The Final Countdown (Maybe)

6 days until EA decisions for MIT are released.

Ahhhh...anticipation.

Accepted, deferred, or rejected, look for something here on 12/15/08.

I don't think I'll get in. We'll see on Monday I guess.

That quote "expect the worse and hope for the best" is really becoming more and more applicable to my life.

Note

Note to self:

Noelle, 

You are lactose intolerant. Dairy hurts. Be wise with your food choices. Do not eat large quantities of ice cream and/or cheese without supplements ever again. Don't forget that. It will hurt.

-Your Digestive System

Congratulations! You've been pre-approved for...college?

Typically you'd expect to see that line on some ridiculous ripoff high-rate credit card application.  Somehow they get ahold of your info, prequalify you, so all you have to do is fill out some basic info and you're set. Colleges have taken a hint.  In the past 4 months I have gotten about two dozen of these types of applications from colleges, known as "streamlined", "choice", "elite", and "personalized" apps. The schools offer advanced admission and financial aid notices, shorter, less, or no essays, no need for recommendation letters, fewer questions, priority housing, and sometimes a waived fee. Sometimes they throw in a cheesy spiel before getting to the point to make be feel special. Oh gosh and if they happen to know I'm black and a female interested in engineering... I cringe reading "students like you" in that context. I assume the information used to prequalify potential students are solely based on standardized test scores. Most of them are written in the same exact format:

Seems like a great idea, right? It definitely makes applying to safeties easier. Most of these applications I'm getting are unfortunately from generic middle-of-nowhere schools that I've never heard of. Just as I was shortening my college list yet again, I get a few of these from schools that I was actually interested in at some point and now I'm applying to two more schools. Kettering's app only took like 10 minutes and at one point I was seriously interested in WPI. An acceptance letter won't hurt and it'll only cost me postage for transcripts.

It actually almost seems as if schools getting desperate at this point. The first letter is "hey have you heard of XYZ University?", followed by "why don't you apply to XYZ, we like students like you. We even have a streamlined application, aren't we cool and different!", turning to the stalkerish "hey we haven't heard from you. don't you like us? we like you!" and "okay, okay, we'll waive your fee and pretty much almost guarantee admission, just apply dammit!" Perhaps it's not that extreme, but it surely felt that way.

I'm sure none of the major schools will be picking up on this approach to admissions since these types of apps really don't reveal much about the student. I feel that it also cheapens the process and removes the desire to find a suitable connection between the school and the student. I'd definitely prefer for a school to admit me based on a holistic process taking everything in to account, rather than just the numbers. Is it convenient for both me and the school? Absolutely. Best approach? Probably not. I bet with some of these apps one could be admitted by a robot as opposed to a real admissions committee.

Welcome to the 21st century, folks!

Live!

My personal site/portfolio, noellemanning.com, is now live! It's pretty much done, but I'm still tweaking some files and such before I post them, so there are still a ton of 404s. I was just anxious to get it up. The writing section is the most thorough so far. Go check it out! There will be more content (drawings, CAD, photos, videos, projects, etc.) REALLY soon. I'll post an update when it's done.

Early Christmas Present

So after all the stress that October brought (testing, apps, exams, school, work, life, ect.) I decided a while back that I would save up and treat myself to something nice after everything blew over.

A few weeks ago, my iPod decided that it didn't want to function anymore, though for the past year it has been randomly deleting all of its contents, faking deaths, and being problematic in general.  So for these last few weeks, all of my bus rides and walks have been silent (except for environmental noise, of course) and a bit peaceful at times. This was nice for a while, until I started to miss my music.

I had been eyeing the iPod Touch for a while now. It was cool when it came out, but it seemed like overkill since I thought I only needed my music and had no plans to play videos or use apps. In September when the new iPod lineup was released, the Nano caught my attention, and I was almost set on buying it had I had the money at the time. In the back of my mind I was also considering the Classic too, as the gb/price ratio was the greatest and the screen size was nice. By the end of September I had enough for whatever iPod I wanted, but I was completely undecided. Also, if I had purchased an iPod at that time, I would've almost completely depleted my account, which is no fun...I like having money.

In these last few weeks I fell in love with the iPod Touch. Not only the thin, sleek, multitouch, speaker-having, wifi capable, big, shiny screen goodness, but the apps! I don't know why I completely overlooked them when it first came out, but now I have a laundry list of apps I'd like to download or purchase as soon as I get my Touch. Speaking of getting my Touch, I'm getting an iPod Touch! I realized that the only reason I hadn't purchased it two weeks ago when I officially decided I was going with the Touch was that I was a cheapo. I wanted to hold on to my money for as long as possible. Why? I don't know. I think I was just a bit skeptical about making my first large purchase and parting with the money that I had labored (pfft!) for.

So tonight, I did it. I ordered my 16GB iPod Touch 2G. It went pretty smoothly until payment. "Authorization cannot be completed. Action Required!" WHAT?! I was more than sure that I had enough money and that I had certainly not surpassed my limit. Try again, same answer.  I call my bank and apparently they had put a block on my account for making too many Internet purchases, which flags my card for suspicious activitiy. I think the security measures are great (I went through a dozen questions to get to the point) but it might've been embarrasing had I been in a store or needed to do something quickly. I spoke to 3 robots and 2 different operators, but they were all pleasant and it was all cleared up within 15 minutes. I simply reprocessed my order and my iPod should be shipping soon, arriving between Nov. 7-12! I'm excited!

I still need a few accessories for it though **hint hint** stocking stuffers?

Updates

Okay, so my regular blog readers (anybody out there? ::crickets::) should know that I haven't updated in like 2 weeks. Yeah, shame on me, but I've been busy. REALLY busy. All excuses aside, I'm going to try to summarize some entry-worthy topics of interest, bullet-style. Here goes...

-I'm ready for college application season to be over. This is quite stressful and I haven't even sent off any apps yet! (That's my problem too)

-I'm actually starting to like my job. I actually might be sad to leave in January. More like I'll miss having money on a regular basis.

-Is there ever a time when there aren't any tourists in South Florida?

-School feels like a waste of time. There is really only one worthwhile class that I have this semester, which is AP Lit, and otherwise I feel like I'm wasting a potential day of productivity by being at school doing BS assignments all day (YES, I'm looking at you Robotics/Research I and VCM!). I passed the FCAT already; I don't need anymore practice writing prompts or basic words of the day. Is this senioritis or just a few horrible classes that ruin my day? I thought I'd enjoy these classes, but I'm starting to hate them because of the lack of concentration on the course material and instead on other useless crap.

-Taking the previous bullet into consideration, can I take a week off from school just to catch up with life? I wish I still liked school and that the environment was engaging, challenging, and interesting, and I looked forward to going back, like I remember it being in elementary school. Now I'm content with a laptop in front of me, just about anywhere.

-My iPod is gone. Kaput. I have enough money to buy a new 16GB iPod Touch now, but I feel like holding on to my money for a bit. I don't know why. I really want the Touch and I really miss having my music so readily available. Maybe I'll buy it after my next paycheck. Maybe I'll keep holding on to my money.

-I'm almost done with my website. Making it has been fun, frustrating, exiting, and has kept me up late for several nights. I think I'll be ready for a launch in less than a week. Sidenote: Google Chrome is awesome for web design.

-I have my interview for MIT coming up on Thursday. I'm kinda excited.

-How did it get to be halfway through the first semester of my last year of high school? Seriously, time flies.

-My laptop is falling apart. It's running fine on the inside, but the coating over the metal by the speakers is mostly scratched off, the plastic is lose over the headphone and speaker jacks, and a piece of plastic randomly broke off near the hinge. I'll get a new before college, but I need this to hold up for at least another 6 months. Please?

-I'm tired.

Conquered

This morning I trekked over to Plantation High to take the SAT Subject Tests. Unlike Caesar, I did not conquer; I was conquered. I'm kinda bummed out that I did so poorly, but there is a reason why. I'm only in the second semester of Physics, I haven't seriously touched math since Calc ended in January, and I didn't have time to prep. Regardless, I would've at least like to have finished the exam! My stamina was horrible. Math II wasn't that hard, it just took me a while to get through the problems, and with Physics there was so much material that I haven't been expose to. I'm pretty confident that I did well in Literature, but those things are always subjective, so who knows... I'm not going to sit back and remain conquered though. I'm going to register for the November 1 exam, study my ass off for the next few weeks, and conquer this mofo!

October is gonna suck. Really bad. I can't even go to TNT because of the ACT (WHY would it be scheduled on a national testing date?!) Grr.