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Status Update on my life
(Long because I have better things to do than sit and write about my life.)
(Wait a minute, that didn't make sense.)
(Anyway..)
First, I got two important pieces of mail this week.
First: A big letter that says "Jury Duty" and "January 14." I thought, "Oh fuck, I'd better be able to get out of this since I'm a student." Fortunately, after looking over the letter, I found the exemption list. I may not be able to check the "I cannot read or write" box legally, but I can check the "I am enrolled in high school or college" box. So, yay, I am exempt.
College status:
The more important, second letter of mail: I have been assigned housing at Southern Methodist University for January. This is good; I was afraid I might have to spend this upcoming semester in a cheap apartment by myself. I'm in "Boaz Hall", the dorm that doesn't have cable (to which I don't really care), but I don't know my room number or roommate assignment yet. I just hope I don't get some weird-ass guy whos roommate moved out because he couldn't tolerate him for more than a semester for whatever reason. Oh, and in case you didn't know and are wondering why the fuck I'm talking about housing at SMU, I got into SMU for the Spring semester. I applied more than a month after the deadline, and I still got in. I'm that good. That's right, I'm officially out of Baylor.. I think.. Well, I've withdrawn, but according to their internet registration system, I still have a schedule and am enrolled. I hope they get that fixed soon!
And although I am enrolled in SMU, I still have intentions on applying to UT Austin over this Christmas break. I hope I like SMU, and if I don't that UT accepts me. I wish the school was a little bigger though. I'm really pretty nervous and feel kind of alone, as I have no idea what to expect about SMU or my life in general. SMU could be a bunch of rich kids who will really irritate me and talk in Highland Park "Parkie accents." If you don't know, Highland Park is the Dallas suburb SMU is in, and If you don't know what a "Parkie accent" is, just imagine a straight guy who sounded queer attempting to talk in a mix of a proper New York and British accent. Exactly that. Or SMU could not be like that, and I could really like it. 46% of the student body coming from out of state is definitely a good sign in my opinion. My dad says their Cox business school is very prestigious in the business world, which is definitely a plus. And I'm hoping there are girls there who don't look down upon me because I don't attend Baptist churches on Sundays.
All the dorms are coed there, so that should make for a more enjoyable experience. I plan on going through rush January 6-9 too, but I probably won't pledge. And I am pretty determined to have as easy a schedule this semester as I can so I can have a little more of a social life and work hard in the seven business core classes. If you fuck up and don't get a 3.1 average in those, you don't get in the business school. If I didn't get in the business school, I really don't know what I'd do. So, I'm gonna attempt to have a relatively easy schedule! And SMU's kind of a bitch on their grading scale with their +/- system I've learned. I'll bet I'll have an awful schedule though, since I don't get to create one until January 8th. I'll probably get a bunch of 8 o'clock classes with the hardest teachers. I remember looking a little at SMU before I chose to go to Baylor, but I think I kind of threw it out after seeing its size, acceptance rate, and SAT averages in the college book I had in high school with the 2000 statistics. But these are some interesting statistics I gathered of SMU(College Board code 6660- almost the mark of the Beast. How come it couldn't be something like 6969?) to glance over:
2000 First-Year Students
Accepted: 89%!! (In other words.. well I'm not going to go there..)
Middle 50%: SAT I Verbal: 520-620
SAT I Math: 520-630
ACT Composite: 22-27
2001 First-Year Students
Accepted: 85% Out of state: 35%
Middle 50%: SAT I Verbal: 520-630
SAT I Math: 530-640
ACT Composite: 22-27
2002 First-Year Students
Accepted: 66% Out of state: 46%
Submitted SAT scores: 83%
Middle 50%: SAT I Verbal: 540-630
SAT I Math: 550-650
ACT Composite: 23-28
2003 SMU2 1200
SAT I Verbal: 540-640 83%
SAT I Math: 560-660 83%
Of course, those numbers aren't great, but it's not like they're bad, and they do show a nice trend. It was also comforting reading this article. My SAT score is still 70 points above the 75th percentile, but at least SMU's average SAT (mixed with those who submitted SAT instead of ACT) is a lot higher than Baylor. Even Texas A&M was higher than Baylor. That's embarrassing. No offense Aggies. :)
I still feel bad in a lot of ways about transferring to SMU though. One of the reasons my parents bought me a new car was because I got a $28,000 scholarship to Baylor. I may want to get more
than a bachelor's degree as well. And SMU is damn expensive, especially since I can't get any scholarships as a transfer with less than 60 hours. I also feel bad, because no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't fit in with the student body at Baylor. I wanted to believe what they did, but I couldn't. My less religion-embodied friends there told me, "College is what you make of it." But I just couldn't seem to even see more being made of it. Out of a 2,620 freshmen body, I just couldn't seem to find a niche. I tried, I really did.
But as soon as I realized I really didn't want to stay there, it was too late to apply to UT for January. I really don't even know if I'll be able to get in at all there with my first semester grades. It's funny, because I probably would have gone to UT this year if I'd known it would be this hard to get in as a transfer. But maybe it's for the better(hopefully) that I'll be at SMU. Misunderstanding UT's transfer policy is a nice representation of my fallibility. I've learned graduating with a 1350 SAT and in the top 6% of your high school class doesn't do you much good as a UT transfer dammit. I know if I did get in though, I'd have to major in economics, instead of Finance or Business Administration, which would be okay, I guess. But I studied hard for my classes to try and up some grades to A's. I studied harder this semester than I believe I have in my life, and I didn't get a single fucking A. Dammit, I was really surprised too. Not only does this decrease my chances of being accepted to UT if I want to go there, but this also means I'll have to study harder to ensure I get accepted into SMU's Cox business school.
My first semester college grades: Definitely not as good as I'd hoped.
CHA 1088 Chapel- a 3 hour "class" you get zero credit for
CSI 1340 Intro To Comp Sci II B
ENG 1302 Thinking & Writing B+
MTH 1321 Calculus I B
PSY 1305 Introductory Psychology B+
REL 1350 The Christian Heritage B
The B+ in English pisses me off the most. I KNOW I had an A in there. Dammit. But the class I hated the most was definitely the Comp Sci II class- a c++ programming class. More than half the class dropped. The teacher was an idiot, graded harshly, assigned absurdly difficult programs, and would talk to his computer components in class. For example, he couldn't log onto the network one day in class, took out the Ethernet cable from his computer, and quietly said in a baby voice to it, "Oh, Mr. Ethernet connector, why won't you work? Maybe you just need some TLC. Or is that networking card just being mean to you?" Freak. It wasn't like he was trying to be funny and make the class laugh, either. I had to work my ass off in that class, and I should have been exempt from it in the first place through my AP CS AB test.
My Back:
If you don't know me, or very well, my upper back is not perfect from a giant girl falling on me in a physics class a couple years ago. I'm not going to go into any more detail. Well, I have seen a new doctor, a Doctor of Osteopathy in Ft. Worth this time, about my situation (I think this is number 6), and this is really quite interesting, but nonetheless fucked up: I have an indention in my head where the bones in the skull connect to the inelastic sheath that covers the brain and spine which likely resulted from the massive strain placed on it during the injury. He said muscle and tissue can get jammed or stuck and put pressure on the cerebral cortex which is likely responsible for most of the random muscle twitches I have been experiencing in the past year or so. I had appointment number 2 on Monday, and he sat pushing on various spots of my head for about thirty or forty minutes. According to him, it's the process of releasing tissue. I know it sounds all mystical or something, but the hole feels significantly smaller already and the sporadic twitches seem to be decreasing somewhat. He comfortingly told me I was a freak case, and that in his several decades of work, he'd never seen anything like it, although my situation is theoretically possible. He was so amused with me that he was showing the incoming patients the hole in my head. I'm not sure I should be proud of that. Pretty amazing stuff though, and I'm very hopeful this guy can help me, as the many chiropractors I've gone to in the past have reached a limit on how much they've been able to help. I still really want to be able to work out without pain again.
My hair:
Hair grows too damn slow, but to the best of my knowledge, my hair's longer than its been since elementary school. It's such a weird sensation to me to be able to see my own hair. It's been over 4 months now since I've had a real haircut, but my last haircut was really short and bleached. I was afraid I looked slightly similar to Eminem, just with sideburns. I've never had long hair in my life, but I'm trying it, and I think I'm gonna like it. I've had a couple trims on the back and sides, but nothing to qualify as a real haircut. I'm debating on whether I should get a few fresh highlights and a shape up all over or just get a little trim in the back again before I head to SMU. I'm thinking the latter, because it doesn't look like I have any split-ends, the way I understand them, and I don't want to lose any growth. In case you're wondering, I'm aiming for Cobain-style hair- just down to the bottom of my ears though, not to my shoulders. Oh, and if you're in the market for some new shampoo, try the Tea Tree Oil on this company's site here. I like it, it's all natural, it doesn't dry out your hair, and it comes from a native Australian plant. Just discovering this page, I couldn't help but notice the shampoo listed before the tea tree shampoo on the site is "Hemp Super Moisturizing Shampoo." Interesting. What could be better than your head smelling like a pot plant every day? /sarcasm
Girl status:
I've still been alone for several months. I wonder if I will ever find a girl I'll be in love with and vice versa. I like to think I have plenty of time for that, but I always feel pathetic thinking about my relation with the female race. Don't worry though, I'm not pathetic enough to shave my body in a desperate attempt to get girls to like me. But, I got a dalmatian, I can still get high, and I can play the guitar like a motherfucken' riot. Actually, I don't have a dalmation.. and I can't play the guitar. Damn. Well, actually, a bass guitar was a Christmas present, and I'm going to try to learn that, which technically counts as a guitar, just not the standard 6-string variant inferred through Sublime's context. That wasn't an over-analyzation, right?
Job status:
I've decided I must convince my parents I need bartending school so that I can bartend over the summer, which I think would be badass, instead of being at the envelope factory and hearing my brother moan that I'm a lazy teenager who needs to get up earlier and come to the envelope factory early every morning. Well, he's never precisely said that, but I know he thinks it. I want to be employed for a good while outside the envelope factory.. for experience, proving my basic working abilities to myself and others, etc. What better than an evening job of bartending? Or if not, a decent waiting job somewhere in Dallas would be good too.
But general feeling of contentedness and security with my life and future:
Could be better. =/
But for now, I've got to get packed for a ski trip to Utah's Alta/Snowbird/Park City/Deer Valley. We(me+Mom+Dad) have to leave by 1:45 PM. Adios.
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