The Internet here in China was severely impacted by the earthquake in Taiwan. I still have tons of problems getting email, reading the news, etc. Things are better now, but they are still HORRIBLE compared to how they should be. I can’t believe that all the communications were so disrupted by a single earthquake. What a joke! I hope things get better soon and I can get back to regular postings.

Happy New Year!!!

This all seems to have helped quite a bit already, but may cause some legitimate comments to get flagged as spam.  If this happens, please let me know.  Currently I am manually reviewing all the comments that get flagged as spam while I try this new system out.  There is going to be a trial period before anything is made permanent, so if anything doesn’t work as well as before, please let me know.

Ultimately the website should run better and there should be less spam

I had to independently apply to the law and business schools of each of the schools I was considering. This meant that since there were 4 universities I was interested in, I had to complete 8 applications. You can see the ultimate results here:

Needless to say, I was not too happy with the results. I got all my applications in around the 1st of the year, and the decision schedules all indicated that I should hear from schools around March or April at the latest, which would have given me plenty of time to plan and return to the U.S. from China. I was very confident with my applications as my GPA was extremely high (3.925) which put me at the top of my UCSD graduating class and earned me membership in both Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi. I had worked steadily for the UCSD CSE department as a TA for over 3 years. I had started my own business and acted as CTO of an internet startup. My entrance exams went well. I got a 160 on the LSAT which put me in the 82nd percentile, and a 730 on the GMAT which put me in the 97th percentile with a perfect score on my writing sample. My essays got praise from everyone that I showed them to, and I had a good group of supporters writing letters of recommendation for me.

When the rejections started rolling in, I really had no idea what had happened. On the law school side, the only dark spot was my LSAT score, which while it wasn’t perfect, was decent. Everything other than my LSAT score would have been tough to beat. On the business school side of things, I had no dark spots except for the fact that I had no post-university business experience. I, however, only applied to schools that specifically stated that they accepted students with no post-university experience. Given that type of statement, they must have accepted some people with no post-university experience, and it would have been tough to have beaten my credentials.

By the time April had rolled around, I had been rejected by every school except USC. I was even rejected by UC Berkely, the school my mom attended for her undergraduate education. USC was first choice, so I still had my fingers crossed. I quickly got rejected by their law school, but had still heard nothing from their business school. I started calling and emailing frequently trying to explain to them that returning to the states from China was not an easy thing. By the time June rolled around, I finally got a response from one of their admissions directors telling me that I had been accepted by the business school, and to wait for an admissions packet that they would mail to me. This packet was postmarked on the 5th and didn’t arrive at my U.S. address (my dad’s house) until around the 9th. They were out of town for a few weeks, but when the got back, they told me that the packet stated I needed to respond by the 15th, a date that had already passed. I couldn’t believe that they had waited SOOO long to send me the packet if the date was that close. I had my dad send the packet to me here in China, but it still hasn’t arrived yet. I called the USC admissions office over 8 times but couldn’t get a call back. I sent a number of emails to them but still didn’t get a response.

At this point, I had already been leaning towards spending another year in China. I have an amazing life here that I am extremely happy with. I have a wonderful girlfriend who I am totally in love with. I am learning new things every day and constantly find interesting things about this culture. My Chinese is improving rapidly, but it is clear that due to the complexities of the language, it will take far longer to learn than Italian or Spanish. I spent 6 months learning Italian to get to a level that I was pleased with. I think that 8 or 9 months with Chinese is nowhere near enough time to get to a similar level, but that 18 or 24 months might be a better estimate. I also am just beginning to understand what it is like to do business out here and still have yet to get my feet wet.

All that being said, I was slightly leaning towards spending another year here in China when I finally heard back from USC and they agreed to grant me a deferral. This way I can spend another year here in China and then decide what I want to do. I can go back to the states and attend USC business school. I can stay on here in China on a more permanent basis. Or I can do something entirely different. The bottom line is that I now have more options than ever, which is a great feeling.

So I will be staying here in Shijiazhuang for at least another year. Shortly I will be updating this website a bit to reflect this change. I would like to thank all the people who helped me with my applications including Susan M, Chuck M , Justin K, Geoff V, Jeff W, my Dad, and especially my Mom.

I feel very happy now and I feel very happy about the road ahead

Andy

我想开始写汉语，但是我还不认识很多汉字。我给你们看看我会写的汉字，但是如果我写错了，你们需要告诉我。从开始我写容易的东西，但是我不看词典，然后你们能真的知道我的汉字水平.

现在我介绍一下儿。我叫Andy，姓Strauss。我的中国名字是安天阳。我现在住在石家庄，可是我是美国人。我是学生，我学习汉语。我非常喜欢中文，可是学汉语学得不好因为汉语发音很困难。我现在有两个中文老师。从星期一到星期五我上午八点到十点上课，下午四点到六点上课。我每天有很多作业，但是我喜欢做作业因为我知道做作业可以提高我的汉语水平。

这些天石家庄的天气越来越好了。我非常高兴因为我不喜欢天气太冷。我喜欢在外面玩儿。这个月我开始天天早上骑自行车。我很喜欢早上骑自行车因为人少，汽车也少，所以天空还没有脏呢。

我有一个中国女朋友，她叫申琦。她是唱歌的人。她又漂亮又聪明。我非常喜欢和她在一起。她做饭做得很好。我喜欢吃她的菜。

我很喜欢在中国住。我要在这里继续学习汉语，继续提高我的汉语水平。我现在不想回美国因为我越来越是中国人。

• 23 Individual movies
• All 9 Seasons of Seinfeld (42 discs)
• All the Indiana Jones films (3 discs)
• All the Godfather films (4 discs)
• All the Star Wars films (6 discs)
• All 7 Seasons of Sex and the City(32 discs)

Total – 110 DVDs I love China

Also, I made some site changes. I converted my back-end, WordPress, from version 1.5 to 2.0, I added a recent comments feature on the left menu, and I updated my photo gallery back-end. Browse around and let me know if anything doesn’t work or if anything looks strange. Thank you

Rishi, me, Scott, and Justin in the palazzo hanging out:

Me and Rachel on top of the Rio hotel (Voodoo lounge) with the Las Vegas strip in the background:

Me, Krista, Dad, and Rachel after Cirque Du Soleil’s o-show:

Me, Manali, and Scott in a limo:

Manali holding my little brother Mikey:

Rachel, Krista, Dad, and me at the Rio’s new year’s eve party:

The whole group at the party:

Dad and Krista on the dance floor:

The guys in the Santa Monica mountains:

The view from our condo of the beach at sunset…..ohhh how I love Hawaii:

View up the beach from the condo:

Rachel is sooo pretty: