Life (64.5 days) after MITES!

During MITES, I struggled to keep up with the demands of every class. Here in my senior year of high school, all but two of my classes are a math or science course, and I breeze past each one of them. In fact, I even tutor my peers in two of those classes: physics and calculus. I practically get my way this year! I spent my free time sleeping, socializing, drawing, playing with my graphing calculator, and copying notes from John's notebook. ;)

I still have one major opposing force to my success: laziness. As a result of slacking and being a little too full of myself, I am now a little behind in assessments and schoolwork. I hope to be able to use the experiences I've gained in MITES to help me not only catch up on my schoolwork, but also to make an impact this year.

Did I forget to mention college? I submitted my QuestBridge application this past Friday, but I am not too sure what colleges I want to rank just yet. Meanwhile, I will go into Columbia's CE2 program in two weeks. I have to thank my MITES peers for introducing me to flyout programs! ^_^

With my band and other commitments in mind, I sure hope to effectively manage my time. I also hope to have a great year. Same goes for you, the reader!
(>^__^)>♥<(^__^<)

Post-MITES College Tours

My first blog post, I'll try to keep it short and sweet.


Monday and Tuesday (September 17 & 18) were days off from school (Rosh Hashanah, Jewish new year). No school? Yes! I get to sleep in, play my PS3, watch some TV, basically chill. Nah, not about that life. What better way to spend a couple days off from school than by taking college tours! Monday I went to Dickinson College, and today I went to Lafayette College. Oh, by the way, I'm a Philadelphia Futures student, we do college tours all the time, I can't even count how many I've been on. But anyway, both colleges were pretty good, although I preferred Lafayette. Dickinson has a great study abroad program, and has a lot of languages. At Dickinson, I actually had the opportunity to sit in on a computer science class, and that was a really good experience. Lafayette is good for engineering, and is very high tech, and it has a LOT of study lounges, like everywhere. Both are small, liberal arts colleges. If I don't get into any of the colleges I really want to go to, Lafayette actually wouldn't be a bad consolation. But one thing I highly disliked about both schools was the diversity, or lack thereof. Dickinson is 77% White, 5% African-American, 5% Hispanic, 5% Asian American, and 6% International. Lafayette is pretty much the same. These numbers can't compare to Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. But, Dickinson and Lafayette are good schools nonetheless, just really homogeneous.

We each have a different story. But we all will Ignite Inspiration.

Throughout MITES, I figured out that we all have stories to tell. They come out in personal statements, family meetings, and late night confessions. As we learned more and more about each other in the MITES 2012 class, we grew as a class, a community, and as a family. Since our motto this year was "Igniting Inspiration" I would like to dedicate this blog to our stories and how we are shaping them after participating in MITES this summer. Some of us will actively try to Ignite the Inspiration that pushes us every day to our friends. Some to family. Hopefully, we will all spread the Inspiration throughout our communities. Using our newfound confidence after going through so much during those 6 weeks, I think we will ultimately touch our respective communities and change the outlook and attitudes toward success, STEM, community, personal responsibility, and leadership. Follow us along in this journey.

-MITES Class of 2012

Preparation and Procrastination

I'm pretty much in jitters after buying some final necessities for what will be the longest time away from my family. For 6 weeks, I will be among some of the brightest and most inspired from around the country (and Puerto Rico) at a program called MITES from June 15th to July 28th. The Facebook group is blowing up with questions about what to pack (Pokedex or no Pokedex?) and what things we will be allowed to do on campus. We will be staying at Simmons Hall, which is an engineering beauty. I appreciate anything built so such complexity yet so much simplicity.

Speaking of building things, I have been sending emails nonstop today regarding robotics. Not exactly non-stop, but I have a tendency to write labor-intensive emails. Hyper-linked, informative, spell/grammar-checked, worthwhile, and occasionally colorful: I pull out all the stops because I've figured out that details and presentation matters. I was recently appointed CEO of FIRST Team 1671, a First Robotics team of around 50 members, and the first batch of weekly summer lessons and training start on Thursday. Thing is, my flight leaves Thursday night and I'll be gone...for 6 weeks, so I'm pretty much scrambling all over the place. We have a record number of new members and I have almost no clue what to do with them all. Thankfully, I have a great leadership team with a tremendous amount of ability and potential, and I can confidently let them hold the fort for a little while.

For now, it's time for last minute packing and reviewing for the diagnostic tests in Calculus, Physics, Biology, and Chemistry; thinking about talent show acts; catching up on sleep (school was out last Friday and I have a red eye to Boston); procrastinating; CADding; learning Java with my Head First Java book; playing tennis; managing robotics business; and spending time with friends and family before I leave.

I can handle that in three days.... right?