It's been a while since I made a real blog, so here it goes.

College: I've decided what college I will be attending. The decision was between the College of the Holy Cross, UMass Amherst, and Worcester polytechnic Institute, and I chose WPI. I decided against Holy Cross as it does not have an engineering program, and engineering is what I want to study, so even though it probably was my favorite of the three schools I got into, I decided against it. It has an option for a 3/2 engineering program in which you receive a bachelor's degree from Holy Cross and a bachelor's degree in engineering from Columbia or Darmoth, but it takes more work than usual and after five years you only have two bachelor's degrees, where at WPI or UMass I could potentially have a bachelor's and a Master's by that time, if I went into a one-year master's program. I decided against UMass Amherst, even though it was the least expensive mainly because I wasn't thrilled by it. I initially applied to it as a safety school, and seriously considered it for a while, but after a visit, I wasn't impressed. The campus had no charm; it felt like an industrial park. I know I could have saved quite a bit of money by going there, but my gut feeling told me not to, so I decided to trust my feelings.

I chose WPI in the end for a few reasons. One, the campus had more charm to it, and its located in a more interesting place than UMass, Worcester. Worcester is one of the biggest cities in New England and I have always wanted to try city-ish life after growing up in a small suburb of Boston my entire life. It is also a very strong school academically, more so than UMass I believe. It also has more options than UMass in terms of engineering. Umass only had the basic engineering majors, civil, mechanical, chemical, etc. where WPI has more biological and biomedical options, options I have always considered, and options that are not present at UMass. WPI is also a smaller school, which in a way is better in my opinion.

Of course, WPI has its disadvantages. The big one is cost. It'll cost me about twice as much per year to go there as opposed to UMass, but I'd rather go to WPI and be happy than go to UMass and only have mixed feelings. Another disadvantage is the male/female proportion... it's around 70% male there. I don't think I need to go into why I consider that a disadvantage... :P I guess WPI also has the disadvantage of being such a focused school, as if I decide engineering is not for me, I'll probably have to transfer out, where at another college I could just switch majors. WPI does have other options, but these options seem rather limited.

I am also on the waiting lists of Washington University in St. Louis, Carleton College, and Cornell University, and if I get off the waiting list at any of these schools except Carleton (same problem as Holy Cross, no engineering) I would face a tough decision. Both Cornell and Wash. University are amazing schools, and I would seriously consider either if I got off the waiting list at either. But, for now, seeing as those events are very unlikely, I'm perfectly happy with WPI.

School: I'm about a month away from graduation. This last month is going to be rough, with AP Exams coming up next week and the week after, but I think I can last this last sprint. Unless something changes, I'll be graduating fourth in my class, a place I am perfectly happy with. I have mixed feelings about leaving high school. On one hand, I do want to move on to college, as much as I know it will suck in terms of work, I do want to be more independent, and I think the college atmosphere would challenge me more. But, all the people I know I will be leaving with high school, so I don't know.

Gamespot: I haven't been on the site as much lately. As some of you may have noticed, I have stepped down as a moderator. I guess the decision was partly lost interest in the position and partly lack of time because of school and other things. I'm not sure at this point if I'll ever re-join the team (if they'll have me back :P), I think I'll just have to let some time pass and see how I feel.

Games: I've been playing the Splinter Cell games (Original, PT, CT) and Morrowind pretty much exclusively lately. I bought all three of the original xbox splinter cell games for under $10, which was definitely worth it. The Splinter Cell series is one of my favorites, and playing through them again is very awesome. I've beaten Pandora Tomorrow on hard so far, and am through most of Chaos Theory on expert (with every mission at 100% success so far). After, I'm going to finish up the original game on hard. Each game in the series is a minimum 9/10 in my book. If you haven't played them before, play them.

In Morrowind, I've basically finished the game. I still have some stuff to do, as there is always something to do in the vast world of Morrowind, but as far as the major quests go, I'm done. I went through the Tribunal expansion over the past few months (city of Mournhold) and last week beat the Bloodmoon expansion in a three days where I didn't have much homework to do. At finish, my character is a level 75 Redguard with the best everything. That;s the third time I've played through it. My other two games were on my old original xbox and were lost when I got rid of that a few years ago. Morrowind is another one of those games I recommend very highly, though it is not a game for everyone. It requires patience to get into, and quite a bit of it. It's rather slow at times, but can be immerse if you let it be. A solid 9.9/10 in my book, the .1 off being for the annoying technical issues that pop up rather often. If you remember to save often though, these can be overcome.

Phew, that's more than I intended to write. Well, see you guys around.