Origin XT Blog

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/education/19admit.html

At the meeting in New York, the presidents said they spelled out their concerns over families’ paying of thousands of dollars for private college counselors, obstacles for low-income applicants and tactics some colleges use to rise in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. They spoke of efforts to drive up a college’s number of applications, so it can turn away a greater proportion of students and appear more selective, or to distribute merit aid to lure students who are top notch but not financially needy.

What I bolded sounds like a self-perpetuating tactic. But seriously, I don’t see what’s wrong with the concept of early admission. If it works, you get a stress-free Senior year, and if it does not, you learn that you don’t fit the requirements for that type of college. Good thing Stanford and Caltech aren’t doing that

There are 80 or so Californians admitted to Caltech as freshmen each year. That’s a bit scary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/world/asia/19india.html

Across the country in desperate pockets like this one, 17,107 farmers committed suicide in 2003, the most recent year for which government figures are available. Anecdotal reports suggest that the high rates are continuing.

There are thousands more who are infected with AIDs…

According to the organizers, 200k people showed up at the first protest in Taipei against the much-hated DPP sitting President and his controversies (such as allegations of corruption by him, his wife, his brother, etc) — some of which he refuses to acknowledge.

For an island of 20 million people, 1% organizing together in just one city to protest the President is quite significant, considering that this protest was not organized by party officials.

Just wait till the Taiwanese army brings out the big guns and recreates Tiananmen Square in Taipei. Maybe, instead of having the tanks run over protesters, the civilians, etc as it happened in PRC (Beijing), the Taiwanese President will be run over.

And I bet many will rejoice. I mean, everyone hates that bastard. PRC does, for obvious reasons; US does, for being so irreconciliable as to disturb the status quo too much; and the Taiwanese residents do, because he ruined the moral standards of that little island of 23 million.

I just got the scores back today. My dad slapped it on my face, his face red with anxiety that I did so horribly on math. I did better on US history and chemistry than on math. What’s up with that?

In addition to not having taken Math Analysis I think the most relevant reason is that I became a bit arrogant and decided that I can finish the 2? 3? hour math portion within 30 minutes flawlessly. I did the “finish within 30 minutes” part but not quite flawlessly. I did not double check — doing so would undermine my effort to prove to myself I don’t have short-circuits in my brain. So as a result I got a 91% on “Algebra 2″, giving me an overall score of 483.

I still did better in mathematics than in English-Language Arts, though. (I got 443) That gives me a bit of comfort because I like to know that I am better at math than at other things. It is just strange how I only missed one question in chem, and as a result got a 528. Strange huh? I missed one (which happened to be an “investigation and experimentation” problem), and already, I lost 72 points. I am still fortunate I had chem instead of physics though. I think I would have done worse in physics than in chem… or math.

The 502 on history was not at all surprising considering how easy it seemed at the time of taking the test. The fact that math was lower than that is scary, though. My most horrible section is “Post-World War II Domestic Issues”, something we had not time to cover deeply at that time. That’s understandable.

Before I stop ranting about the strange anomaly of my math score, I’d like to ask “where the hell are the percentiles???” It always made me feel better to see that California thinks I’m smarter than 99% of the people I bet some retarded person who got 28% percentile sued the state for damaging his self esteem, and won.

Next issue on the agenda: our API score dropped. To put it simply, Mr Woytek and many other teachers let their students leave “as soon as they finish.” Obviously, most of the students, realizing the STAR results don’t mean much, left after five minutes. In our particular class with Mr Woytek, everyone except around five students LEFT within the first five minutes of the end of lunch (recall that the science STAR portion was after lunch), after they had enough time to draw smilie faces and write “Thanks woytek!” on their answer sheets. Just ask any one of the five or so who stayed for more than 5 minutes: me, Jeffrey W., Pat. X., Tiff. W., and that girl who sat next to her.

Also, Mr Bowen had some brain ailment. As a result bio fell too. It’s not a wonder that our science department was the only section that dropped this year. That’s unfortunate…

Enough ranting. How did you guys do, and what do you guys think about the API drop?

I am still subscribed to it, although I am done with the test. I sometimes read the math questions just for fun, to see how long it takes me to figure them out without pen, calculator, paper, etc. This particular one took the least so far:

Funny huh?