of it instead. We were working with 2 sophomores and a junior, only one of whom was a computer science major and the junior was planning to minor in it. I think we had the least coding experience out of anyone in the top 5, which was impressive, but also very discouraging because we knew there was no way that we would be able to come up with, and execute the coding for, a better app than any other team. Anyway, I spent my Monday and my Wednesday, starting at midnight so I guess it would actually be Tuesday and Thursday, coding each screen for the application and trying to make sure that there would actually be a good-looking app to show off to the judges on Thursday evening. I was up until 4 on Tuesday and 6 on Thursday, so I was hoping that all the work would pay off. Of course, though, it did not and we did not receive any reward on Thursday because one of the other teams managed to develop a better app than we did. Speaking of which, our app was supposed to be a polling app for all the students at USC, where you would download it and answer a few questions and eventually be able to level up and gain points, which could be redeemed for prizes. It seems like a ridiculous concept because people would likely not want to fill out the poll, but it was one of the suggestions made by the people who hosted the event for an app.

I have to say, as much as I was hoping to learn to program before this event, I don't think this was the kind of learning experience I was hoping for... This is just too much in one sitting and although I learned the material, for the most part, I don't like the stress that was associated with the 2 day time limit. Coding in java, at least as far as I can remember, was not as challenging as this event when I was helping to develop that social media application with Dylan, but I guess that failed... Perhaps this is the best and worst way for me to learn a programming language.

-Sam Rho

Paranoia

According to Webster’s dictionary, paranoia is a serious mental illness that causes you to falsely believe that other people are trying to harm you. I wanted to write a little about how I occasionally feel while hanging out with friends. It’s often very sudden, but I usually block out the thoughts that appear very quickly as well. Basically, I get this feeling that the friends I’ve made here are going to suddenly turn on me and say, “We never really wanted to hang out with you, we just felt bad for you.” It’s a terrible feeling and I know that I shouldn’t have it because the friends I’ve made here are all great, but I just can’t help it. I haven’t really been able to bond well enough with them.

For example, with the Insanity workout that we’re doing these days, I’ve been trying to do my best and when I tell others how I’m not doing as well as they are, they immediately turn to me and say something along the lines of “No, you’re doing great! You were MVP last night!” It’s very kind of them to say such things, but I can’t help but wonder if this is some elaborate rouse to try and get me to exercise. The others that I’ve been doing this exercise with are mostly athletic and fit so when I’m in there sweating like a maniac and breathing heavily, I just feel a little out of place. I know that this can’t be true and I feel like I’m being selfish for having such thoughts because there is no way that so many people would collaborate to do such a thing. Along with that, I know that one of the girls was planning to do this program by herself in the first place, so it’s very unlikely that this is all just a plan. I know that this doesn’t really count as harming me, but I feel like I have paranoia in these situations because I’m having these sorts of thoughts.

Anyway, midterms are coming up soon. In fact, I had my first math midterm on the 4^th! It was definitely a lot easier than I expected, so from now on I’m just going to expect the worst on tests and quizzes. I mean, it kind of worked for microeconomics and it sort of worked for physics in high school, so maybe it will work out for me again. Just over-study for everything!

-Sam Rho

Insanity

While in college, students often don't get too much sleep. In order to take advantage of this, Sam took up a challenge with his friends: take the 60 day insanity workout. We planned to begin everyday from 11:00pm. This began on Monday and the past 3 days have been... Insane. I can't match the levels of my friends in fitness, so I figured I would just join for fun. I signed the contract that we made and am slowly beginning to regret my decision. These extreme cardio sessions have been causing much soreness every morning and I have been getting less sleep, but I'm not going to whine about it here.

College life, or at least my own college life, has been very interesting. I've spent a few days being the guy who is always studying and I'm slowly transitioning to the guy who is often tired. Although I've gotten used to the time zone, insanity has prevented me from going to bed before midnight this week. The only day we get a break from this workout is Sunday... Which means I have to take advantage of that and do work early and sleep early.

Some of the guys in my suite had a chemistry midterm today, and one of them had a biology midterm on monday as well. This causes a little bit of worry because my midterms are also coming up soon. Not only that, but the work has slowly been increasing from all my classes, so I'm trying to get my time schedule straight so that I can always have time to do work. Not only that, but I've been trying to check out more of LA because... Well, because I'm here so I should be able to tell people what places are here and all the sights. In addition, I've also been trying to learn more about opportunities for the future for jobs or internships. I guess that's just normal life, but this is all so new to me, so I've been adjusting and it's been an interesting experience.

-Sam Rho

#blessed

Wow... I'm amazed that I managed to make it into USC. The levels of intelligence here are incredible. Of course, I'm no premed or predental student, so it's possible that I'm just hanging out with smart people, but I'm pretty sure I'm just incredibly lucky to get into here. It's also possible that this is just because I'm now in California, where the education seems to be slightly better than Funchester. Whatever it is, the people I'm meeting are definitely in another class from me, with regards to intelligence.

I'm just becoming more and more humble every day. This process began with an offhand discussion with a few suite mates about SAT scores and financial aid now that we were all at USC. A couple of my suite mates had managed to pull off SAT scores that rival Tomy's only by taking a few practice SAT tests. In fact, one had managed to pull off good enough scores as well as a combination of other factors to get a full ride to this very expensive school (normally ~$60,000 a year). After that, I attended a couple of christian organizations and met a few people. I started chatting with those people and then, once again, learned that one was here on a full ride and the pastor of the church that the organization had on campus had also attended USC on a full ride and had even managed to make money as he was attending. Fast forward a couple of weeks to today where I learned that another one of my suite mates was planning to go to either Duke or Brown for predental. Not only that, but most of the top 20 had actually gone to ivy league schools! He had been near the top of the ranks at his school, like 4th or something, and had decided to go to USC at the last minute... I'm just not worthy. I'm sure it doesn't really matter, but I feel so incredibly humbled by the fact that all these people have come here after being around such incredible people and being good enough to get into schools way better than here.

I didn't really understand how incredible this school was when I was applying here. That being said, I'm sure I would have met just as amazing people if I had gone to any other school. Speaking of other schools... I'm slowly wondering if USC is the right school for me. I mean, I love it here, but I'm wondering if this school is worth the monetary problems I could potentially be putting my parents into. Perhaps I should just try and get a scholarship for UVA and go back to Virginia... This thought will develop more as the year continues. I may or may not still consider this in the next few months.

-Sam Rho

College vs. Sam

I'm arrogant. I have quite a bit of pride. In fact, I'm a guy that people would probably not want to hang out with. Of course, I usually hide this arrogant side and try to act as humble as possible. This doesn't always work out, of course, so I end up having to create new personalities to try and fit multiple different norms. Anyway, that's not what I was trying to go for. I'm trying to say that I was definitely underestimating the challenges of Calculus III.

After experiencing two years of Calculus without really learning too much, I was definitely overconfident going into Calc 3. I mean, I had cool teachers: Mr. Hess was a very "chill" teacher and I did enjoy how cool he was, but I never managed to learn much in that class; Mr. Whitney was... also very interesting, but I never really felt like I was truly learning in that class either. In fact, the only two times I felt I was learning math in the past few years has been in Linear Algebra and AP Statistics. Those were taught by very good teachers and I really enjoyed them. In fact, some of that wisdom from Linear Algebra, namely eigenvalues and matrix math, has come into use in my Engineering Computational Methods class, where we basically work with MatLab and C++. Anyway, I never really liked 3D math, even when I was learning in Algebra 2, it just didn't work well with my brain. Now that everything is the R^3, I'm just a mess. I'm definitely going to have to make use of office hours, teaching assistants, tutors, and everything possible.

Another humbling experience has been seeing how incredible all these people are at USC. I knew that I was kinda lucky to get it and to get a scholarship for 1/4 of the tuition, but much of my suite and a few people I've met through clubs have actually gotten here on much greater scholarships! I've met 2 people who are here on full rides! It's just a really humbling experience seeing how amazing people who come here are. I'm looking forward to learning more and getting to know all these smart people better, though. Geez! So awesome!

-Sam Rho

Football Game

When I applied to USC and even when I decided to go to USC for college, I completely ignored the fact that this was a college known well for its football team. I just assumed that, even if it was important and all, I would be able to avoid it and continue studying or hanging out with friends. USC is incredible, not only for its education, but also for the athletic talent! The problem is that I lack the appreciation for that skill.

One would think that when applying for schools, I would have noticed how impressive USC's football record was, but I never even thought about sports when I was applying. In fact, my thoughts were mostly focused on prestige of the school. Now, I'm inside, occasionally looking at the football score, studying my European history while many others are off at the game. It just feels strange,I guess. It didn't bother me in high school, but now that I live at school, it's becoming more challenging to ignore things like this. Not only that, but I went with a friend to the science museum next to school because I didn't feel like doing work and all along the way I saw a whole bunch of tents set up with USC plastered on them. I'm sure I'll eventually get used to not caring much about football, but for now, it still feels strange.

-Sam Rho

Week 2

I've been looking at all my syllabi and have found it quite overwhelming, to be honest. All the work that I'm going to have to do before the end of the semester is incredible! At least I have people to help me if I'm stuck. I'm still looking for friends to make a study group with in some of my classes and I hope that won't take too long.

Today I decided to have some fun and try out for an a capella group. After listening to them at a gathering of all the groups yesterday, I thought it would be really exciting to join one. Then I realized that I needed to have a song prepared. At that point, I thought I was going to have to back out. I wasn't sure if I knew any songs well enough to try out for any of these groups, especially the all women's a capella group, the USC Sirens. Being a guy and all, it's hard to get into one of those. Instead, I decided that my lack of skill would be perfect for a group with about mid-level skill called Overflow. They seemed pretty friendly and they sounded great. The catch is that they're a Christian group and that they don't compete. So, I figured it would work well for me as I'm doing all my work for EE to have a break and sing with a Christian group. Of course, this all depends on if I make it or not. There is another really pro group called SoCal VoCals that sounded incredible yesterday, but I didn't think I was good enough for them, so I intentionally skipped that one and went to Overflow.

Classes are... not too bad yet. The most annoying class is my general education class: The Emergence of Modern Europe. There's a great deal of reading involved and it's all about European history from 1350-ish to the French Revolution. It sounded interesting when I signed up for it because I had never had the chance to take AP European History, but it's seeming like it's going to be a lot of work. Other than that, most of my classes have an average load of work to do and the teachers professors seem to teach pretty well.

My roommate is planning to switch into Computer Science for his major, which is cool because I kind of want to learn that stuff. Although, I don't really feel like that's my calling for a major, knowing that stuff would be nice. I hope that I can learn from him if he does decide to switch majors. Also, I'm slowing finding people who speak Korean to hang out with, which is great because that helps to increase my Korean skills... or lack thereof.

I hope week 2 is as great as week 1 was.

-Sam Rho

Meeting People

I've been trying to meet more people now that I'm at USC, but I'm not doing too well on my own. Luckily I have an amazing suitemate who is very outgoing and social. His personality makes people more drawn to him and he also goes out of his way, a little bit, to try and meet people. In fact, thanks to him, I have now met almost every single person in my hallway and some in the others as well. I have met about 5 or 6 Koreans, one of whom is my suitemate. I'm glad that I have met such a great guy who has allowed me to meet so many people.

Not only that, but I've met a couple of other amazing people as well. The outgoing guy's roommate is a Korean who enjoys playing LoL a great deal, and I have no doubt that he has some sort of high rank, but I think I've met people on campus who are actually better than him. That's not the point, though. His contacts have allowed me to meet people who are in the honor's housing, which I guess I just didn't apply for or something, not that I would want it because I feel like A/C is kinda necessary... ish when you're living here. Anyway, I've been able to find people who are incredibly intelligent here as well through having the Korean guy as a friend.

My roommate is kind of a ladies man, I won't lie. Every time he's been out of the dorm, recently, it's been because he's been with one of the two girl dorms on our side of the hall. He's cool, though. He's hispanic and he seems pretty fluent in Spanish, which is really cool to me because I suck at Korean. He's also an Electrical Engineering major for now... but honestly, I know that he's really smart, but I think he's too chill to be in EE. I'm slowly starting to understand that this is actually a challenging major. I hope he chooses an awesome different major if he decides that EE isn't for him. Anyway, through this guy, I've been meeting more girls as a result of following him around.

From orientation, I met a group of guys who knew each other from middle school, but changed high schools. These three are each interested in different things. One enjoys LoL and is amazing at the game, another plays Heroes of Newerth and is also amazing at that game, and the last one... I'm not really sure what he does, but I know he can solve Rubik's cubes faster than I can... or maybe as fast. I'm not sure. Anyway, I've been following these guys around as well and I've met a great deal of different people. From people they know through older siblings or just people who play the same games, I've been able to meet a great deal of people because of them.

I'm still trying to make more friends so I can have more contacts as I grow up and leave this place. I know that graduating from USC apparently has its perks, as does graduating from any other school, but I don't want to risk having missed a chance to know an important person. I now need to sleep because I have classes again tomorrow.

-Sam Rho

USC Day 3

I've been on campus for just 3 days now and I've been in California for about 5 days, but I'm still rather tired in the evenings. The combination of walking everywhere and the time zone change is really causing me to have trouble staying up late and hanging with friends. Today, I decided not to go to a spirit rally because I would be extremely tired after something like that and instead, I followed around a suitemate and his friend. They're both into LoL (League of Legends) so I figured it would be interesting to see how they behaved and it turned out to be rather enjoyable. They joked around with each other a lot and it seemed that their enjoyment in the game allowed them to quickly become connected with many others who were interested in that sort of thing. As a result, I now know almost an entire suite that is full of LoL players. By the way, I'm currently living in one of the more expensive dorms on the campus. I had no idea because I didn't really research enough, but apparently this costs a great deal more than other housing. I guess the combination of being right next to the museum, park, cafeteria, and having air conditioned room make it rather attractive to students, so the higher demand leads to higher prices.

On an off note, I got my AP scores a while ago and I never really got to tell anyone about them. That being said, they didn't really matter much, but I'm going to write a bit about them here. I actually did rather poorly this year on my AP tests. The only 5 I received was in AP Environmental Science, and that was simple! I managed to get 4's in Chem, Micro, and Stats, which was exciting. I was not expecting to get that good of a score in Chemistry, especially since I had not properly looked over the actual format of the Free Response portion of the test. I had no idea that I would have to figure out what would specifically happen if two elements combined! I, of course, only got a 3 in English Lit, but I'm basically never going to do well in English, so I'm over it. The last test I took was Macroeconomics and I had my doubts about that class. I wasn't sure if I was even going to get an A in the actual online class because of the Macroeconomics section at the beginning. Anyway, I never got to properly learn macro, so I only got a 1 on it. It's depressing, but, with luck, I'll never have to deal with the economics of a nation or of a large company, so I'm over it.

Back to USC. I really enjoy it here. The weather is pretty nice all the time and the lack of humidity makes even the heat bearable. I have spent many hours in the sun these past few days trying to get to know people through the programs that USC has set up, but because some of them are so late, I have trouble staying up for things like the highlighter dance party that was last night and the movie that is tonight. Rather than attempt to go to those things, I have decided to write this post. I still feel like the time should be 1:21am instead of 10:21pm. Hopefully this time delay thing for evenings will start to wear off on Monday because classes start. I still need to try and keep the early morning waking up thing going, but also increase the amount of time I can stay awake. I have yet to properly time my route for the next week of classes, but the only real trouble I think I'll have is on Wednesday, where I have like three classes back-to-back-to-back. And I don't even think those classes are that far away from each other, so I should be fine.

I would write more, but I'm a bit too tired now. Perhaps tomorrow will be a free day for me to write. It's Saturday, so brunch at the cafeteria opens at 10... I have to wait until 10 to eat... Whatever.

-Sam Rho

In an effort to remember

In order to give myself a little push to write often, I've decided to write today

Today will be my first full day in L.A. perhaps I'll just write again today with some pictures to document the experience. So far, I've had to go from LAX straight to the hair salon where my mom got a haircut. My mom actually then forced me to get a haircut there... that led to some interesting results.

After that we went to eat at a nice Korean restaurant where the food was overpriced, but at least we got to cook it on the grill ourselves. It's more excited to eat after that. My mom woke up this morning and said there must have been some weird stuff in the food because her fingers were bloated and my aunt agreed.

After that, we went to my cousin's house. Her husband was busy on a trip, so it was just my aunt, my mom, myself, my cousin, and her 2 kids. I have to say, small children have a bunch of energy! I was up until like 9 or 10 PST, which is past midnight in my usual time zone. Although it doesn't seem that late, I had been on a plane ride and I was rather tired.

Today we're off to buy supplies for my dorm. Lots of things like containers for clothes and a desk lamp as well as other normal school supplies.

I'm sure this will be exciting!

-Sam Rho

Funchester

As I write this post I am listening to country radio in my sister's friend's car. Something about "Jolene..." I feel like I've heard this before.probably at Governor's School...

It's just 2 days before I'm gone until winter break. My lifestyle is, hopefully, going to change as I reach California. Not only am I going to have to change what I do everyday, I'm also going to have to change how I interact with people. In order to succeed in the future, making, and maintaining, connections with people is supposed to be very important. Logically, I've determined that I should try and make as many friends as possible, especially with older students and professors. In fact, I'm going to challenge myself, once again, to write here every day. As long add I'm making changes, this might as well be one of them.

Day 1 will be the 26th, when classes begin. I hope all 5 of you who read this will make sure I keep this promise to myself...

It's been nice, Funchester, but I'm going to the desert-y, ghetto-ish, extremely-safe-but-not-really city of LA.

Trojan, Hokie, or Cavalier?

I haven't seen this in a while. Well, I apologize to whoever reads this for not writing in such a long time.
I've been having the most challenging time trying to decide between three colleges in the price range of my parents: University of Southern California, Virginia Tech, and University of Virginia. A private school that's across the country, but actually in my home state, and two public schools that are about 2-3 hours away from my home.
As I sent in my college applications, I organized them into a list that was sorted by preference:
1. MIT
2. Georgia Tech
3. USC
4. UPenn
5. John Hopkins University
6. UVA
7. VT

I got wait listed from JHU and rejected from MIT and UPenn, so those got taken off. Georgia Tech was first on my list at that point, so I went and visited it and found the campus to be great. Unfortunately, it was going to cost over $100,000 to attend that college for all 4 years. USC was next on my list and I was incredibly excited to hear from this college initially because they were the first to accept me. After researching this school online, I found that the school was pretty awesome overall as well. My parents and I calculated the cost of attendance for per year and it turned out to be about $14,000. Not too bad. After visiting UVA and going on the engineering tour as well as the Anh-led tour, I found that it was an amazing school. The campus life seemed great and the distance from home was very manageable for my parents. After calculating the cost of attendance per year was about $5,000, which is very attractive. VT was last on my list as I just didn't want to attend that school. After loans and grants, VT ended up costing $16,000. Not the greatest deal.
I also looked at opportunities for internships, as many people said that work experience was as important as education. Georgia tech had incredible coop and internship programs, so I knew that if I went there, I would definitely have a good chance at getting a job. USC seemed to have great programs as well, at least according to websites. UVA just didn't seem incredibly promising in terms of internships or coops. And I didn't even bother checking for VT.
After looking at everything, I've come to a decision about my college. Although it's a bit more expensive than UVA, I believe that the best choice for me is going to have to be USC. I am going to be a Trojan because it's better than UVA in engineering rankings, it seems to be pretty good overall on internship and work experience programs, and it still seems to be a good value overall because private schools are likely to give more scholarships in future.

-Sam Rho

3 for 4

Well, it happened. The decision from MIT came today. As expected I got a message saying that I was not accepted. At the same time, I won't deny that I wished that I would get in so I could show off, but that just wasn't allowed for me. It seems that I'm probably head to Georgia tech if all goes well for me, now. Sorry Tomy and Anh. At least I don't have to be regretful that I didn't go to MIT after being accepted.

In other news, my mom learned today that I actually know a guy on YouTube. Well, I used to know him, but no longer be cause he's a bit too famous now. If you don't know Victor Kim, I'm sure you've seen him at some point hanging out on the nigahiga channel or the YTF channel. He's amazing at dancing and is pretty good at singing as well. I'm surprised I had never remembered him. I kind of remember the name, but it had never occurred to me that I knew him when I was younger.

Well... that was a short run

Hmm... two days straight was the last run that I had. That's a bit disappointing. Well, I'll go ahead and write some things about how I am so far. I'm sure you don't really care, but I mostly write for myself anyways. By the way, I have a little less than 2 hours to write this because I promised a friend that I would write something today. Along with that, he told me to write fat, sexy paragraphs... I don't really know how to do that, so I'll just go ahead and write as I usually do.

College news so far:
3 for 3! I've been accepted to Georgia Tech, University of Southern California, and Virginia Tech. I'm thinking of going to GT, but if Sam doesn't receive enough monies, Sam may have to go elsewhere. As unfortunate as that would be, I'm just glad that I haven't been rejected from a school yet. Unfortunately, tomorrow, Pi Day, at 6:28PM, I will, most likely, be rejected from MIT, so stay tuned. I might just go ahead and write about my thoughts after that experience. Along with that, I'll be at taekwondo right after learning whether or not I got in, so that will be a way to let out any negative emotions that I may feel after learning of my rejection. I understand that I have no chance of getting in, but for some reason, I think that I'll still be a bit unhappy after learning of my rejection. That's how positive I'm feeling about colleges so far. I believe UPenn has decisions on the 28th as well, so that will be fun.

School related things:
English is not as bad as I imagined it was going to be. The worst things for me are harknesses, which are basically where the class talks about the novel that was just finished, because I just have trouble thinking of what to comment on or how to reply to questions directed at me. Talking is just a challenge for me and I don't really know why. Also, I have these reading logs for every book that I read, one of which happens to be due tomorrow, where I have to write down my feelings as I read the book. Currently we are reading Heart of Darkness, which I've heard is a challenging read. I didn't think it was that bad, but after I finished reading, I checked the SparkNotes (shame on me) to see if I properly understood the book and I was completely off. I though that Marlow was a posh dude who really didn't like the black people in Africa, but it turns out that he just refers to them in that way because of the people he is hanging out with. I guess he just doesn't want to be seen as being too strange? Anyway, I'm going to have to get back to that log after this.

AP Economics. I have to say that of all the classes that I've taken in high school, this has got to be the worst. The teacher doesn't teach and instead tells us to read the book. Just like Dr.Felts, except that this class actually counts as a full grade not just part of another class grade. Ugh. The structure of the class is supposed to be that there is a chapter every week in an online textbook that we are supposed to read. Then, we are supposed to do some problems out of the online book and turn them in. After that, the teacher is supposed to give feedback on these and from that feedback, we are then supposed to do the problem set that she gives us. Unfortunately, what ultimately occurs is that she assigns all the work, we turn in the chapter review on or before Sunday. She doesn't grade them at all. We turn in the problem set on Tuesday and finally get results back on Wednesday for the chapter review. Then on the following days we get the results back from the Problem Set. We don't have any extra credit and the only thing that keeps us from getting B's and C's is the Reflection and the Open Forum. These are just little discussion things that the teacher has that are 20 points each. Tests and Problem sets kill my grade, but that's fine. I'll figure out micro and macro alone at home the weeks before the test. This class doesn't help me at all.

AP Chem is getting better, I'm understanding it more and it's getting a bit easier. APES... is just a bunch of work, but I'm learning everything, which is never bad.

I'm going to go ahead and abruptly end this because I have to finish this reading long. As I said before, I'll try and remember to update tomorrow on my MIT decision.

Beginning to explain

Let me start explaining. My college applications finished around December 30th. My goodness, that was a relief. Without applications to have to worry about, I started to focus a little more in classes. The problem after that, though, was that I didn't really have any motivation to do anymore volunteering. I felt really bad after realizing that; in fact, I still feel bad because volunteering is supposed to be just giving up time to help out the community and after it became less of a necessity for college, I stopped wanting to do it. I hope that it's just a side effect of both getting all my applications in and getting into a college, but I get the feeling that it may just be a Sam thing. A natural state of being Sam is one where he just doesn't want to volunteer. Sigh, I really should fix that.
Anyway, I managed to get into USC! I'm really glad because I was beginning to get worried that I wouldn't get into colleges. One of my friends had actually gotten deferred from both Georgetown and JMU, so I was getting nervous, but USC made me relieved. Now I just have to keep my grades up to the point that I can stay salutatorian/ tied valedictorian with my buddy.
I think that's enough for today, more explanation shall be written tomorrow.

-Sam Rho

I haven't written here in a while..

I forgot about this... Totally should have written on here earlier... Like a few months earlier. Well, since the last post, many things have happened. College applications have all been finish, the past semester has been completed, new classes have begun, many gifts have been exchanged, Sam has actually been accepted into one college, Sam has purchased Minecraft, Microeconomics has begun in the online class, Sam has discovered that English isn't as challenging as he expected, and Sam has started listening to a few different podcasts.

I think I may actual start writing on here again as a bit of practice for ap english. After all, writing more helps to become a better reader, and that is a skill that I really need to work on. Understanding literature is a very challenging task, at least to me. These changes since the last post will be discussed in future posts.

-Sam Rho