Exciting News!

Ever since my high school days, I have always wanted to study abroad. Unfortunately, it did not work out, but I made it a goal in college to do so and now its finally coming true. During my junior year AKA 2015-2016 school year, I will be studying abroad in Shanghai, China. Why China? So many people have asked me that. There is not much too it except that I have met several Chinese students here at school that have influenced/encouraged me to go abroad and I have always wanted to and just meeting them have narrowed down my decision. I am so excited for this trip. Although everything has not been finalized yet, I have read a ton about China and what I will need to bring and do ahead of time which are the following:

• Deodorant: Chinese people do not wear deodorant and are not known to perspirate as much as African Americans, so I must stock up on this before I leave. Otherwise, I am screwed.  
• Food Poisoning Pills: Chinese food is extremely different from the Americanized Chinese food here and depending on how well my body adjusts to it, I want to bring some pills with me just in case. I have never had food poisoning, but it can happen. 
• Unlock iPhone: I am currently using an iPhone 6 with Tmobile and I think instead of just buying a new or prepaid phone, I will just unlock my phone when I get there. I hear it is very common and can be done for a very low price through a vendor. 
• Banking Issues: Transferring money will be a problem for me so maybe I can just take the risk and have it all with me when I travel? Not too bad (because China is known to be very safe), but at the same time risky at the risk of losing the money or someone stealing it. I hope to figure this out as time comes near. 
• Suitcases: I will buy some trolley suitcases because they are much more convenient to carry than regular suitcases. As of how many? I am not too sure yet. 

This is all I plan to buy, but hopefully more to come soon. 

Back at School

I am back into swing at school and let's just say - I cannot wait till its over. It is not stressing me out, but I am so tired and I want it to just end. School is great and all, but after awhile, I am just over all of it. The excessive fees we have to pay for a "quality" education, the endless work that one professor gives out, the club meetings, the activities, and other events just get so tiresome. I do so much at school so I can stay busy. I do not like have nothing to do. Sometimes it is good, but it can drive one crazy after a certain point. I cannot wait for the summer.

I cannot believe I have 6 more weeks till the school year is over. I would say that my sophomore year has been pretty good besides the difficult obstacles I had to go through yet the rewarding opportunities I had has definitely weighed the negatives. I was able to attend a conference for free, I am in the process of studying abroad, and I have amazing teachers in my major that has helped me revamp my resume, cover letter, and other needs. It is just awesome to have that kind of support along the way of your college career. I just wished the school provided more in terms of gaining actual experience our field to get our foot in the door. They do provide workshops on these topics, but I would want something more. And I am not sure if the school I am attending can give me that.

Friday the 13th!

As you know, today is May 13th AKA Friday the 13th! Also known as an unlucky day in the US. As of why, I honestly do not know, but I came here today to talk about a show I watched for the first time in forever. The Simpsons.

When I was younger, my father told me starting around the age of one or two, I would sit down every Sunday evening around 9pm to watch the Simpsons and I learned how to turn on the TV. If I was to turn on the TV and find that the show was not on, I would turn the TV back off, but what he would do is keep the channel of the TV on FOX so I can sit down to watch it. He told me I would laugh and was amazed by this show to the point where it became one of my favorite shows. To this day, I honestly still like it. I just haven't given myself the time to watch the newer seasons.

But before that, I went way back and at one point in time (I think around the 10th or 11th grade), I was renting out DVDs from the library to watch the Simpsons starting from I think season 1 -12 or 13. Although extremely old, there were very good seasons. Some were recaps of episodes I have watched and some were brand new to me.

From reading online, many people say they aren't the same as what it used to be, but this can only be based upon one's own personal judgement. So over the course of two days, I watched two episodes and these episodes were the most recent ones from this date which are Season 26 Episodes 15 and 16. Luckily enough, both episodes have reached my expectations of the Simpsons and had made me laugh a bit especially Episode 15.

Starting with Episode 16, The Simpson family was complaining of how much they hate going to church. Marge is the one behind forcing people to go and everyone else were praying to God hoping that the church is burned down. Lucky for them, as they arrived to church, the church has burned down. A few of the faithful church goers like Ned Flanders, Marge, and a few others I cannot name were pretty upset. These group of people all met with the priest and were trying to find a way to get the church fixed so they can have their Sunday mass going again. Marge stepped into the Kwik-E-Mart and somehow, Apu had an idea of how they can raise the money to fix the church. Gambling.

Church Members first walking into the Casino

Many of the church members were against it because of gambling being once of the deadly sins in the bible, but in this special case, since it is for the church, it is not considered as a sin. Long story short, Apu teaches them how to gamble while playing the game Blackjack and they go in the first night at the Casino making a ton. The second night, they went in disguised to prevent anyone recognizing them from the first night. Homer finds out through his kids that Marge has been going to the Casino and he gets put into jail for interfering in their scheme. They pay the money to the contractors to fix the church, but Marge wants to take it back to bail out Homer. Going back to the first scene, prayer has helped get Homer out of jail for free. A very entertaining episode.

This is where it gets interesting.

Homer and the Nigerian Princess are talking in the hotel room. 

In Episode 15, I can totally relate to. In this episode, it was about Mr. Burns creating a new business relation with a Nigerian King. The king brings along his daughter AKA the princess and it is up to Homer to take care of her or should I say, make sure she does not leave the hotel room. I cannot remember her name, but she is 25 years old and this was her first time reaching to America. The last thing she wanted to do was stay in the hotel and watch TV. She wanted to explore Springfield so bad. After several negotiations, Homer finally decided to take her out, but as soon as she took her out to Mo's Bar, he lost her and somehow got locked up by the police. We find later that she stepped out and came back to meet Mo and immediately gained a friendship for each other. Mo took her out on a scooter to see a ton of sites in Springfield and she was loving it. She never felt so free in her life.

After Homer got out of jail, he is running all around Springfield to find the princess. He fakes his voice to Mr. Burn's assistant thinking that Homer is the princess on the phone, taking cars and those bike tours until he finally found Mo and the Princess. The princess says goodbye to Mo and kisses him on the forehead and the paparazi takes a picture of this kiss. It ends up on all of the dirty websites like TMZ and Perez Hilton's website. The Nigerian King finds out and cuts off the deal of receiving 10,000 goats from Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns was not amused by this at all. All characters are found at the end of the episode in Mr. Burns's office to find the Nigerian King confronting Mo assuming that he was having a love affair with his Princess. The Princess backs up Mo and let her father know that they weren't having any kind of love affair and only kissed him on the forehead to show how much she liked him (as a friend) and appreciated the time spent. If you guys are not familiar with the Simpsons, Homer says very dumb stuff from time to time, but he has his moments. This was his time he really touched me. He mentioned to the King that he needs to learn how to let their kids go and be free. But he gave a reference to his one year old child, Maggie who was crawling out the door on her own. Very funny Homer. Pretty much from here, the episode ended.

The letter Sent to Mo where he sent $5,000 dollars over to him.

One really funny thing in this episode was when Mo brought up the Nigerian Letter scam. If you are not familiar to the scam, in the past especially in the early 2000s, a Nigerian would send an email to their address saying that their uncle died and they need money to pay for the wedding and if the person was to pay a certain amount to them, not only would they get their money back, but they would also get an fixed amount of more money. A ton of people fell into this trap and never heard back from them. And it really made me laugh because I have met people who have fallen to this trick and I myself have actually have been sent the email. (I have a dark sense of humor, don't mind me.)

To keep things brief, why this episode really speaks volumes for me because in general, Nigerians (not so sure about other African ethnicities or races) are very strict when it comes to their children. Especially those who stick with the tradition (like my parents and many others I have met). No matter how old you are, as long as you live in their house, you follow by their rules. And I find this to be very annoying especially at my age now (I am currently 20), I should not feel to be talked down upon especially if it is something if it was something already discussed about. No need to repeat yourself. I just wish they were more open and interesting in doing different ideas and activities. It would make my life living at home a lot better, but I know for sure it won't change, so I work my way around the system to make the best of it. If that includes not going home for the break and traveling as much as I can over the summer, its better than nothing. And when I say rules, I am not talking about "You need to clean and cook at home" but "You can't go out" or "Bed time is at 9PM". No. I am at the age where I should be able to make these decisions at the same time be able to come home at a reasonable time and compromise, but that may never happen. So until then, I have to endure the pain.

Feature Points

There's this app I use called Feature Points where you can download apps from their list and accumulate points. Once you receive a certain amount of points, you can exchange your points for real prizes. For example, you can win real money through Paypal, use your points to buy apps from the App Store or Google Play, giftcards from Amazon and the App Store, and even an iPad. This app may seem like a scam, but it is not. It is real and I can vouch on that. To make sure that this app was truly legit, once I accumulated enough points, I bought GTA China Wars from the App Store. Within 24 hours, I was sent my code to retrieve my app from the app store. I was soo happy!

 Now, I can play the game anytime on my phone. If I was to lose my phone, I can easily retrieve the app back from the App Store because Apple saves the items of which you have bought from their store. Several things you need to know about Feature Points (if you have an iPhone, I am not sure if it works the same way with an Android) but if you have already downloaded an app they have listed on their app, you can't re download it again to accumulate points because the information has already been saved to your iCloud. Also, you must download the app from Feature Points. You can' t go straight to the App Store to download it because Feature Points won't be able to keep track of wheter you really downloaded the app. One big thing that really messes people up is that once you do download the app, you should open it and use it for at least 2-3 minutes. This is the best practice to follow in order to receive points. There have been times I did not retrieve points although I did download and use the app, but that's ok. Also, each Feature Points account is tracked by the phone it is assigned to. If you were to break or lose your phone, the only way you will be able to retrieve your information from Feature Points is if you had a backup saved in your iCloud or on your Computer. Otherwise, you are screwed unless you have an email attached to your account. I remember when I switched from my iPhone 4s to my iPhone 6, I had moved all my information to my iPhone 6. Once I opened the app, they asked if I was using a different phone for my account and they just transferred my existing information to my new account. Like I said earlier, the only way if you wanted to have 2 separate accounts on 2 separate phones, you must be using a different Apple account. There are also so called hacks for this app, but I honestly do not trust them. Stay away from those because a lot of times, they do not work for the most part and your information may get taken without you even knowing it. It has happened to me in the past with websites, so I highly suggest you don't even try. I hope you found this helpful and possibly something you may want to try. And if you do try it, you should add my referral code if you sign up, which is NPAQTA.

I once I get to 30,000 points, I will use them to get an Amazon gift card because I LOVE Amazon and from there, buy the new GTA V! Although I can't play it right at this moment (computer issues), I can have it in hand! The game will be releasing in April of this year. Did you know they moved the date of release 3 or 4 times already? It was supposed to come out March 2014, then moved to March 2015 to April 2015. How crazy is that?! The PS3 and XBOX 360 versions came out on September 17, 2013. Then, the PS4 and XBOX ONE versions came out November 2014. Rockstar always making us PC gamers wait. Let's hope the wait is worth it.

Going through everything

I am going back to my old blogposts to as early as 2011 and laughing at all of the things I wrote. Who knew I was like that at that particular age? Reading back has shown me of how much I have grown. I was thinking of actually starting a new blog and deleting all of the old posts from my blog (because some of if is a bit inappropriate), but I decided not to do that because I want to see the growth of not only my writing, but of the actual content that I write to this blog. I am also going around and changing the spelling and the grammar, but no actual content because I don't want this blog to lose its original content.

One thing I will try to shy away from is writing about my negative thoughts. I want to keep everything positive, but sometimes it is hard to when things aren't going your way or things aren't going as planned.

I am really excited because I have so much to share, but I will gradually over the next few weeks introduce these things. I also probably may change the layout of my blog again. I am not really liking the layout of my new blog. It is very dull. Just a plain black, gray, and white feel to it and I don't really like that. Plus, I am big when it comes to customization and unfortunately, I can't do that right at this moment because the layout does not allow customization unless I was to go into the code and change some numbers, but that is a tedious task and I have already tried and failed. The item I wanted to change the most was the picture and I failed so I rather just change the layout altogether.

Applying for jobs are impossible?

Currently, I am in college and if you don't know, applying for internships specifically in your major is a tedious task. For one, you have to spend a lot of time searching online to find where you want to work. You can apply to programs that provide housing in different states, or nearby your home. The opportunities are endless, but what takes forever is the application itself. What I hate the most about it is that some applications ask you to upload your resume to their site and then ask you to fill in all this information on their website that is already on your resume. How redundant. And some may even require previous internships and experience you have taken on. How can I apply for this internship if I have never had past internships that I can add? The whole process itself is very frustrating, but I am praying that I hear back at least from one that I got in. At the end of the day, a degree in the US counts for nothing because many people have that now. What they are looking for are leaders and those who have experience in their field. With experience, you are one step ahead. All you need once you land that interview is finding the best way to sell yourself. But I haven't reached that step yet and I am not giving up just yet.

Favorite Albums

These are a compilation of most of my favorite albums of all time. More will be added as time goes by. Most of these albums, I either have listened to completely and love EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. or some are I like a majority, or some I only like a few, but they really stand out and still have myself going back and listening to them all the time. More will be added as time goes by so check back to see what has been added. Also, I will write a post on my favorite albums of all time from this compilation .