August Is A Good Month

For stocks, anyway, and only historically. At least that was what CNBC said. Their explanation was because numerous U.S. government officials take extended leaves during August, which is apparently good for investors in general. I am not quite sure why that is, and so far this month's data does not support that theory, although there is definitely not enough data to make any substantial conclusion.

[Don't even get me started on that commentary about Paul the Octopus and the atrocious claim that an 80% success rate meant if you succeeded four times, you have to fail your fifth time. It makes me shudder every time I think about it.

Also, on a related note, I talked with Argon after he came back from his trip to Spain, and he mention—or more like hinted at—the craziness when Spain won the World Cup.]

For me, August doesn't mean stocks. It means: a) I am endangering numerous people/properties/roads because I now have my permit and am testing the waters, if you will (it would be cool to drive through water someday); and b) the Common Application is out. I know I have been asked by Tea to not remind her about this, so, Tea, if you're reading this, just skip pretty much the rest of the post. Sorry.

So far I have added the list of colleges I'm applying to ("definitely Penn, and MIT, and Princeton, and, uh, do I want Duke?"), filled out all the little details about myself, my parents ("wait, the schools my parents went to don't have CEEB codes"), my academia-related adventures ("how do I fill out my course load for next year when I don't even know it for sure yet?"), and my possible career future ("undecided, or more commonly known as anything-that-involves-statistical-math-and-neurobiology-and-chemistry-and-maybe-psychology-and-philosophy-and-I-would-like-some-economics-as-well-and-what-do-you-mean-that's-impossible"). I haven't filled out my extracurriculars yet ("next to none, ouch"), nor have I explained how I spent my past two summers catching up on classwork and otherwise not doing stuff like finding the cure to cancer or ending world hunger (but of course, I can't do that yet, because curing cancer is Penn's ticket to becoming as "famed" as Wharton, who apparently, but don't quote me on it, loathes to associate with Penn).

All in all, it's good. Now to churn out around twenty essays and short answers, and I will be all peachy. Thank the College Admissions God (henceforth known as the CAG) that the Canadian schools don't require any essays (nor do they look for any intellectual exploration outside of school). Washington University (the St. Louis one) doesn't either, but their scholarships do.

I guess there truly is no such thing as a free-of-supplementary-essays application.

Basically this is me wasting brain cells writing something admissions people will never see instead of writing my essay. I think I should really make an alternate copy of my common application and add my blog address into the "additional information" section, and submit it to some impossible school (I'm thinking Harvard, it doesn't require a supplement essay). I mean, this blog is probably more indicative of my personality and life than any over-250-and-under-1000-words essay I can ever write.

Alas, life doesn't work that way. (Also, Harvard would probably not appreciate the fact that I'm considering Penn over it.)

So I should probably end this now and get back to staring at my application essay instead.