I'll be 21 in a few days. I'm not really sure what to say about it except that I'm not all that excited about it. I guess I should feel "older" but I feel like I'm about to be treated like a baby all over again. I bet you anything that there will be someone who thinks they should offer advice about drinking: "You'll understand more with time..." I'm sorry if it's rude to retort but I must. I would already understand if somebody took the time to teach me "with time" when I was younger. You see, it's all in this culture. I don't want to really celebrate my 21st birthday in the traditional American way, which is supposedly to take your first drink of alcohol EVER at age 21, and then continue to drink until you realize the sun has already come up and you don't remember how the time passed so quickly. It like this ongoing inside joke among those who have already gone through it, to play on those who are about to go through it. It's also got this forbidden quality, the same quality that talking with your kids about sex has. So parents often avoid it altogether and leave their kids to learn on their own. Instead of being excited about turning 21, it actually brings up feelings of anger and disappointment. And to those of you that say to me, "I felt that way too when I was your age, but you'll get over it," I am sure you did. Go on thinking that way and see where it gets your own kids. I don't feel that there is anything at all to be excited about and I'd much rather retort against the entire culture and say "I will not take one fucking drink of alcohol on my twentry first birthday." As a human being, I believe I have the right to do what I wish with my own body. If I choose to drink at 12 years old, I will. If I choose not to drink on my 21st birthday, I will also do that. I am tired of the cultural norms, and societal pressures, rediculous laws, and the amount of drunken migraines that occur because some people out there feel that it's funny to play the inside joke and go along with the belief that alcohol and sex are taboo. Maybe America should grow up for a change.

Phew...

I am planning my transfer to a 4 year university. By the time I am able to transfer I will have been in community college for four years (although the major I picked is hard, so maybe its somewhat understandable). First of all I was having trouble even deciding on a major but I think I've come to a decision finally. I know that I am interested in either genetics or artificial intelligence. I don't think my grades are anywhere near where they should be to get into genetics and I'd have to start all over again. So comp sci is the way I am choosing. And there is one school that I really want to go to for its location and its reputation. I have a backup plan but I really hope I don't have to resort to it. There is a third option but its really unlikely that the school will accept me. I don't have a history of good study habits lol.

So anyway, it looks like I'll be ready to transfer in fall 08. I'm glad it works out for fall, otherwise I'd have to wait because my school of choice only offers certain classes once a year. I need a plan of attack because my high school record isn't so great and my junior college record didn't start out so great because I didn't have any good study skills until recently. Its not that I didn't want to be a good student, it's that I didn't know how to do it and my high school was completely idiotic. The one class they offered with information on college and career planning didn't go so well. The teacher was having a really rough pregnancy and I had a sub for all but 2 weeks of the semester. I didn't get much out of the class, unfortunately. I remember having lots of military personel coming to speak about military carreers but thats pretty much it. So, my plan of attack is this:
1) Write a killer personal statement
2) Do community service whenever possible
3) Get all A's (hopefully, I will try my very best)
4) Work on my social skills
5) Work on my health

I think this plan will work for me because if it goes as planned, it will show that I am dedicated and I can change for the better with determination. It will show that I can adapt and I think that is an important trait to have for success. My grades in high school were about a C average. I tried to take the harder classes and I guess I set myself up for failure because I didn't have the necessarily skills to succeed in those classes. That is why I had a C average. So in college I realized what my problem was and promised myself that I would change and improve my study habits and skills. I'm not thrilled that I didn't learn these things when I was young, but I'm still young and I can still make up for it. I don't want to be 40 and regretting that I never even tried to finish college and get a good career. It's not even so much about getting a good career as it is a love for learning. I'm curious and I enjoy learning new things, especially science-y things.

I think I am interested in ai because its fascinating to think that a non-living thing could "learn." I imagine the limits there must be to that and it would be awesome to stretch those limits or even (some day) eliminate them. It's also scary, as you see in movies, because if there were no limits those things could learn more than humans and who knows what effects that would have. Just make sure you dont give them any physical means of power and avoid allowing them to connect to the internet. Imagine eliminating programmers altogether and create one superprogram that would itself be the programmer. Is that possible? That's what I want to find out. What kinds of dangers and risks would that pose?

I'm still interested in genetics too which sucks. I'm probably more interested in it that in comp sci but man, i feel like i wouldn't be accepted anywhere.

So I have 3 semesters left, 2 of them are only math and science classes. yay no more freaking english classes. I hate english classes. I hate the lectures about plaigiarism. You cannot avoid plaigiarism, i don't care what anyone says. What I am writing now is plaigiarism becuase I'm sure that other people have already written at least some combination of three words that I am writing now. Conceptually its just impossible to truely avoid plaigiarism and it annoys the hell out of me that we follow all these nitpicky rules that will eventually become obsolete. And the endless discusions about meaning and messages. Its exausting to come up with so many meanings for the same story. If there are that many, then WHO CARES?!

So this plan of mine. How do I intend to go about making this plan a success? Let's see:

1) Write a killer personal statement. I think i can do a good job on this one. When I take the time and think carefully and edit slowly over time, I can write pretty decently. This personal statement will include this plan I am writing so its imperative that I succeed at it before I write the statement. That will give me some believeability. I have to comeup with some prewriting and brainstorming and outlining for this one. I should probably talk to my teacher too to see if he recommends anything.

2) Do community service whenever possible. This will be a slight challenge. I've never had a "real" job and I've only done community service once when i was in seventh grade (and its not documented unfortunately). It was a daycare and I helped out in general wherever they needed a hand. I have to research where I can get involved and do as much as possible to show that I do care about my community and am willing to give back. They may then think that I am willing also to give to the university as a community, which yes I would be willing to do. I would like to eventually participate in research. That would be nice.

3) Get all A's. Ah... I really hope I can do this. This semester looks like it will be another all A semester. Second in a row which I will be happy about if I do indeed get all A's. The only sketchy class is english. i'm right on the border. To get an A I have to write a reallllly good research paper and do well on the in class essay. To prepare for that I need to go back and look over the writing techniques we learned about this semester and really look carefully at the readings he will give us prior to the essay. Math should be fine, I'm getting a solid A so far so I'm not too worried. My worries lie in the number of units I will be taking from now on. My units will center around 16 units which is pretty time consuming. The problem is that driving back and forth to classes everyday sucks, especially if I have different classes on the same day but many hours apart. For example, having english at 8am and architecture at 4pm. By the end of the day I have a migraine, and cannot concentrate. Another hard thing is that we don't really have a library right now at school. They are working on a new one and meanwhile it is in a bungalow way at the end of the parking lot. To get all A's I also have to study in advance, over winter intersession and sumer intersession so that when I take the class I already have a head start and can concentrate on the things that are a little harder to grasp.

4) Work on my social skills. I dunno if I will have to do a traditional interview like if I were applying straight from high school, but just incase i do, i want to be socially prepared to show the best of myself. Right now I find it hard to communicate clearly, verbally. I also get nervous because I think I have some sort of avoidant personality disorder. It would be great to fix whatever my problem is, or at least improve it. I can be a really great person if you get to know me but an interview is not enough time. I want to make sure that I can get my personality across in that short amount of time. So for example I need to work on my nervousness, my facial expression, my body language, my verbal language, my accent, my voice volume, my pitch of voice, my vocabulary, and my overall presentation (look, dress, etc.) I also need to learn how to connect with the person I am talking to, with emotion and work on my ability to convey humor, seriousness, care, and empathy. And this is another thing. I am not really a computer fanatic or a geek but i am serious about my studies. So I need to kinda of "act" like I'm more "passionate" about comps than I really am because it seems like they look for passion. This means I will need to keep up with current news and maybe get a feel for some of the history that I've missed out on in tech. Sounds like some more research to be done. Argh. Oh well its ok.

5) And lastly, work on my health. This is a personal obstacle that I need to get over. Plus! They will see that I am able to get passed obstacles and that I care about myself which shows a strong personality. And I know they look at personality.

Another reason to work on my health (weight mainly) is for my presentation during a possible interview. I believe that how you look is actually important, probably on a subconscious level. It may be trivial or may not be depending on the person interviewing you. WHy take the chance? And it will help my mood and social life so its an all around benefit.

And one last thing I want to add is this. The reason I am pushing myself this hard is because I want a good life. I have a good life, but I want a life where I am not worried about saving that extra buck or two when I buy something at the market. Or if I have some sort of medical emergency I want to know that I am financially safe. Plus I grew up in the average middle class home which is fine but I'd like to live just a tiny bit away from this overcrowded place. It's so congested that I lose hours a day just driving around in traffic trying to get places.