I have been obsessively checking the school website to see what my grades for this semester are. I just checked and I got As in both of my classes! I can't believe this! I knew I would ace my Information Security class. But I thought I was going to get a C in my C++ class. I thought I would be super lucky if I got a B in it. But I got an A! I cannot believe this. The class was a lot of work, the teacher made everything very challenging and really pushed us. And it was a 4 credit class.

In the C++ class, I got 100% on every single LAB project/homework assignment all semester long. But I got a C on the midterm, which was a lot of points. And then there was my final project, The Memory Game, which I never got the grade for because it was turned in the last week of class. That was a lot of points - almost as much as all the lab/homework assignments combined. And I know that I didn't do too well on the final exam, especially since I was sick (thanks to my severe allergy to poinsettias) and the exam was four hours long. And this teacher does not curve and said he never has. So that means I actually earned the A that I received.

I am so pleasantly surprised! I'm ecstatic, proud, triumphant. I am celebrating this weekend. (I just hope that he didn't make a mistake and then my grade will be changed later, haha).

Happy Thanksgiving! I had a small and simple, but good meal with my mother. She's been having some medical issues lately, so she wasn't able to make her famous dinner. So I tried to help out as much as I could. She baked the bread and cooked the turkey, while I took care of the rest of it, like the side dishes.




Some of the things I am thankful for:

• My Friends and Family: You know who you are. You help keep me sane. Or at least make me feel like I'm not completely crazy.
  I'm glad that I've gotten a chance to be on good terms with my mother and that we've gotten to know each other better. For years, we were on really bad terms but we've become much more understanding of each other compared to the past. And we get along so much better.
  And Mandi, I'm glad we were able to reconnect this past year. I know you're moving to Vegas soon, but at least we've been able to bond again before you leave. I don't know what I'm going to do when you leave, haha. But I'm happy for you.
• My Job: I somehow ended up working for a good company. I had been a temp there for a while and in January, they hired me. I wasn't originally meant to end up being employed there. I was just there to do some clerical work. I don't even have a degree, which almost everyone there does (except for some of the call center employees). But my boss was open minded enough to give me a chance because I showed that I knew a lot of stuff already and was also a fast learner in the things I didn't know yet. I get some great benefits and they treat us well for the most part. I get to work around some cool people. Most of the people I work around have this nice combination of hip but professional. And I'm lucky enough to have a boss who is very understanding about my mom's health issues and he doesn't give me a hard time about missing work due to helping my mom. It's also in a cool location in Brewers Hill.
• My education: I've been fortunate enough to go back to school this past year and not only have a chance at a better future once I get my degree, but I'm learning things in which I'm actually interested. I'm lucky enough to have some great teachers and to have met some interesting other students. And most of my friends, family, and co-workers are very supportive of me.
• Music: With so much going on in my life right now, I don't get to record or perform nearly as much as I used to in the past and definitely not as much as I wish I could. But I'm glad that there are people who haven't forgotten about me during this time. And that I've still gotten some opportunities to do projects and collaborations with other great musicians.

I was planning on going to work tomorrow. It's not required, but it would be a floating holiday so I'd be able to use that as paid time off later. But I have so much to get done, I don't even know if I'll go.

Some of the things I'll be doing over the Thanksgiving weekend:

• Finishing up lots of schoolwork. With the end of the semester approaching, there is a lot of work due. Most of what I have to complete are projects due in my C++ programming class. One of the programs due next week is a memory game. It's similar to this: http://www.zefrank.com/memory. Sure, it's not a very complex game, but writing the code for it is harder than some might think.



• Attending this show on Saturday:

I hope everyone is doing well and is having a great Thanksgiving!

Love,
Teresa

I am proud to be an American. I am proud of this country. I think we made the right choice for President.

Election day Tuesday and the day after were days you could feel such excitement in the air. I went to the polls before work since I had school after work and thought that would be the only chance I had to do it. I couldn't find a close parking spot. I waited in line for a while. It was crowded. And you know what, THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE! I was glad! It felt great to not be the only young person there. It felt awesome the vibe that I felt from others. You would think with so many people in a small area that problems would arise, but people were respectful. It was an exciting time. I remember when I first voted in the 2000 elections (that was the first election I could vote), I barely waited. There was hardly anyone there. The person there who was closest to me in age was about 35 years older than me. In 2004, it was definitely more crowded than the previous presidential election, but this year I think there were even more people there. And again, more young people were there. People younger than me were there.

One thing I keep hearing is that no matter who or how you were voting, people were respectful at the polling places. I'm really glad to hear that. I really wouldn't know firsthand because my voting area is overwhelmingly Democrat. (And those who aren't Democrat are Green, independent, Libertarian, etc. I think there are more of the independent and "third" party voters than Republicans in my area). For a couple mile radius around where I live, you see Obama signs everywhere. I have not seen one McCain sign. In front of the elementary school where I voted, there were nothing but Obama Biden signs and Vote No on Question 2 signs. (FYI, I voted yes on Question 2 and most of Maryland also voted yes, allowing slots in the state). I didn't see as many people standing out front with literature or stickers as before. Then again, I think I went earlier than previous years. When I walked in, I only saw one man. We talked briefly and he handed me some literature. I realized he was Maryland Delegate Stephen W. Lafferty. He also gave me an Obama/Biden sticker. I did see two more ladies who were together standing in front as I was leaving but that's it.

When I arrived to work, there was excitement in the air. Almost everyone had either voted or they went after work. "I voted" stickers were seen on a bunch of employees. I walked around smiling all day. i felt this connection to the people I work with, even those I barely know.

When I went to school, several students either arrived late or were absent. My teacher, who is otherwise not lenient, said he expected this and he ended class short so that those who didn't vote yet would have a chance. I thought that was cool.

When I went home, I immediately went online and turned on the television. I had to know what was happening. Obama was ahead. Obama was way ahead. I had hope that Obama would win, but I was afraid of voter fraud and all that. And I thought we wouldn't know for days. I thought that whoever won would only do so by a few electoral votes. But not only did Obama win, he won by a lot. The media knew he won before they called it. They announced it at 11:01 PM EST, which was 8:01 PST and the polls on the west coast were closed. They didn't want to announce it while polls there were still open.

I was so excited! I couldn't believe we already had an answer. I wanted to run around yelling in joy. In 2000, when the Ravens won the Superbowl, the people of Baltimore went outside and ran in the streets, partying and celebrating the victory. I wanted to do the same thing on Tuesday night for Obama.

Every few seconds, I would refresh my screen on the homepage of MySpace. The status messages were pouring in with people being so happy about Obama winning. There were only a very few who posted status updates that were upset that he won. Most were glad (in my friends list anyway). I loved seeing people's enthusiasm. Even the people who were upset, it was good to see them even caring enough to post about it.

I even liked McCain's concession speech. You know, I think McCain would have been a better President than Bush if McCain had won the nomination and then the presidency back in 2000. I'm not saying I know for sure whether or not he would have been a great president, but I think he would have been better than Bush.

Wednesday morning at work, you could feel how the company was in a great mood. Most people did not reveal who they were voting for. A lot of people would talk about voting but not say anything about what their views were. They wanted to stay professional. Well, that pretty much went out the window when everyone was like "I'm so glad Obama won!" 

So I'm happy about who won the Presidency. I'm happy about how some of the local Maryland issues turned out. I am bummed about how several states voted to disallow gay marriages. I thought Prop 8 in California would have been voted No (no means you're not in support of banning it), but most people voted Yes. It makes some feel that if California couldn't get the proposition defeated, what state really has a chance in the future? But I have hope that someday gays will be able to get married or at least civil unions with the same rights throughout the United States and that we will look back at the time when it wasn't legal as one of our crazy, close-minded mistakes.

I just completed homework dealing with Binary Code. I had to take decimals and translate them into binary code and vice versa.

I'm now looking at everything in Os and 1s. Haha. Did you know that I'm 11010 years old?

You see this? It's an ethernet cable.



I learned how to make both a patch cable and a crossover cable this evening in class. I physically did it and tested them to make sure they worked. I got to use the tools and everything. I didn't know I was going to be doing all that in my Data Communications 101 class. Haha. Interesting. But still, I don't think computer networking is something I'd want to make my career. I'm just taking the class as a requirement for my Information Technology degree (and I'll have to take another DCOM course later). It's good to know the basics and a little beyond that. But it's just not something I could see wanting to get certified in, know the ins and outs of, and do constantly on a daily basis for years. It's cool that others like it. I don't hate it. But I just can't see getting all excited about it everyday at work. Most of the other people in my class are specifically Networking majors, not Information Technology software majors. So they are all about this.

Anyway, I have another skill learned tonight, even if it's a small one.

I finished up my spring 2008 semester at school. Last week was finals week.

This semester was more of a challenge than last. But I am not complaining. I took Introduction to Computer Programming Using OO and Logic and Comprehensive Databases. The former was a class I went to every Monday night and the latter was an online class. I was learning two concepts that were new to me at the same time. At first, this was a little difficult because I was trying to learn two different worlds at once. But once I got the hang of it, it was a lot better. I actually liked what I was learning, so that made it easier to want to study it until I got it. The main challenge for me was that when I got home from work, I was tired and the last thing I wanted to do was more thinking and I did not want to sit in front of a computer anymore. Plus, I have been learning new tasks at work as well. So it was a brain overload in the beginning.

I aced my final exams and final grades. I received an A in every class I took this year. Of course, I only took 6 credits per semester, but I do have a full-time day job. I do wish I could take more classes per semester so that I could finish sooner but that just isn't going to happen. I'd rather take a longer time to graduate and actually understand what I'm learning and do well rather than just skate along.
And I'm guessing that when I take more advanced programming and database classes, it's going to be even harder and I will have to study even more. And all As might not happen again (though I will still aim for that, even if it doesn't happen).

My teachers were great. My programming teacher has had many years of experience as a respected computer programmer. He has been doing that for over 30 years and was a part of some crucial software that came up in the 70s and 80s. He's been a project manager for some big companies and has done some major things. You can tell that he's passionate about his field and that he actually wants to help us understand. I was curious in the beginning of the semester as to why he'd go through the time and effort of getting a teaching degree when he already had an established career and I presume he was making more than enough money. I think he just loves what he does a lot and wants to share his knowledge and experience. He had a different personality than most teachers and a dry sense of humor. I don't think a lot of the students in the class really got him, but I did.
About half of the class dropped out. I don't think it was because of the teacher, though.

My online teacher put a lot of effort into making the online class seem more like an actual classroom. I've heard that some online teachers aren't so great and not very helpful, but she was a good teacher. She even put together some videos to show us things and she would email me personally when I posted questions on the bulletin board about a career as a Data Analyst. (Basically, it's hard to find information about being a Data Analyst because that position goes by any different titles. I'm still a little confused but she did help clear things up).

I had originally planned on taking the summer off and going back in the fall, like most students. But I think I am actually going back in the first week of June. There's some stuff in the works that's supposed to happen in the Fall, so I want to either only take one class or just take off altogether that semester.

Welp, spring break is over with and I'm glad. I was so beat last week. You see, I had three times the amount of homework to do and pretty much had to work overtime at my job. I'm not trying to whine about it because I'll have some extra money on my next paycheck. But I'm just saying that it was not an actual break.

Tonight is the show at Fletcher's! I hope I won't miss too much of the show since I'll be coming from school.

I finished my fall semester last week. I was going to take a class over the winter but I think I need some time to figure some stuff out. I want to change my major to something more computer related. I'm a little bit of a geek. I'm not a computer software expert by any means but I like learning about them. And I took a couple classes on graphic design and webpages back when I first when to college. I taught myself a lot of stuff as well such as more html beyond what I learned in school and some CSS. And that takes patience. At first when I learned html in school, I thought I would never want to do it after the class was over because of how tedious it was. But after a while, I got used to it and wanted to learn more and didn't find it painful to do.

So I'm thinking that if I learn stuff on my own as a hobby anyway, maybe I should learn other computer related things. I need to challenge myself. Oh yeah, and then why not do it as a career and make money from it?

I'm thinking about getting a degree in something in the Information Technology program. I think I want to do database. But I'm not 100% sure. So I've been taking a lot of my free time into learning as much as I can now about database to make sure this is something I want to do. I think it is. But I just need to get over the tedious/this sucks part of it to have fun with it - the same way when I was first learning how to make a basic webpage. And I get all paranoid when I'm about to make a decision so I always have to over-investigate it to convince myself I'm doing the right thing - even when it's something as stupid as just buying a $50 cell phone.

I thought that when the semester was over I'd have all this time to do whatever I wanted and spend more time on music but now I feel like I have even less time. Because I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing and figure it out soon so I can sign up for Spring classes.

And yes, I am aware of the fact that if I do database for a corporation, this means I'm probably not going to do it on the mac operating system. It's not the end of the world, people. I can handle it. Plus, a lot of the government positions use Linux anyway. :-P I can still use my mac at home and I do have XP installed on it as well as Leopard so yes, I can also learn those programs at home as well as in school. I use Windoze at my job now anyway. Every office job I've had was on a PC except one (which was working tech support for Apple, haha). So I'm not going to fall in a hole by learning this. Some people have been acting like I couldn't handle that and that it'd be like working for a company that only speaks French or something. People are so overdramatic sometimes!

It's finals week. I shouldn't have went out last night, but I pretty much had to because A Freudian Slip was playing Fletcher's. They sounded very tight and the place was packed. It was almost too packed. The downstairs after party was really fun. I can't believe they're turning it into a restaurant. I'm going to miss it.

I have to give a presentation before (or as part of) my final tomorrow evening. So I'm going to be putting it all into a powerpoint file after work tonight. I'm almost done with this semester. I have some good (productive) things planned for the winter break. Although I also want to go out and be stupid for some of the time.

On an unrelated note, the west coast seems to have more ideal weather for me, but for some reason NYC has been calling my name lately. 

I've been spending the past... I don't know how many days... working on my final project for one of my classes. I originally thought I had less than a half hour of work left to do yesterday, which was good because I was trying not to do everything at the last minute. Basically, I just had to make some aesthetic edits and add a small bit of information. But then that turned into me re-doing other things and then getting last minute ideas of adding new sections altogether. So I ended up staying awake until about 3 A.M. last night completing it. I missed the shindig at Fletcher's (the downstairs part is turning into more of a restaurant and so there was a "final party"). But I didn't mind all that much because I was doing something productive in its place.

But then my teacher canceled our class tonight because of the snow. The college isn't closed, but my class isn't happening. And because of not having class tonight, she says she doesn't want to us be completely off the hook. So she gave us all this other stuff we have to add to the final project that will be due next week. I thought I was done and now I'm not. Oh well. There are worse fates.

I would have rather had class to be honest with you, haha.

I finally got side-swept bangs to cover up my enormous forehead. I think they call that a fivehead. I've been wanting to do it for a few years now but I was afraid of looking too hipster or emo. I also didn't know who should do it. Then I saw a picture my friend ghsblackrose took of the two of us together. My fivehead was so big, it was worse than Rihanna's. (By the way, her music is bad). Sure, the angle made it seem worse. But still, people might sometimes look at my head at that angle in real life and see the same thing, too.  You can say "Well, it's not that your forehead is big, it's that your hairline starts higher. Whatever it is, it just doesn't look right. So it was time to get those bangs. I just did it myself and it's not as hard to do as I thought. I thought it might be hard to make them stay to the side, but I figured it out. I think it looks good. Nothing amazing. But it helps cover up my big head.

I've spent the past few days working on my portfolio that's due for one of my classes. I didn't go out Friday or Saturday night because I wanted to spend some time on that. Sorry to those I said I would hang out with, see their band, check out their artwork, etc. but I needed to work on this. I have some more stuff to do with that, but at least I am getting closer. Next week is the last week of classes and it's due then. The week after that is finals week.
I kind of don't feel like going to class tomorrow night. I don't dislike my class, even if it is four hours.  My teacher is awesome and the other students are cool. I think it might be the combination of having off last week and the fact that it's now dark and cold when I go there. One thing I noticed is that it seems like less students are dropping out. I don't know if it's a night school thing or if it's just that maybe the year I went was a year that more people quit. When I went in the Fall/Spring of 2000/2001, a lot of people dropped out. As time progressed, the classes would become more vacant and it was a lot easier to find a parking spot. That hasn't happened this semester.

I had mid-terms this week and I punched them in the face! I met the instructor of one of my classes for the first time because the class was online.  She was cool. A lot of the times, I finished assignments weeks before they were actually due and did well on them. So she said she was going to give me the option of skipping the mid-term and just taking the final if I wanted. I did it and I got an A. Yeahhh, boyyyy. One class finished and aced.
This gives me more time to focus on my four-hour class. I have a lot of work to do in it and and I need to start working on my portfolio. I haven't even started yet. It's not due until the end of the semester, but we're supposed to be working on it all semester long and there's a lot to do. I'm almost positive I aced the mid-term for it. I just need to keep acing everything else.

I finally watched video of the entire performance of last Monday's show. Adam taped it. And he came over last night because the house is having minor some electricity issues, so he brought his camera with him to show me after he helped us with the problem. We ended up saving the whole thing to my computer.
The sound is actually pretty good considering it's recorded from the audience and not from the sound board. I guess that's an advantage of having only three members and not being super loud.  You can actually hear my keyboards, which rarely happens at a show. Not only can you hear me, but I actually think the keyboards are too loud! (in the first song, "Emotion Regression". But it's better afterward). Who would have ever thought I'd say that in this lifetime? But we really could have heard more Keith. Still, I think it is pretty good overall.
There are some amusing parts Adam taped before and after the show. Brandon and I share a secret ninja moment after our set and we didn't know the camera was still rolling at that point haha. Maybe I'll post it. At the afterparty downstairs, Keith was drunk dancing/singing to Danzig (what else is new) with Billy Fisher of A Freudian Slip and some other people and Adam got that on tape. I love it.  He recorded a couple Phantom Communique songs. And there's footage of Keith in the audience having fun during their set.
Adam was recording before we went on and there are a ton of people having different conversations. And what's amusing is that I keep hearing Teresa blah blah blah Teresa blah Teresa. The "Teresa"s were coming from different voices. I couldn't hear what any of them were actually saying about me because I can't make out each individual conversation since it's a bunch of people talking on top of each other. But I think we all hear our own names - whether intentional or not - better than anything else, even when we don't try. There are even some people talking about me between songs, but I don't know what they're saying then, either. Someone does say  something like "Give that to Teresa" or  "Save one for Teresa" but I don't know what they were talking about. I'm sure there are more people saying "Brandon" and "Keith" but I just don't have an ear for their names, haha.
Anyway, I am thisclose to having "Emotion Regression" posted and put on You Tube. Some random person from the Philippines who doesn't even use their account took the username "cherryteresa", so I'm figuring out what to make my name. I think I'll do "CherryTeresaDotCom", even though that's kind of lame. But I can't use - or _.  Any other suggestions for a username?

I have mid-terms this week. I can't believe it's time for that already.

Things have been busy and hectic for me.

Horrible news - A good friend of mine, Michael Sean Quental - better known as Mike Q of Velvasheen - died on Monday evening. I don't know too many details right now. But this is very upsetting. He was only 27. We were pretty close at one point in time. Some of you may know that he re-mixed of my songs.  I lived with him temporarily. We went to Ocean City together. And we had just tons of other random memories. His viewing is tonight. Sorry to those of you who have been emailing me or sending me myspace/facebook messages that I haven't responded to yet. I won't be able to respond for at least a few more days.

 

From "Model Minority":

Asian American status in affirmative action

Because of their high degree of success as a group, Asian Americans do not benefit from affirmative action policies the way other minority groups do. In fact, most schools routinely choose lower-scoring applicants from other racial groups, including European Americans, over Asian Americans, in an attempt to promote racial diversity and to maintain some proportion to the society's racial demographics. [11]
A 2005 Princeton study showed Asians (not whites) bear nearly 80% of the cost of affirmative action in college admissions. Nearly four out of every five spots given to any other race in an affirmative-action regime would go to Asians in a purely merit-based system. 1

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From "Affirmative Action Bake Sale":

Asians not counted as minorities

Asians are generally not included in the minority-discount category in bake-sales because they do not benefit from affirmative action policies. For example, some schools have had restrictions on the proportion of Asian students admitted, in favor of lower scoring students of other racial groups.1 African-American Dr. Walter E. Williams, a libertarian professor of economics at George Mason University further elaborates that:

"A minority group is not (counted as) a minority if, as a group, it is successful. Asian median family income is $55,525, the highest of any racial group in America. More than 44 percent of Asians age 25 and over have bachelor's degrees; the rate for all other Americans was 26 percent. Other indicators of group success include low crime rate and high family stability." ^[1]

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From "Affirmative Action in the United States":

Libertarian view

Some free market libertarians argue that employment discrimination is only made possible by pervasive market failures. Under a regime of highly competitive labor and goods markets, companies would not be able to afford to hire on any basis other than merit. According to Libertarians, this would render affirmative action unnecessary.
Regardless of the willingness to pay and profitability for private persons or groups to discriminate, other libertarian-oriented persons further argue that affirmative action and non-discrimination policies violate individual rights of freedom of association and the enforcement of such statues violate individual freedom of speech. They argue that such central authority to dictate moral and social improvement is a power that will be fought over on all sides and ultimately cause more harm than good. For example, private female-only gyms have been forced to hire male workers, American colleges have discriminated against Asian students (on the grounds that they are "overrepresented"), and in Washington DC, individuals have been forbidden to advertise that they wish to share an apartment with another Democrat, homosexual, or with someone of similar faith. They conclude that application of affirmative action and anti-discrimination laws to the conduct or property of an individual or a private group is a threat to civil liberties.[20]

Centrist view

Certain people have a different point of view about specifically first world affirmative action which, for lack of a better word, will be referred to as "centrist" here. They claim that affirmative action makes sense, but only to the point where it helps the disadvantaged members of minorities, as opposed to the middle and upper class. They believe that affirmative action, as it is now, is not fulfilling its original purpose (to bring minorities out of poverty) as the vast majority of minorities, in the first world at least, are already middle-class. There have been cases of middle-class minorities receiving better jobs or college acceptance rates than whites of equal or lower income or social standing. According to this point of view, affirmative action should be eliminated and joined with the normal welfare system that helps both whites and blacks that are lower-class. They believe that affirmative action should only be used to bring the lower class, not a specific racial group, out of poverty. This view is particularly associated with the liberal academic and author Walter Benn Michaels. [21]

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I visited school on Tuesday.  I met with the Program Advisor for Office Administration.  I am switching majors from when I attended in 2000-01. (I was going for Interactive Design then and I am now going for Legal Office Administration). Whenever you switch majors, you have to meet with the Program Advisor. She was really nice and helpful.
Walking around the campus made me really realize just how long it's been since I've been there. The campus is beautiful like it was before. I walked around for a bit because the weather was nice that day. The landscape is nice. There are also some changes. It seems like there are more computers hooked up to the internet. There were rooms with those computers before, but it seems like there are more. Also, there is more security. There are those boxes where you can call for help. Those weren't there before.
I bought my textbooks online yesterday. I saved a bunch of money. Two of the books I bought new from eBay and they were still half price than buying them new at the campus bookstore. Another book I bought used but it's still cheaper than buying the same book used from the school's store. The site www.campusbooks.com is awesome for me because I can type in the ISBNs for all the books at one time. And it shows where to buy each one that's the cheapest. And unlike google or yahoo product searches, it's updated in real time.

I just need to receive the books and buy a few school supplies and I'm ready to go!