It's been a couple weeks noce since I've blogged, and I don't think there's a better time then now, to give a glimpse of what life is like.
Band is FINALLY going to start now, so I can finally enjoy Saturday's traveling around Northern California, while also playing music and hanging out with friends. It truly does feel joyous now, knowing there's lots of fun ahead, but I think by the time April rolls around, I will be dead tired from playing week in and week out. The stakes are high this year for Percussion, particularly because I hope to improve from the poor performances and results we got last year, so I really am crossing my fingers that we do better.
Paralleling Band, is the academic side of school. I've begun to notice that taking four AP courses isn't that bad after all, simply because AP courses mimic college courses. The homework load is not all that much, and if there ever is homework, it's always due on test day. What a great way to increase my low productivity rate. I'm really enjoying the course of English Literature, where we are studying Anglo-Saxon English and reading poems such as Beowulf, and doing Riddles as well. Studying the Germanic patterns is really interesting, as well as the modern derivation to common words. Aside from English Literature, AP Macroeconomics is excellent. Learning about how alot of things, particularly governments work in terms of economics, and now we are diving into a stock market game. Kids have been cocky about this game now for sometime, but I think I might have what it takes to win, not because I am cocky, but because I am slowly researching and buying companies that seem to be in a good position, in the current economic slump, or should I say recession? Don't want to go into details, but AP Psychology is somewhat dry right now, but I'm confident that it will get better and better as the year progresses, and so is AP Calculus. I'm not sure if I don't like Calculus because of what it is, or my poor performance starting the class. We have finally however dived into Calculus and Derivatives, and they seem much more fun, then the review on Limits we have been doing. Aside from the classes, there are also college applications on the way.
I'm feeling weird on doing these applications, but I am not dishing out the information for my teachers to write recommendation letters. Using a wide array of teachers, so each can focus on one aspect of my high school life. I did not plan to apply to too many schools, but obviously plans have changed as many schools are now sending letters home, allowing me to submit applications with no personal essays, and no application fee, and leaving me with a simple personal statement. UC applications also finally came out, surprisingly the last to come out, but the first to be submitted. Not fun at all, but I've started the adventure nonetheless. Overall, the application processes aren't that bad. I think there a really nice way to get to know yourself better, by simply writing what you feel is best, and sometimes the topics or prompts are equally fun.
....and my final section is putting my skills to use. Those who read this weblog are now quite familiar that I took a course in XHTML and CSS at UC Berkeley's ATDP program this past summer, and I think I'm finally going to try to put those skills to use. It's sad to say this, but going into ATDP I had an idea for a online suite for teachers to use to do grades, called Rank'd. I realized just this past month that an idea exists similar to what I planned on doing called Zangle. I was largely disappointed as I felt that Rank'd was a fantastic concept, and the idea had already been created or formed into reality. However, this past week I have come up with yet another idea, that has to do with the finance sector. Now that I have the skills of coding for the Web, I might as well try to put them to some use, before this idea vanishes into thin air as well. More on this, when the time comes...
-rahul
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