Obligatory "I'm back" post

What blocked me from blogging was: Twitter, too much Facebook, a clogged DVR, school, and concerns about way too much other stuff besides this website.

In brief:

• I finished my 2nd semester at SJSU with yet another great GPA (3.686) and average 3.867.
• A couple weeks ago, I enrolled in all but one of my classes for the fall semester. Right now I'm taking Physics 4A (Mechanics) at San Jose City College so that I can take PHYS 51 (Electricity & Magnetism) next semester. Problem is? All sections at SJSU for that class are full and so I'm waitlisted there right now and might take that class at junior college (in which case it's called Phys 4B).
• I just began watching That '70s Show again thanks to KICU. Apparently the last season's opening titles used a "circle" format rather than the car.
• The Steve Wilkos Show has new episodes this week after a monthlong (?) hiatus.
• President Obama just nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court, and the Senate held confirmation hearings on the last week of June. Obama's second nominee to Supreme Court, and second woman overall. Kagan has no judicial experience but as Solicitor General has argued many cases to Supreme Court on behalf of the US government.
  
• A jury in Los Angeles found former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter in his fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland. Although involuntary manslaughter carries just a 2-4 year sentence to state prison, because the jury found that Mehserle personally used a gun to kill Grant, that adds 3-10 years, and thus up to 14 years behind bars. The community in Oakland has believed that Mehserle should've been convicted of 2nd degree murder (15 to life), and thus there was a lot of disappointment.
• I still haven't found a job since November besides one day working at a polling place during the June 8 primary election. Oh well, I think a lot of people have it worse.
• Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009. Just 11 days before the 1st anniversary of Jackson's death, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor ruled that Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor who prescribed drugs to Jackson days before he died, may keep his medical license! Grr!
  

College gets busier, life gets harder...

My DVR is getting overcrowded like California prisons as I'm focusing so much more on work.

Class overviews:

Calculus III (MATH 32) - currently learning double integrals, test Monday on multivariable differentiation and integration.

Chemical Calculations and Concepts (CHEM 10) - learning gas laws. My teacher has this great online program (Online Web Learning, or OWL for short) that lets me self-learn from home in addition to the lecture. For my class, which is a remedial one I'll take before taking General Chem next semester, I take both activity and lecture sections. The lecture professor is a pretty humble person who just, well, either teaches from powerpoints or gives tests. She's very straightforward and helpful. On the other hand, right after my lecture sections I have my activity session where the teacher demonstrates problems on the board (in contrast, in lecture the professor just teaches us what the concepts are) and has question-and-answer sessions. Activity professor has a much louder and energetic personality than my lecture professor. He's a former Army captain who tells a lot of funny stories and jokes in between problems. But yes, he also gives us homework for each unit.

Introduction to Engineering (ENGR 10) - scrambling to get robot project done by next Tuesday for the test run. It's fun and overwhelming at the same time. Teams in my lab class were given kits to assemble a robot that would simulate a search-and-rescue operation, with beacons acting as a human and a hazard. It moves based on a programme written in C language. We've had all month to do it, and given that we meet 3 hours one session every week it ain't easy. Although we've built it we've suffered technical difficulties all along.

Meanwhile, the lectures are given in an auditorium. We've learned everything from wind turbines to circuits to Excel to C programming to solar cells to CAD. And right now to wrap up the course we're learning about ethics.

MUSE Class: Secrets of Success (PSYCH 96NQ) - a small, 15-person seminar that discusses the ideas of success that Stephen R. Covey put forward in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It's creatively structured, with many teacher/student interactions and flexible assigning and grading. I met some great people in this class!

Yoga: This is my last class every Monday, and although it's supposed to go from 3:30-5:20, my instructor always ends 30 mins. early. Great way to relax after a long day. Instructor is a Santa Claus-faced hippie who's had a lot of experience with yoga. In my first class he narrated about discovering yoga in the 1960s while growing up in San Francisco and how he got busted in the Grand Canyon back in 1968 for smoking pot. He also published a short yoga instructional book that we use in class!

On Sunday night, I signed up for the classes I'll take next semester:
- General Chemistry (CHEM 1A)
- Programming Concepts and Methodology (CMPE 30) (CMPE is short for Computer Engineering, my major)
- Discrete Mathematics (MATH 42)
- English Composition 2 (ENGL 1B) (Because I took AP English Literature in high school, I can skip English 1A in college)

At first I didn't really think I'd enjoy it too much at SJSU given that San Jose has been my hometown since 1998, and I wanted to go to a UC (I applied to Davis, Irvine, and San Diego, but because I slacked off too much during high school I got rejected). However, SJSU has been good to me despite all the hardships. It has a diverse student body; I see all types of people round here. Compare that with a UC, which I hear is dominated by nerdy Asians. I see people dressed in all sorts of styles. People from all over the world and of all ethnicities come here. When I walk down campus I can hear people conversing in Chinese, Hindi or any language of India, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, French, German, whatever!

The downsides, however, is that the campus is pretty small and gets a bit boring after a while, but at least i can navigate it. Its football team has been near-winless this season, so I've spent my weekends watching other schools (like USC, Michigan, Cal) instead. Haha, way to lack school spirit. But today the men's basketball team won its home opener. And our soccer teams have high standings in the Western Athletic Conference.

Everything that's wrong with Evergreen Valley High School

Well, an hour ago I got home from the EVHS football team's embarrassing Homecoming Game loss to Independence High School, 22-21. That came after the EV Cougars were leading 21-14 with about 10 seconds left in the 4th quarter, when suddenly defense slipped up in the rainy weather and allowed an Independence player to score a touchdown (6 points) and a 2-point conversion, thus concluding the game at that. At the same time, we learned that the Juniors got 1st place at homecoming and Seniors 2nd (and of course, Sophomores 3rd and Freshmen 4th). And the Associated Student Body (ASB for short) invested lots of valuable money and had its president testify before the District in its September board meeting for a permit for halftime fireworks tonight. Wow. In a time when the economy is sucking so bad it's under Great Depression status and public schools from Puget Sound to the Rio Grande to the Florida Keys are strapped in cash and raped in the behind by President Bush's incompetent No Child Left Behind Act, it is simply a disgrace for a school that was recently ranked silver by US News & World Report magazine as among the best American high schools and having led the whole damn district in API (Academic Performance Index) to look like this in what's supposed to be the happiest time of the year.

So when I got home, I laid back on my futon and watched a DVR'ed episode of The Steve Wilkos Show, whose title host is a former US Marine, Chicago Police Officer, and security director for The Jerry Springer Show. No, I'm not joking, Wilkos is the bald-headed guy you've seen on Springer since the mid-90s or so. The episode I recorded, "Tragic Tale of 2 Sisters", was from Thursday, about an 18-year-old woman who wanted Wilkos to help her 11-year-old sister stop having sex with teen boys (I'm not joking, it IS the plot of the episode). Steve Wilkos later talks with the sister & parents, who are divorced. Soon it's revealed that the father once sexually molested the older daughter, so Steve didn't let the father see the younger daughter. Meanwhile, Steve also punishes the mother for not looking out for and loving her younger, whoring daughter. In the end, the father is evicted from the stage (in Steve's popular "GET OFF MY STAGE!!!" cry) and Steve gets the mother and children counseling.

Now I'm here all angry about how low my school is sinking. Here's a rough list of everything that is wrong, wrong, incorrect, inaccurate, stupid, messed up, FUBAR, abominable, unbelievable, and silly about Evergreen Valley High School:
1. During the part of the 05-06 academic year when private colleges are asking for letters of recommendation and such, counselors were borderline deadbeat--Steve Wilkos might've beaten them up severely.
2. EVHS has acknowledged repeatedly its over-crowding controversy, but its solution--the off-campus Biotech Academy for 11th/12th graders--was killed late in 2006, thus resuming the bottleneck. This year, the overcrowding got so bad that some students were denied certain classes merely with the excuse that there wasn't enough space. One friend of mine passed the AP Calculus AB exam but was denied Calculus BC for that very reason, yet two FRESHMEN who took a shallow summer calculus I course at community college got in. And while she was repeatedly refused a seat in Calc BC, another student (a leadership student who got a 2 on the exam, a failing score) and another random student were granted space! This is affirmative action and disorganization gone WRONG. I've heard of seniors who were forced to repeat English 3 despite passing it with at least a B just because "oh, there ain't enough space". Yet I know that this year there are students in English 4 who got C/D grades in English 3.
3. EVHS made a terrible mistake by neglecting meritocracy in considering attendance priority. That's why it's more likely that a dirty ghetto kid from the borderline Mt. Pleasant/EV attendance area gets enrolled and eventually wastes our taxpayers' money by repeating Algebra 1 until eleventh grade. At the same time, a rich, hardworking student from, lessay the Silver Creek/EV attendance borderline is rejected because of..."overcrowding". Had EV used meritocracy on its borderline attendance areas, then we'd be chasing after Cupertino and Palo Alto high schools.
4. The ASB has gotten away with childish/just plain silly homecoming and battle themes.
5. An incident in November 2007 where a great mob of students hurled Skittles at each other and at staff members illustrated the students' dissatisfaction that the administration was going all North Korea on extracurricular activities. It took that much pressure for the principal to back off.
6. EVHS knowingly hired registered sex offenders in its arts programs! In November 2006, the drama teacher was arrested for sexual misconduct. Ditto with a former band teacher a couple years later. That teacher willfully allowed a registered sex offender to volunteer at the Band Boosters!!!!!!!!
7. Racism and imbalance is rampant in EVHS's course catalogue. Why can EV provide special ed yet not have foreign language classes beyond Spanish, French, and Vietnamese? Shouldn't we save our API and reputation and harbor off the special ed to Silver Creek/Mt. Pleasant for the sake of our achieving students? Also, EVHS refuses to hire a competent AP Computer Science teacher--the one right now is lying about his 67% pass rate by a HUGE margin, to be honest.
8. Gov. Ahnuld Arnold Schwarzenegger's struggle with the state budget was somehow a tolerable excuse for the school library not to be open before 6th period, but it's almost Election Day now and this still applies. Testimony from many many district parents/students/teachers was not enough either to persuade the district to finalise hours/budget for libraries!
9. I'm still angry at EV for not telling in advance that there'd be only ONE APCS section this year--so I couldn't get in AP English Language, which I planned to be a "backup" in case I didn't get APCS. When I appealed to the APLang teacher, she just gave me a "fuck you" (no, not really) and explained that I should've done the summer stuff. Still--both me and EV are equally guilty of arrogance.
10. EV has no problem with the Gay/Straight Alliance flamboyantly posting pro-gay propaganda throughout campus during "Gay Pride Week" or whatever that is. If a pro-Proposition 8 group were to come up on campus, the ICC would evict them, and if that group were ever to practice their First Amendment rights by posting their opinions in appropriate places, the Thought Police of EV would tear 'em down within minutes. Obviously, EV holds an agenda to brainwash all students with a perverted, blind message of "tolerance for all regardless or whatever" without critical thinking.

Sadly, these are only a few problems. I've got to go to sleep now. More will come later.

Goodbye SAT, hello ACT!

Well I did worse on the SAT than my previous time - a 1950 in Oct. 2008, compared to a 1990 back in May. I got the same score on the writing section (690) as last time but 20 points down on math (710 --> 690) and reading (590 --> 570). How could this happen, when I've gotten a 770 on the SAT Math level 2 subject test??!? Oh well it could be because of those pesky free-response questions or my inability to read the fine print. As for the reading section, often the reading passage questions tend to be so deceptive that only Valerie Plame could solve them...I kid you not, just ask anyone who's studied hard for the SAT (and eventually got a good or bad score).

Thus I have officially parted ways with the SAT starting today and will begin preparation for the much better and supposedly easier & more honest ACT. I picked up ACT registration materials at a college night held by my local school district and after finding my disappointing SAT score online I looked through the overview, and the ACT I think I can handle better. The ACT website (ACT.org) provides outline of the test, which goes in this order:
1. English (75 questions, 45 minutes) - questions cover both grammar and rhetoric. None of those pesky SAT "fill-in-the-blank" vocabulary questions! :D
2. Mathematics (60 questions, 1 hour) - covers most of everything from pre-Algebra to Trigonometry, similar to the SAT Subject Test in Math Level 2, again which I got a 770 score (on the 800 SAT scale)
3. Reading (40 questions, 35 minutes) - five passages organised into specific topics (i.e. humanities, sciences, literature) and multiple-choice questions. The ACT's description of this section makes it similar to the SAT reading passages section or any other reading comprehension test in general. But I hope that there are no "SAT Trick Questions" here with ambiguous answer choices
4. Science (40 questions, 35 minutes)- Unlike the SAT Subject Tests in Science, which test on the facts, the ACT Science section is more like a "scientific" version of section 3, with the main task to interpret graphs and other data based on basic scientific knowledge and reasoning.
5. Writing (optional) (1 essay, 30 minutes) - the optional and very last section of the SAT. It's a good thing that this is 5 minutes longer than the SAT essay, so I get more time to develop my ideas, something that 25 minutes hasn't given me an opportunity to do. Scholars have criticized the SAT essay section for not being reflective enough on real writing prompts that teachers normally assign.

And off to ACT prep I go! I will take the test 13 December, the last chance for me to take any SAT/ACT type test for college; deadline is 7 November (3 days after Election Day, to be easier). As I pointed out earlier, there requires extensive tutouring and "gaming the system" just to get above 2000 on the SAT! But the ACT seems more based on the facts rather than unnecessary junk "reasoning", so I hope to have a better chance there.

Some follow-ups from the last time

Band has improved a far shot from the Friday tragedy! Thank you everybody for your cooperation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, regarding the NACAC's report on the SAT that urged colleges to put less emphasis on such tests, that story was also reported on Monday's edition of ABC World News.

The Option of Standardised Testing

As Sunday draws this weekend to a close, I decided to spend it happily and wisely. For those of you who were terrified by my previous diatribe against the symphonic band, I apologise for being so gratuitously angry. Me, you, and Barnhill will forget about that and just move on as a great group of students; I know it.

I woke up around 8 this morning, unlike most Sundays, to watch ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos to watch Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson discuss the government's bank rescue plan. Since August I've been watching the Sunday morning news talk shows regularly to keep up with the latest developments in the White House and the election. Later today I took a practice SAT exam, and I received a 2010 on that, by my own reasonable estimations. My actual SAT score, from May 2008, was 1990, and I think I'll be on the Improvement Road as I keep on trying. For now, I feel that I need to improve on following directions on some of the more deceptive, pesky questions - it's true, all 3 sections (Readin', Ritin', and 'Rithmetic Reading, Writing, and Math) contain "trap answers" to certainly worded questions in order to test our attention span. The most difficult section there is Critical Reading (the full name of the Reading section) due to its testing of obscure English words and the tendency for me to imagine "hidden" elements of the reading passages.

And just now I came upon this New York Times education section article "College Panel Calls for Less Focus on SATs" by Sara Rimer, who reported on a report led by William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions/financial aid at Harvard University. Fitzsimmons's report argued that the SAT/ACT standardised testing is screwing up secondary education and is out of touch with what students need to prepare for life college & beyond. The article page links to the report, titled "Report of the Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission" and published by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling. Arguments in the report included:
- Colleges should make the SAT/ACT optional if their admissions directors have good reason to believe that the SAT will be useless in determining student merit.
- "Cutscores", minimum SAT scores required for admission, should end; the more advantaged students would have a nearly unfair advantage over others who probably cannot afford tutouring. (Personal note: For the earlier part of 2008 I had tutouring for the SAT Writing Section and AP Calculus AB Exam; the California State University system currently uses "cutscores" system)
- The PSAT seems to be a less-than-reliable way to determine National Merit Scholarships
- SAT/ACT scores should not and cannot be seen to correlate with college's financial resources.
- Such scores can under- or over-predict first-year GPA's, especially for English learners/women/minorities, or "calcify" racial, ethnic, or parental educational gaps.
- It's a better idea to emphasize the SAT Subject Tests/Advanced Placement (AP) Exams/High School Exit Exams instead, since those products will further motivate state educational boards. (Regional note: In my state the public school students get "Early Assessment Program" exams from the CSU system to determine college readiness)
After having read through the 56 pages of the report, I almost have to agree. Even the SAT prep book that I own, Cracking the SAT, admits that the way the SAT evaluates - among other anamolies! - is different from how teachers instruct in the classroom. I really think that this "unfair advantage" system of getting better score on college admission test needs to stop - trust me, I've had coaching, and I still haven't done the best job I thought that I could. As Fitzsimmons's report states, students should be able to prepare for the SAT/college in general through the high school curriculum, not through extra coaching. It's no wonder public schools get so much heat these days.

Symphonic band on strike?

Today was a pretty good end of the week, with an easy calculus quiz on integration by parts, followed by the usual 15-minute break, where I got to wish my friend Rachel a happy 17th birthday. All went well until the next period, which was Symphonic Band. The ensemble rehearsed two pieces out of four to be played this 11 December for the school band concert and had been playing them since the week of Labor Day. Most of the days since then, the band has been practicing around an average level, with certain mistakes or anamolies making the conductor stop the band and advise on corrections, which turn out to be usually simple. "That's all you gotta do," he'd say.

But today, 19 September, the ensemble sunk to a new low. Guess what kind of errors happened today? Trombone players were nearly a measure behind, trumpets played too slow, drums were off-beat, and soon the whole ensemble "falls asleep" and literally slows down to ritardando when they are not supposed to. All when I, a mallet player, am keeping my eyes between the conductor and my score and waiting for my turn on the music, having done a competent job all along. Those parts of today's rehearsal sounded so disorganized and chaotic that Soulja Boy's annoying, ubitiquous "Crank That" song even sounds more musical than a high school symphonic band!

So the conductor stops the band and furiously wants to know what has happened with them. He felt that the players were on "last day of school" mode rather than September & "excited for school/concert" mode. Wow. We're really supposed to be superior to the average dumb high school students. Given how much bull$#!7 I had to suffer today thanks to the other morons who were supposed to be concentrating together as an ensemble - two people even lost some of their musical sheets - I feel compelled to turn up Weezer's new song "Troublemaker".

Don't worry, my fellow Symphonic Bandmembers. I've been through your kind of trouble before when I joined the ensemble last year to make up for a lack of performing arts class for my college entrance requirement (both the University of California and California State University systems require "at least one year" of Performing/visual arts type of class) I made a lot of effort to learn how to grip mallet sticks properly and follow the conducting. A year has passed, and I've become a welcome member of the family. But now we need to sink so low as to THIS crappy level - which as I mentioned earlier sounds even WORSE than the most annoying pop punk/emo/pop rap/bubblegum MTV corporate radio pop/MMMBop/Britney/NSYNC/Backstreet Boys/Simple Plan/Good Charlotte/Soulja Boy/Fall Out Boy/Limp Bizkit songs out there?!?!?!?! Maybe now it's OK for Michael Savage to trash-talk about Muslims and the mentally disabled. I think I'll just quit life and start smoking all the marijuana and drinking all the beer/alcoholic drinks I want and fail all my classes and eventually end up homeless/single/still a virgin after high school and spend the rest of my life in who knows where. College sounds worthless. Finding a job sounds meaningless. Everyone is an idiot. My local school district is a run by a mob of brainless drunken bastards for failing to fix a dying softball field at one school yet fixing other stuff everywhere else. MY school does things even worse by denying the right of one of my best friends to attend Calculus BC after having passed the Calculus AB exam

Back to the main topic. For this weekend, we all need to rethink this stupid situation and redeem ourselves and prove that we are all TRUE students and authentically-trained musicians and wanting to be among the best students out there. A CHANGE IS GONNA COME. If not, I might probably start ditching band class and later put the blame on whoever is causing me the most problems there, Barack Obama might lose the election simply because we weren't willing to accept change for the better, the world will decompose into a violent anarchy...OK sorry enough with the insane doomsday predictions right there. But seriously. You and I ALL NEED TO F\/|
PS: I thank all members of the Wind Ensemble, the highest level of band at school, for their hard work and making class "fun" for my other friend Jamie, who advised me on the state of that ensemble today after 6th period ended today. I guess that means that the WE was actually being cooperative unlike the Symphonic knuckleheads.

Surviving senior year and the real world so far!

Time is moving along from Week 3 to Week 4 of school, and the countdown to probably the golden age of my life is coming up!
- Oct. 4 - SAT (I will got above 2100; I KNOW it; the UC/CSU systems require finishing the SAT by December)
- Sometime later in October: Training for poll working! I shalt riggeth thee election in favour of Barack Hussein Obama serveth the publick voters and earneth $120 - just on time for the holidays!
- Nov. 4 - ELECTION DAY! G0BAMA!!!!
- Various dates between October and November - writing up college apps & essays & all that business. So far SJSU, San Francisco State, and University of Washington (Seattle) are on my mind, although I as of late have been receiving invitations to attend local admissions presentations by Boston University and Washington University (St. Louis). Given my disappointingly scarce GPA and extracurricular record, I think I'll more likely be admitted to a public university (UoW is public too) or probably a private one - not all private universities equal Stanford given that they can set all their own standards whatever they please.

Today I had cross country tryouts up at the hill near my neighbourhood; it's my first year trying athletics at high school, and this is my attempt to pump up my transcript for the admissions officers. Given that I've never been a hardcore athlete in my life, the uphill runs were torturous. Although I finished at last place among all runners, chances are that I could still make the team by lucky chance given that the coaches count other factors like attendance & behavior - I've kept my attitude clean and attended all but one day of practice since they began back around late June of this year.

After cross country I sat down to watch the last of Charles Gibson's interview with Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin. Not just ABC, but ALL the news networks have been hyping the Gibson/Palin interview - it's been "Palinmania" ever since the surprise dark horse entrance of Palin, gov. of Alaska, as John McCain's running mate. Gibson did have some tough questions for Palin in the beginning but later became easier on her as he got to know more about her, as issues like the "Bridge to Nowhere" and Troopergate were brought up. Is this media bias? Maybe not, as when Joe Biden was confirmed as Barack Obama's running mate, the media was quick to point out Biden's 1987 plagiarism and more recent criticisms of Obama, such as the "first articulate African-American" comment and general claims that Obama didn't have enough experience. Oh well, but I'm in favor of Obama/Biden since they have shown the best potential to reunite the nation and help those who have been betrayed by 8 years of a less-than-stellar Bush administration. Still, I'm pretty open-minded and keeping watch at the McCain/Palin ticket and exploring the election from both the Democratic and Republican sides.

How will senior year go?

So today I picked up the revised version of my senior year schedule because of an error in class placement. I at least got into symphonic band rather than orchestra (I don't play string instruments; I play only piano and mallets) but did not get AP Computer Science. Which leaves my schedule as follows:
2nd - Teacher's assistant
3rd - AP Calculus BC
4th - Symphonic Band
5th - AP U.S. Government (1st sem.)/Economics (2nd sem.)
6th - English 4 (possibly might change to AP English Language if I can work something out with the counselors)
As far as this goes, it might be a lightly scheduled yet difficult senior year. Besides the complexity of the AP classes, there are other things I must deal with, including college apps, SAT's, and preparation for independent living. After having surfed CollegeBoard.com for the past two weeks, my college lookout so far aims at: San Jose State University, University of the Pacific, University of Washington (in Seattle, not DC), Reed College, Washington University (in St. Louis, again not Seattle or DC), UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and some others in certain areas of the US I'm eager to "temporarily" reside in.

Now that I'm lacking in AP Computer Science yet I still plan on majoring in a computer science/IT-related field in college, the question is: How will I be able to "prepare" myself for my major? I doubt that colleges would want a candidate for such a major who lacked any high school experience in the field. Luckily I still have other academic interests like business and mathematics (I got a 5 on the AP Calculus AB exam!) which I think I might as well advance my interests in in the time to come. This summer I've been exploring Java programming with the APCS homework (which the teacher recommended for ALL the potential APCS students) and the editing of Wikipedia.

Next year, I hope to be able to learn from the mistakes I made the past three years of high school and reverse them so that I can perform better this year, possibly even straight A's (something I so far haven't been able to get to in high school)! Luckily my "light" schedule will give me more time to practice for the SAT's and polish an impressive application - unintentionally increasing my acceptance chances. I've done many more practice problems for SAT thanks to the Princeton Review using a passcode provided in an SAT prep book I bought from Barnes & Noble. The same "learning from my mistakes" philosophy I shall use for SAT and everything else in life.

Anyways, after having picked up my schedule, I went home, had lunch, watched some Inuyasha, and practiced the piano.

And just a few minutes ago, I decided to revisit the Parents Television Council's April 2008 report The Rap on Rap that complained that the impressionable children watching the hip-hop video shows on BET and MTV are being corrupted by images of thug life, gratuitous images of women's body parts, foul language, and basically everything you dislike about rap music. This isn't a surprise given that rap music has always been controversial - even back in the late 80s/early 90s with N.W.A and 2 Live Crew. As a longtime fan of hip hop music I won't deny that a lot of it is morally incorrect. I certainly agree with the PTC's position that those programs are not "kid-friendly" and was quite surprised to notice that a sizable audience of kids age 2-11 watch such shows! But here's the thing: the PTC is an organization that many claim insist that TV be "politically correct" in the field of tradition values and accuse of dubious research, blatant deceit, and inflation of FCC complaint numbers. As I read through the PTC's report (which I've already done a few times) I also have some suspicions. Sure, I'd agree that the average viewer would be offended by much of the content on those shows, but the report doesn't note exactly which videos are "really" offensive and which aren't. The report also includes a table of videos included in the research, which ranged from gangsta rap ("100 Million" by Birdman, "Speedin'" by Rick Ross, "I'm So Hood" by DJ Khaled), rap "ballads" ("Fly Like Me" by Chingy, "Girl You Know" by Scarface, "I Won't Tell" by Fat Joe), R&B (various videos by Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown, etc.) among others. I've already gone on YouTube and previewed two of the "not-so-raunchy" choices: "Superstar" by Lupe Fiasco and "Independent" by Webbie, and I doubt that they'd match the PTC's fear-mongering impression of rap music. Furthermore, as pretty much all the videos shown on BET/MTV were edited for content, PTC freely admitted that its researchers referred to the "uncensored" versions to find out what got muted out - to get around the censors, maybe? As I have far much more to say afterwards, I'll continue this tomorrow.

Tabloids hit reality

On June 4, I commentated about the US network news' lack of Tiananmen protest retrospective coverage - largely in part from Barack Obama's victory in the US Democratic Party primaries for the 2008 election.

However, I just came upon this BBC News article today that reports on the Beijing News tabloid getting banned from mainland Chinese newsstands after it dared shed light on Democracy by posting a photo from the 1989 Tiananmen protests. So apparantly the free-speech-granted ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and NBC didn't say anything about the massacre, but the Communist-censored Beijing News could?! How ironic...in a real world the exact opposite would've happened...apparantly the same darn thing happened to the state-run CCTV too

Back home in the red, white, and blue, during the dog days of summer with about 30-35 days left until school resumes, I've been dividing my days between studying, slacking, the Internet, and the Idiot Box. During the daytime, the local channels show all sorts of "Tabloid talk shows", such as Jerry Springer and Maury. Those types of programs are for me just guilty pleasure but not really my regular taste...they ain't "must see TV" compared to quality, actually "entertaining" stuff like CSI, The Office, or The Simpsons.

On Thursday, local Fox station KTVU re-ran an old Maury episode from May 2008, titled "You're 14 and Having a Baby, Your Wild Ways End Today!" - pretty much all Maury episode titles read like a New York Post or National Enquirer headline (even his occaasional "clean" episode like his "Most Talented Kids" shows...with all the exclamation and question marks) As you might've predicted or known, that episode was among his countless "wild teens" episodes that feature teen girls who engage in sexually devious behavior. One girl featured had a baby at age 11 and repeated the 6th grade twice, and another girl was a sex & drug addict who failed 8th grade twice! Luckily, Maury Povich at least knows how to be morally correct, as he talks to the girls in a serious, concerned tone and invites motivational speakers/counselor type people like D. West, Raphael B. Johnson, and Harvey Walden to fix 'em up. After show, the girls go to "rehabilitation" places like an AIDS treatment facility (for the third-time 6th grade student) or even the Monmouth County Correctional Facility (for the others).

Later that day, I tuned to local PBS station KQED to watch The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. It was the first time in a while I actually saw Lehrer host his own show; in many previous times I watched Newshour other substitute hosts like Ray Suarez or Gwen Ifill. Thursday's edition had a story about a reform school district down in New Orleans that serviced "overage" students...yep the same type of students I saw on Maury earlier that day. The story featured...a 19-year old woman who failed 12th grade twice (mostly due to failing the Science section of Louisiana's high school exit exam...here in California we take only English & Math in our exit exam). If her situation isn't bad enough, wait till you hear in that story about a 16-year-old boy who failed eighth grade twice; the reporter also asserted the existence of overage sixth- and seventh-grade students.

Whether in Communist China or Free-Speech America, "edgy" journalism like tabloids can ocassionally be eye-opener despite being general eye candy. It really depends on what the tabloid is covering, usually smearing public figures such as celebrities or politicians. But sometimes they're willing to cover where the MSM simply is too cowardly to go.

SAT's, The Eagles, and my Secretarial Run

So now I've finished my AP exams, and received my SAT score - my first attempt I got a 1990, particularly due to a poor score on the Critical Reading section and the Writing section Essay. I plan on retaking the SAT in October after revamping my Reading skills over this summer. Other upcoming exams I have include finals for Calculus and Spanish next week, and projects for the AP classes US history and English literature.

Anyway, in other matters, a web feature I read regularly is the "VH1 Rock Clock", a listing of certain events in music history that happened on a certain day over the 20th century. For May 31 (that's tomorrow), in 1975, "The Eagles release their single "One of These Nights."".

After I read that, I went to Windows Media Player and began playing several Eagles songs, beginning with "Nights". I've enjoyed listening to the Eagles since discovering their song "Hotel California" in 2005 (from a commercial for local soft rock station 96.5 KOIT) Their music is a pretty darn good combination of classic rock and country, but at least it ain't as cheesy as most of the garbage you can hear locally on 95.3 or 95.7...sorry I'm not like a 40-year-old white guy living in the Midwest, so I definitely ain't in the country music target audience. My favorite Eagles songs include "Hotel California", "New Kid in Town", "Take it Easy", "Lying Eyes", and "The Long Run". I credit local rock station 104.5/97.7 KFOG for introducing me to "Long Run".

It's amazing how the legacy of the Eagles has carried on over the years. According to William Ruhlmann of All Music Guide: the Eagles albums Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) and Hotel California (both released 1976) "ranked among the ten best-selling albums ever, according to the certifications of the Record Industry Association of America." And in October 2007 their ninth album Long Road Out of Eden was released! I don't recall listening to any songs from that album (maybe I did from 107.7 a while back), but I feel eager in listening to it, as the Eagles don't require as much energy as Metallica do in playing music and thus won't sound like retirement-home people trying to hard to sound "hard". (If any Metallica fans remember that silly 2003 effort of theirs, St. Anger, then you'll know what I mean.)

And finally, I'd like to thank all EVHS students, ESPECIALLY those of the Class of 2009, for supporting me in my run for Class of 2009 secretary. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for praising my great speeches at the Wednesday lunchtime Q&A and Thursday morning announcements. You and me can all agree that I can win or at least gather a lot of votes. If I do win I promise to perform my assigned job with all due respect and good attitude and to respond to as many of the students' requests as I can. Once again, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU and wish me good luck in all my future endeavors!

Until next time,

Andrew

The early bird gets the worm

Just a few minutes ago I was registering for the SAT Subject Tests in Spanish and Biology for the June 7 administrations, whose deadline was tomorrow (May 6). Unfortunately I learned a pretty damn bitter lesson from registering at the last minute: although my first choice was my home schooL (evergreen valley) apparantly all its testing spaces were full so I got bumped over to my 2nd choice, Andrew Hill, which is a bit further away from where I live. Lesson learned: Plan your SAT/ACT registrations WELL in advance to guarantee that you get your local/closer school's test site!

In the meantime, sometime after the AP Exams are over I'll be writing about the Parents Television Council again, specifically on their latest report (some say would be mind-rotting garbage) The Rap on Rap, a content analysis on rap music videos shown during daytime hours on the cable networks BET and MTV. Now, I need to go back to studying American History and Calculus.

When I was gone...

So this is pretty much my first blog I've written since August 2007. New year of 2008 has come, with only 10 more months of the wicked presidency of George W. Bush and the predicted entry of good old Barack Obama, the first semester passing me by with sand and fog, the writer's strike coming and going, the death of Benazir Bhutto, the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics in my beloved Beijing, China (I have extended family there), the sequel to Virginia Tech over at Northern Illinois University, the winter storms in China, and loads and loads of other things I could write a lot of blogs a day about that I don't want to include here.

In the past week weird things have come up on my cell. For some odd reasons I've been getting odd calls on my cell phone. I went on google to look 'em up. One of 'em was from a Vietnamese woman living in Milpitas who dialed the wrong number I guess.

But things get worse. I've been getting calls from places like Phoenix, AZ and Newton, MA about "car warranty expiration" when hell, I don't even own a car! Google this. Found a site 800Notes.com that led me to this. Look up suspicious phone numbers there.

The reason why I haven't been able to blog? Due to the fact that I take 3 AP classes...as I've repeatedly mentioned ( I guess in my humble memory) Calculus AB, English Literature, and US History. So far I think I am dong better in them, after a pretty unstable first semester. Lately I've been getting tutoring for Calc AB after struggling with Applications of Differentiation, and since then my grades have improved. I will take the SAT test in May 2007, a couple weeks or so before the AP exams. I have also gotten tutoring in that class, specifically for the writing section and speculatively in the critical reading. I just took a practice SAT today and got 2050. Some genius I am! :) My goal is at least 2200, or if I kick a lot of ass, then as far as 2400 I can go. Well all I can say for myself is to be more careful with the problems and make sure I check every single damn word they say.

I know that the SAT has been criticized a lot due to it's "anti-intellectual" attitude and lack of scope within the brain...that's why some American liberal arts colleges have dropped it in favor of bigger and better things (a.k.a. Your Brain). As far as the Essays go, Massachusetts Instituete of Tech writing diretor Les Perelman has claimed that common "cheating" techniques to get a high scores on the essays like 10 or 12 (the scale is 12) include making your essays uber LONG. Plus, Perelman has a valid point that the writing in the SAT essay pretty much defeats "good" writing you do in AP English classes or wherever that makes you polish it like a shiny new car. But I defend the SAT essay, while I do agree that it ain't as great as, say your AP Lit analyitical essay, at least it tests your ability to make a good argument, through good evidence and structure and proof. I think I'll be able to do well on it, since my tutor recently commented that my writing has greatly improved since the first time we met back in January 2008.

In coming months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, microseconds, and specks of dust, here's a list of topics I will be writing about:
- Politics as I hear from the liberally biased news media...from both the Democratic/Republican sides of course...or at least i HOPE i stay balanced.
- The upcoming agenda from moronic self-appointed "morality" groups like the Parents Television Council and American Family Association to destroy the first amendment in the name of fundamental 1960s family values that many of us can think beyond. You'll be seeing in the coming times how cranky and foolish these hypocrites are, with the EVIDENCE of course (I promise not to spin)
- Of course, my own life, including my dreams, favorite TV, books, movies, friends, school, and the whatnot.

Now excuse me when I go back to watching PBS' presentation of the BBC's adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"...

It's been two weeks, dang!

In the past two weeks, I've been incredibly busy with AP English Literature, studying for the last few days of summer math analysis, and other things that distracted me from this blog. Hey, that happens to everyone, I guess. I can't believe it's already August, almost the end of the summer! On 8/17 I'll be getting my ID picture taken. On 8/23 I'll be picking up my schedule. In 5 days I will start my junior year of high school, with three confirmed AP Classes: Calculus AB, English Literature, and United States History. In addition, I'll also be taking Biology, Spanish 3, and...BAND!! Yes, I initially decided to drop it, but later kept it because my friend Tom convinced me that percussion won't be a bad instrument for me given that I already play piano. Oh well, it'll be exciting, I guess.

Also, I recently saw the video for Killswitch Engage's cover of the old 1980s Dio song "Holy Diver". The video is awesome, and KsE pwns Dio! This song will be included in the re-release of KsE's "As Daylight Dies", originally released November 2006, on 8/28/2007 (coincidentially the first day of school for many of us). I, having already dl'ed "As Daylight Dies", hope to find the song from a friend or somewhere. Check out the video right here, courtesy KsE's official myspace page:

Math analysis and other stuff

So far I've been takin' the Precalculus and Trigonometry math courses at Evergreen Valley College four days a week, four hours a day. So far I'm getting A's in both classes, haveing gotten A's in all exams taken in those clases so far. In those classes, I get to see my friends from evhs Tom, Jamie, and Jagbir. I also got to see some girls I knew from Chaboya back in 8th grade, they went to Silver Creek or otherplaces. In my Precalculus class, Kunal drops in to socialize, even though he doesn't take class at that time. Wow.

Also, I've seen a few of the Japanese acts from Live Earth, courtesy streaming coverage from CFTO 9 (CTV affiliate of Toronto, Canada and MSN. On CTV, I got to see only part of the set by Japanese metal band Rize before they switched to the Sydney, Australia concert with all these light pop bands I could care less for. Thus, I switched to MSN, where I heard Ayaka and Ai Otsuka. I enjoyed them.

However, tommorrow I've got to go to a friend's bar mitzvah, so I'll be asleep the rest of the Asian concerts (That includes Tokyo, Shanghai, and Kyoto). Also, I'll miss the Hamburg concert, where Chris Cornell (of Soundgarden) and Snoop Dogg will perform, and since I'll be gone tomorrow from 10 A.M. to the afternoon I suppose, I'll have to watch tape-delayed coverage on NBC from 8P.M. to 11P.M. that day.

Also, this morning, I picked up my AP United States History textbook. That reminds me: Start notes on the first 5 chapters. Given that I took AP World History last school year, those notes shouldn't be too much trouble, compared to the AP English Lit and Calculus homework. Ooh...

Summer so far

So far, summer has been relaxing, but the relaxation will slowly wear away as I proceed to do the following activities this summer, among others:
1. From now until 7/27 I take summer math classes at Evergreen Valley College- Precalculus and Trigonometry - to advance to AP Calculus AB in my junior year. Passing those courses means another AP exam to study for in junior year.
2. For AP English Literature class, I will have to do analyses on selections from the Chrisitian Holy Bible and Aristotle's Poetics, as well as the novels Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and East of Eden by John Steinbeck. This will take up the majority of my summer work. All those works look pretty darn hard to me.
3. On Monday, July 2, I will go to the school bookroom to pick up my AP United States History textbook. I don't see why we didn't get to pick it up before the last day of school. That will be also the day I'll start U.S. History notings.
4. Other things to do in summer include piano, basketball, fitness, voluntterring, SAT, college research, and other stuff to enhance my college transcript.

The last week of school was a blast. I got a lot of signatures in my yearbook, especially from the class of 2007, Ruby, and Tina. Also, I had photos taken with Ruby and Tina! Now, lately I've been asking around for those photos, and I'm not gonna be so cynical as to think they've been destroyed. Oh well, there's always next year & the dances & junior prom. But schoolwork & my brain come first.

In addition, I'm enjoying summer math classes so far, but I predict they'll get harder every day. But I had gotten A's in both semester of Algebra II last year, so I predict I will not "bomb" the class, but I'll at least get grades acceptable enough to advance to APCAB in September if I study hard enough and pay attention. So far, I've been paying attention and taking notes everyday. My clases take place Monday-Thursday, with the Trigonometry course from 8:15-10:15AM and Precalculus 10:25AM-12:25PM - those two classes combined equal one year of Math Analysis @ EVHS, so I advance to AP Calculus AB passing those two classes.

I've almost finished my weekend math assignments. In the meantime, today, I had piano lessons, then came home for math, the computer, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, West Side Story, Mobb Deep, and Depeche Mode.

Tomorrow: Finish math assignments, study math, practice piano, watch Steamboy, analyse the Bible for AP English, and more.

School over? Not quite....

So school ended today, and I spent a lot of time with my friends for the last time before summer, especially RubyAngela. Today, I got to have photos taken with Ruby and Tina. It was so darned hot all day that I struggled in my PE final. Luckily, since I got A's in the 4th and 5th marking periods, and I think I did very well in the softball quiz, I hope I can still get an A in PE this second semester. I also have A's in Algebra 2, Chemistry, and Spanish 2, and B's in AP World History and English 2A. Next year, my classes include (tentatively) Spanish 3, Biology, AP English Literature, and AP U.S. History. If I get at least B grades in both Precalculus and Trigonometry classes that I will take at Evergreen Valley College starting this Monday 6/18, then I can take AP Calculus AB in 2007/08. So I will still be busy until 7/27, when my summer math classes end.

Meanwhile, the recreational activities I plan to do this summer are two extreme concerts: heavy metal tour Ozzfest (7/19, Shoreline Ampitheater, Mountain View) featuring bands like Static-X, Hatebreed, Ozzy Osbourne, Lamb of God, Daath, etc. and hip-hop tour Rock the Bells (8/18, McCovey Cove, San Francisco) featuring MC's like Rage Against the Machine (rap-metal band), Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Mos Def, Immortal Technique, and more. I registered for a redemption code for the free ozzfest tix on 6/12 and am waiting to be able to register the code online so i can download/print my free ticket. Then I need to arrange to take Caltrain to Mountain View for Ozzfest. As for Rock the Bells, if I still have piano lessons in August 18, then I can't go. I'll just wait and see.

Anyway, all have a great summer! And I love Ruby and Tina.

Deaths of two EVHS students

San Jose Mercury News article

Don Imus sues CBS Radio; Spider-Man 3; Warriors advance to Second Round; Conan O'Brien in SF

Don Imus Sues CBS Radio Over Contractual Dispute
It was announced a few days ago that radio host Don Imus, famous for his racist remarks insulting the Rutgers University women's basketball team, has sued CBS Radio, which owned the rights to his program Imus in the Morning, as CBS's contract with Imus allowed his program to be controversial and off-color. So I suppose CBS Radio deliberately wanted Imus to utter those three nasty little words just so that they could fire him? That's one of the theories behind the Imus controversy. And just recently, it was discovered that the censors at MSNBC (which used to simulcast the radio program on TV) and the radio stations had the options to BLEEP OUT those nasty words, but chose not to because of the contract! Oh geez. If Imus is still not fired, then I guess we should still deal with all those gangsta rappers whose music is even more offensive than just Imus's comments alone, with all their B-, F-, H-, and N-words!

Spider-Man 3
So far as I've read the critical reviews for the film, they seem pretty mediocre, so I might as well just wait until the DVD comes out. I might see it in theatres given these conditions:
1. The Warriors play the Utah Jazz, not the Houston Rockets, as I would go to Game 1 (Friday, 11 May) to watch Yao Ming play locally, in addition to our GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS :)
2. Regardless of #1 applying, if the Warriors get ELIMINATED from the Playoffs...
3. A significant # of my friends claim they've reasonably enjoyed it
4. I have taken both the AP World History exam and Summer Math Analysis placement exam

Golden State Warriors advanced to Second Round of the NBA Playoffs
Finally I'd like to thank the Warriors for beating the #1 team in the Western Conference, Dallas Mavericks. Depending on who wins the Rockets-Jazz game today, and as I'm typing, the score at the end of the 3rd quarter is Utah Jazz 75, Houston Rockets 67, GSW will face either the Houston Rockets or Utah Jazz. It'd definitely be worth it to go to Game 3 of the Warriors' 2nd round series if it is to be against the Rockets, as I'd be able to see Yao Ming play locally, and Yao is the greatest Chinese basketball player in the nation.

Late Night with Conan O'Brien in San Francisco
All this week, I've been taping NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien and watching them after school, as for the week of 30 April-4 May, O'brien has been basing his shows from the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, CA. All the shows have been locally themed, with O'Brien's monologue focusing on Bay area stuff (like the Bay Bridge collapse and Golden State Warriors), as well as tours of SF and vicinity. They have all been very enjoyable. "LNWCOB" has gotta be the best late-night TV show around, with "Jay Leno" and "Jimmy Kimmel" trailing. O'Brien makes the funniest monologues and skits, especially this week from SF.

Scantrons...

Oh man, I've seen hella scantrons this week...from five days of CST's (California Standardised Testing) and a pseudo-AP World History exam. And then I'm gonna see more on the week of 14 May, as I have the real AP World History exam and a Math Analysis placement test. This is why this month there won't be too many updates. And for your entertainment...

MUSIC I'VE ENJOYED LATELY: Death, The Notorious B.I.G., Beneath the Massacre, Lamb of God, Pantera, Dying Fetus, Slayer, Nas, Eminem, Jagged Edge, Wyclef Jean, Korn, Jay-Z
TV I'VE WATCHED LATELY: local and national newscasts, "Heroes" (NBC), "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (NBC), "Late Night with Conan O'Brien - In San Francisco" (NBC), "24" (Fox, saw on DVD), "Jimmy Kimmel Live" (Fridays for "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship") (ABC), NBA Playoffs coverage on ABC, San Francisco Giants/Oakland A's coverage locally
Haven't seen much movies lately, but I will watch Indian film "Mangal Pandey: The Rising" (I saw part of it in AP World History)