Just now the barista at the Starbucks around the corner complimented me on my new haircut—I’m not addicted, I swear. Actually, I estimate that I spend about as much per month on frappuccinos as I do on electricity—one benefit(?) of being the office coffee gopher.

Ok, so GRE. I’m still bitter, but there’s not much I can do about it. If it’s not fair, it’s not fair. The test today went slightly better than I expected. The math was actually harder than our version of the math, which I was glad to see, and the verbal was at about the same level. The place I *really* lucked out was on the essays. Topic 1 on the first prompt (for which you have to state and defend a point of view on an issue) was so perfect that it brought tears to my eyes. I barely read Topic 2…I don’t even remember now what that one was about. I am of course not allowed to disseminate information about either topic on the internet, but I will say that if I’d been allowed to make up my own essay prompt, Topic 1 would have been it.

My scores were Q800 V770 (they didn’t give percentiles). Not perfect, but higher than I’ve scored before, so I can live with it. I felt comfortable with the essays and am fairly confident I got a 6 on both, but I’ll have to wait and see what the readers say. I’ll still probably take it again when they come out with the new one. I’ve never met a standardized test I couldn’t beat, and I rather not let the GRE be my first “failure.”

Oh, and funny story about the vocab. The one question I know I missed? Jejune, again. I was closer to the right definition than I was on the practice test, but not close enough. The third definition of jejune (per Merriam-Webster) is ‘juvenile’ or ‘puerile’—I knew that one. The *second* definition, however, is ‘dull’ or ‘uninteresting.’ Guess which one appeared on the test. Guess who eliminated jejune in favor of tendentious, even though she didn’t know what the latter meant, because ‘puerile’ didn’t fit in the blank. Yup.

All in all…resentful but resigned. The scoring is stupid, but it’s stupid for everyone. I won’t whine about this any more, I promise; I know that my score is very good and that I’m lucky to have gotten it. Woo woo.

Okay, here are the scores I’ve gotten on practice tests so far:

Quantitative: 800 – 92nd %ile . . . Verbal: 730 – 98th %ile
Quantitative: 800 – 92nd %ile . . . Verbal: 690 – 96th %ile
Quantitative: 800*- 92nd %ile . . .Verbal: 780** – 99th %ile

I don’t know who thought up the scaling for GRE scores, but that person is on my bad list, like, ten times. Don’t get me wrong, I would be fine with a 99th percentile score not being enough for a perfect 800 in Verbal IF THE QUANTITATIVE WERE SCORED THE SAME WAY. But it’s not. Stoooopid.

Have I mentioned that I’m bitter about this? Because I am.

Anyway, since I haven’t managed to hit that 800V on any of the practice tests, it’s unreasonable to expect that I’ll get one tomorrow. Sigh. I guess I’ll set my goal at 750, then—higher than any (accurate) score I’ve gotten yet, but doable.

If I don’t get a perfect score this time around, I’ll retake it when they come out with the new (and hopefully improved) version.

Blah. I’m off to mash a few more vocab words into my head. Wish me luck.

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* NB: On this third test, I got two (out of thirty) of the math questions wrong. This means that I was wrong to assume that missing *any* on the math section would drop you from an 800. Since that clearly *is* the case in the verbal section (on this test, I also missed two verbal questions), it’s just more evidence that the score scaling is all jacked up. Grrrrrr.
** Maybe a third of the verbal questions on this one were questions I’d seen before, so this isn’t a true representation of my verbal skillz. I’m just putting it up here so you can see how skewed the scoring is.

This weekend was a good one, and Friday was actually the best day of the three. Never mind my earlier whining about having to teach a lesson on the day after Thanksgiving—I was so stressed out about it (it was the first lesson for a fifth grader (I don’t teach little kids) on a test I’ve never taught) that I spent the whole morning prepping and showed up horribly overprepared.

I was so relieved by how well it had gone (I’d already made a crummy introductory call and was sure I’d muff the lesson somehow) that I stopped by Randall’s on the way home and bough a whole bunch of food…hence the tostadas. I also made ricotta-filled tomato halves last night and a chicken-rice-tomato soupy thing tonight. It’s a good thing the soup turned out well (it’s got avocado-sour cream sauce to go with it…mmm), because those “four servings” are gonna last me the whole darn week.

I’m particularly proud of the fact that in that whole trunkful of groceries, the only snack food I bought was one package of cookies. Of course, I ate the whole thing* yesterday (I needed something to do with my hands while I took my practice GRE), but that’s to be expected. It’s actually a good thing that I ate them all at once, because now I have no junk food at all in the entire apartment, which is lovely. While I *am* terrible about eating out of boredom, I’m also lazy. If the ice cream is in the freezer, it’ll be gone within the hour, but if I have to walk more than ten feet to get to it, I’ll give up the fight and go do something productive (or at least less fattening)**.

Let’s see, what else…had a good Thanksgiving. I’m waiting on my cousin to email me the pictures so I can show you. Sinterklaas came to Houston early this year, and he brought all the goede kinderen in our house many yummy things. What? He didn’t stop by your house? You must’ve been naughty this year. Or maybe you forgot to leave your shoe on the fireplace. One of the two. Possibly both.

La dee da, I should have gone to bed at least an hour ago, so I’ll stop here. Yay life. It’s my favorite.

———
* Before you get to thinking I’m a pig, it was a little package. Like eight cookies. Maybe ten.
** Have you noticed the obscene number of parenthetical comments in this post? They’re confusing. Do you feel your ADD flaring up when you read them? Mwahaha. But really, I should write more coherently. Should.

How come on the GRE (or at least on the practice test I took) an 800 in Quantitative is 92nd percentile, while a 98th percentile in Verbal only gets you a 730?

If 8% of test-takers don’t miss *any* of the math questions, then I’m guessing the first mistake you make will dock you 20 or 30 points, at least. Boo. Also, if that many people can get them all right, it means you need to make the questions harder.

GRE math isn’t bad at all—maybe half a step up from SAT math—and most of the Verbal is okay, but the vocab? Is hard. And I’m good at vocab. On the antonym questions in particular, not knowing the definition of *one word* can screw you out of an 800. There are so few questions that it ultimately comes down to luck. I am not a fan of luck.

On both the Quantitative and Verbal sections, I’d like to see them make the test harder, longer, or both, so that the top few percentage points are actually differentiated by skill and not by that confounded luck. Since it’s already adaptive (it gives you different questions depending on how you answer the first few), this shouldn’t be hard to implement. ETS is coming out with a revamped version* of the GRE in October 2006, so we’ll see how they do.

On the practice test I missed two antonym questions (and one reading comp question). FYI, vitiate has nothing to do with living, and jejune means immature, not happy.

I know there’s not a huge practical difference between 98th percentile (730) and 99th (800, I presume), but I’ve got a heaping helping of pride on the line here, goshdarnit. I AM SMARTER THAN THIS TEST.

Does anyone else remember that time I auditioned for Jeopardy!? BECAUSE I DO. I *need* this 800, you see. It will be my revenge. On…the world, I suppose.

The test is on Tuesday, and it costs $115, so I’m only taking this sucker once. I think I might actually study for it, or at least the vocab part. Surely there are GRE vocab cards or exercises or books lying around somewhere…working for a test-prep company does have its perks.

Must. Beat. Test.

———
I might get to field-test this AND get paid for it. How much fun would that be? You can do it too if you’ve taken the GRE this year. Go here.

Refried beans take very little time to heat up. By the time you finish rinsing the cutting board, they’ll have redistributed themselves across all six walls of the microwave.

But I’m not complaining—I went to the grocery store today. With a list. And then I cooked food. Real food, with vegetables. I’m such a grown-up.

I need to learn to say no. It’s really not all that difficult, I imagine. Par exemple:

“No, I don’t tutor little kids.”
“No, I don’t know a damn thing about the ISEE.”
“No, I’ve never taught fifth graders.”
“No, I am NOT free to schedule a lesson the freaking day after Thanksgiving.”

I have an overwhelming desire to please everyone I meet, even if that means faking a smile, lying, or taking on jobs that stress me out. There’s a tiny voice in my head that tells me that if I don’t agree with every single word that comes out of people’s mouths or jump at any favor they ask of me, they’ll all hate me forever. That voice is being ridiculous, I know, but it keeps me from thinking too hard about anything before blurting out something about omgyesI’dloveto.

I know that most people like to please others, often to their own detriment, but if you know me, you know that I do this sort of thing A LOT. I bet it’s annoying.

I’m sick of stressing myself out unnecessarily. I always feel strong and capable when I bite off way more than I can chew. Everyone is impressed by my supposed multitasking prowess, or at least they pretend to be for a few minutes. When it becomes apparent, however, that I can’t do even half the shit I’ve volunteered myself for…well, that’s actually pretty much my whole life right there. I haven’t lived up to an expectation in years.

Apologies for being all glum and self-flagellant and un-thankful on a holiday. It’s just that I’ve enjoyed my one-day vacation, and I’m disappointed that I have to cut it short unnecessarily as a result of my ********. I wanted to sit around at my parents’ house on their big comfy couch and read a little more, or maybe play another game or two. Grumble.

Maybe I can turn this into some sort of motivation. To be more of a bitch. Or something like that.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

———
* I can’t think of a good synonym for eagerness-to-please. Obsequiousness? Subservience?

While many of you are enjoying (most of) the week off from school or work or whatever it is that you do, I’m working overtime. Such is the life of a tutor. All of my students, now that they’re out of school, want to schedule extra lessons this week.

I ruled out lessons on Thanksgiving Day (not that anyone actually asked to schedule then), but I’ve got three lessons on Wednesday and one on Friday. When I flip my planner to the page for this week, it throws back a screen of blue (the color I use for private tutoring) with one tiny white spot on Thursday and a tiny green spot today, when I taught my LSAT class.

Yup, poor poor me. Everybody cry for Natalie. My brother’s home from school, and my cousin’s come to visit, and I don’t get to hang out and play games with them until Thanksgiving morning. Boo hoo. On a positive note, eight lessons in five days adds up to around $300 (including mileage), which would be handy to have around, what with Christmas coming and all.

It doesn’t feel much like the holidays, but I’m sure those mashed potatoes will taste just as yummy as ever. At least I can say with some bit of confidence than I’m a good sight better off now than I was at this time last year, or the year before that, during both of which I spent Thanksgiving at school and sat around thinking about how much fun it was to be failing everything (last year) or nearly failing everything (the year before).

In summary, meh. Could be worse.

———
* There are probably no more than twenty or thirty people in the world who know off the tops of their heads where this comes from. But (1) it makes me giggle inside and (2) all the ‘real’ titles I thought of sounded dumb.

My apartment has, of late, been conjuring up strange smells whose source I can’t determine. When I came home the day before yesterday, the whole place reeked of food—really good food, like a warm chicken casserole or something—but, alas, there was no random hot dinner waiting in my kitchen for me. I haven’t cooked hot food in here in at least a week. I thought it might be coming from food I’d thrown away, but the trash cans all smelt quite different and not delicious at all. Odd, very odd.

Earlier today I baked cookies, so I was expecting the place to smell like caramel and dough and pecans, but just now when I got home I was greeted at the door by a strong fruity smell, vaguely strawberry-ish, like a sweet strawberry pie.

The problem is that (a) there haven’t been strawberries in this apartment in several months, and (b) I took out the trash this morning. Where is this smell coming from? I tried to follow it around but couldn’t, and now it’s gone (or at least I don’t smell it any more). The cookies didn’t have any fruit in them, the only fruit I’ve eaten in the last couple days was a banana, I don’t have any strawberry-y soaps or lotions or anything like that…wtf mate?

Are people coming into my kitchen and cooking when I’m not here? And if they are, could they please leave me a bit of whatever they’re making? Because it smells scrumptious.

You’ll probably never guess. There was marshmallow creme involved, if that helps.

I’m willing to bet more than a dollar that the above sentence had never been spoken in any language in the history of the world before tonight. There must be so many other unused sentences out there in linguistic limbo, just waiting for someone to utter them. I imagine there is a far greater number of unspoken sentences than of spoken ones.

I challenge you, therefore, to broaden your sentential horizons: release a previously unuttered (but grammatical) string of words into the world. Then repeat it several times for comic effect—it gets funnier every time, I promise.

Heh. Fried booby.

• A major cold front blew through Tuesday night, and after weeks of 80-degree weather, all of a sudden the daily highs are stuck in the high 50′s. Sweater weather!
• The full moon was on the eastern horizon as I was driving home from a lesson in BFE tonight. Good lord, it was gorgeous. I’ve been sleepy most of the day, but now I’m in a wonderful mood. The world is beautiful; every tiny bit of it is complicated and perfect and magical. How lucky am *I* to be alive? (If you were talking to me right now, you’d probably have already thrown up.)
• [Non-Houstonians can go ahead and skip this paragraph.] Speaking of driving, the Westpark Tollway is my new favorite-road-ever*. It’s a straight shot from 59 South and the Loop all the way out to Hwy 6, so so fast with hardly any traffic, especially compared to crawling down 59 or a surface street (like Bissonnet, which I used to take to a student’s house) at rush hour—painful. The catch is that it’s EZTag-only, so I’d only been on it when they opened all the tollways during Rita. But now that I have my own shiny new EZTag…zoom zoom! [Cue Mazda commercial.]
• I’m at the office writing SAT questions, and I just misspelled ‘isosceles’—I left out the second ‘s.’ Worse than that, I didn’t believe Word’s red squiggly line because IT DIDN’T LOOK WRONG. Jeezy creezy. This is not good at all. My sorry excuse is that it’s a Greek root, but as I stared at it, I wondered if it were related to scalene (which means I should have known better anyway). Is it? Merriam-Webster says “perhaps.”
• My parents are probably moving to St. Croix in the next six months to a year so that my dad (who “retired” in 2000) can head up a new refining company down there (or something like that—I’m not clear on the details). Ok. This summer they said they were moving to the Bahamas, but that plan fell through. The St. Croix arrangement is apparently more solid. I’ll believe it when I see it.

———
Don’t worry, Boudreaux, 45 to Galveston, Kuykendahl from the RR tracks to Woodlands Pkwy, and 210 West all the fucking way out to La Cañada and back. Y’all still have your own special places in my heart.