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