alritey...

feel much more secure... in a sense.

its all set n done. im goin to georgia tech. made my medical appointment today, checkup on wednesday, n TB screenin on fri. after tt, send in the medical forms. dad'll settle the acceptance fee n the housing prepayment by this week too, so i'll b clear to fill up the online housing application. its so cool, since atlanta was the venue for the 96 olympics, the buildings n facilities were upgraded for the atheletes, now tt they're gone, the students in georgia tech r reapin the benefits. so v new n modern livin facilities. first class. so long as everythin is processed before 1 may, all freshman r guaranteed housing. tts one worry gone.

called up the office of undergraduate admission today, since the person in charge was not in, left a message about my cert not being ready n if my poor performance in the a's would affect any chances of admission. guess now, since im entitled to 12 gatech hours. so will b waitin for a call in the next 3 days.

read up a lil more info, dunno if i should b happy or sad. seems ga tech is really a tough sch. only 23% actually graduates in 4 yrs. most of the time coz students r involved in co-op programs n tryin to complete the other courses tt they need to finish up in order to graduate. tt sucks. i might b stayin there for 5 or even 6 yrs. but employment rate is damn gd. 91% within 6 mths of graduation. much better than a lot of unis. but this bk has labelled ga tech as 'revenge of the nerds' sch. haha. i guess i wont find tt surprising, JCs r really work hard-play hard arena, im v v experienced in tt field.

so accordin to the article, here r few things i should do in ga tech.
1. get internship program in atlanta (supposedly abundant in atlanta)
2. try to get exchange program in japan (ooh yea will make it so excitin)
3. minor or get certificate program in japanese, if not some other thing (will make my resume look v impressive, a plus pt if i decide to do MBA)
4. participate in co-op program (a third of ga tech is in co-op, makin it one of the nation's biggest)
5. participate in research program (since its a prominent research sch, y not?)
6. sign up for freshmen experience (orientation part 3)
7. join fraternity (its one of the few schs tt allow freshmen to join frat, n their parties r v popular in ga tech, since its such a small sch)
8. participate in intramural games (yes, i can play soccer!!)
9. n hopefully get partial scholarship, if not, work loan.

yep yep. man, im excited. seriously. its wat ive been readin up on for the past few days. price is v v reasonable, high rankin, gd reputation, everythin to gain. i dun care if i get accepted by berkeley or carnegie mellon now. im a yellow jacket, a rumblin' wreck.

haha, tts the sch's nicknames.

anyway, another thing is tt its march madness. n ga tech's men's basketball team is GOOD. they juz made it into the national top 16 yesterday. i used to wonder why ppl follow NCAA tournaments (college level games) instead of NBA. now i know y. there r like so many teams from so many places n its so unpredictable. n the players change more often. march is nicknamed 'march madness' (im not sure if u guys ever heard, but ive heard it from few yrs back) coz the national tournaments begin in march. before tt, all the colleges play among other colleges from their own little league, called conferences. since its a huge country, there r like 20-30 conferences. (much comparable to how the B & C div sports functions in sg sec schs, analogy is like each conference is like north zone, south zone, etc juz tt there r many of em) so the top two or three, (some v gd conferences can get 4 or 5, ga tech's conference, named Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) gets a NCAA record 6) makes it to the national finals, which consists of 64 teams all over the country.

now its a interesting fact. one of these 20 to 30 conferences is named 'Ivy League.' ahh. u im sure we've heard tt one over n over again. get it get it? when we refer to ivy league universities, we r actually referring to them in athletic terms. its a big misconception tt we all refer to the members of ivy leagues om terms of academic supremacy. but tts not wrong either, all the 8 members in Ivy League happens to be all academically excellent, but tts coz Ivy league is one of the oldest conferences. n i told u bout the region thing, i juz realised all the ivy league unis r situated in north east america. u discover new things everyday eh? o, juz for info, only one of the 'ivy league' makes it to the NCAA, this yr, princeton, i.e. ivy league sports suck. haha. but ive read somewhere tt sometime in late 19th century, the 8 schs. brown, cornell, columbia, dartmouth, harvard, princeton, upenn n yale decided to form an exclusive group of academically established institution so tt they'll play eachother several times durin the yr, n no other unis can join. tts how ivy league came about.

so, they keep playin for most part of the yr til march, tts when the national tournament starts, tts y 'march madness' coz its time to see who wins! most of tournament matches r held durin march, so many upsets (esp this yr so far) n its really exciting, hence, 'march madness.' now i really get it n its really interesting!! the seedings (rankings n byes) n all, theres juz so much to look around for.

n another thing, we all assosiate the phrase 'sweet 16' for birthdays n all, well, wrong, it was first used to describe the 16 teams tt have advanced from the start of the 64 team national tournament n managed to win the first n the second round of the tournament. funny how we misinterpret n misuse certain things huh?

then it becomes somethin 8, was it supreme 8 or somethin, i gotta check it out, then becomes 'final four' im sure u guys heard of tt one. tts whent he surviving 4 teams compete in the national semis. actually if ur college makes it to the final four, well, tts quite gd already. i mean among 200 or so schs tt participate, gettin to top 4 of all tt is quite amazing. then of cuz after tt whoever wins the semis go to face eachother for the NCAA championship.

u might think tt ive been followin the NCAA since i got accepted to ga tech, but tts not true actually. ive actually been lookin for scores n followin wats been goin on since i arrived here. there was this big case in early march coz the nationally no.1 ranked team (the sports papers n the press compiles a list of top 25 all the time, even tho the actuall nationals hasnt started, juz for stats sake n braggin rights of the sch) called St. Joseph's was beaten by an unranked n unseeded team when they were unbeaten throughout this season (about 29 games) durin their conference title quarter finals. n then now the top few seeded team hav been beaten in the first n second round too.

yep, so georgia tech made it to the sweet 16 for the first time since 96. they've beaten boston college 57-54 in the second round n northern iowa 65-60 in the first. they didnt win the ACC title, coz national no.4 duke beat em in the quarters. n duke lost to maryland in the ACC finals to halt duke's 7 or 9 straight ACC title record or somethin. so yea, ive been followin for sometime.

the system's real cool. play against members of ur conference about three or four times n based on the final standings in the conference, the colleges play for the conference title in a knock out format. then accordin to the confence's record in the past 10 to 20 yrs, number of teams allowed to participate in the NCAA r alloted, so the top few of each conferences r all placed into a huge rankin, where then they seed each teams into four difference areas, n furthur seed them into 16. so there r like four regions for the 4 groups of 16, n they play within their pot til whoever emerges victorious, the top four, as i mentioned earlier, will b the final four. haha. tts the shortest n the simplest way to describe how NCAA works. its really addictive.

so ga tech meets nevada, who has upsetted the no.2 seed in the region (ga tech is seeded no.3 in the region) for the regional semis. i seriously think ga tech has v gd chance of makin the regional finals. some r sayin they can even make the final four this yr coz the other pair in the region hav gotten rid of the no.1 seed.

k, its been a long blog. but yea, basically wat ive been doin is checkin data n info on ga tech, observin how the NCAA is goin n juz general bummin around.