why I won't make it to grad school

1. graduate college
2. get married
3. get a doctorate
4. be a professor

Good news: the pre-grad school preparations have begun, and although I promised myself to apply to multiple graduate schools, I have basically already decided where I want to go. But let us not yet worry about whether I will actually get in to said top-choice school, because I'm still stuck on the fact that I have to take the *#$!% GRE.

I just do NOT understand the point of standardized tests.

Okay, no. I guess that to some extent, I understand the point. The point is to have one standard test so that all people can be equally measured across the country, so that schools have something to go on as far as a person's intellectual level.

Fair enough. Standards have to happen I suppose. This is America after all. Except that's pretty much where its usefulness ends. Because I don't believe for a second that a standardized, sit-in-a-taupe-colored-air-conditioned-room-and-bring-your-fancy-calculator-just-in-case test is going to portray a person's intellectual level. Their analytical reasoning skills? Sure. But I don't see why schools consider this as a huge part of accepting you or not.

Personal Rant Disclaimers:

a) I want to study English, in which it is hard to pin down qualitative or logical Correct Answers, and not only that, but I want to study Composition and Rhetoric, which is about writing and not even about comprehending and analyzing literature. (comprehending and analyzing life, maybe, but who cares about how well i can do that). So maybe my rant is a little biased in that direction (because I don't know a thing about what it's like to be a business student or whathaveyou).

b) I don't actually know how much schools consider ACT/GRE scores. I know that a lot of program informational things will say how much it is relevant for the program, but nevertheless the school itself requires a certain score in order to be accepted.

c) The FAQ page of the GRE website pretty much says straight-up that they're measuring reasoning skills:

"Does the GRE revised General Test measure knowledge in any specific disciplines?     The GRE revised General Test measures your verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and analytical writing skills — skills that have been developed over a long period of time and are not related to a specific field of study but are important for all. The GRE revised General Test features question types that reflect the kind of thinking you'll do — and the skills you need to succeed — in today's demanding graduate and business school programs."

Well, good. I'm glad the GRE website knows what skills I'll need to succeed in "today's demanding graduate and business school programs" because I certainly don't. So maybe I should trust them and just learn how to take the damn test.

OR (and here the disclaimers end and my rant continues) I could continue doing what I do, which is think not as though I were programmed to regurgitate The Correct Answers. And to take on each class for what it is, that is, its own individual semester-long experience with different teachers, or even the same teachers with different subject material. When I need to apply my brain in a "qualitative reasoning" direction, I will do so. But I will be greatly affected by varying factors like the professor, or the curriculum, or the time of the year, or work, or my group partners, or whether I'm pregnant at that point, or whether I care enough to get anything higher than a C in that class.

And so someone please tell me why one solitary outside-of-anything-close-to-normal-life test is going to assess a person's actual ability to think qualitatively? Last time I checked, nothing in life can really be singled out and tested without any surrounding factors. Because everything in a person's life is connected by (go figure) that person, and that person is continuously being affected by... something.

And not only that, but (surprise, America!) not all people think equally or in accordance with some kind of standard. And certainly an argument can be made for people all meeting the same standard, because I do actually think that students should be expected to reach a certain standard, and also that said standard should not be lowered just because our kids are getting dumber (I'm going to get in trouble for that one). It's just that this standard is more or less impossible to asses on a national level. Because when the numbers get into the millions (or heck, even if they were just in the hundreds), no one would have the time to meet and talk to a person and figure out their story and how they apply their brain and what have they learned in the last four years of school. That's just... ridiculously impossible. It would be tricky even for 20 students. The fact of the matter is that people all learn differently, and a person's progress cannot be tracked without knowing that actual person. Sally might have made straight As and then gotten a high score on her test, but she hasn't actually improved her mind or really learned anything except how to take a test and how to impress a teacher. Tommy on the other hand might have gone from failing to getting pretty consistent Cs, but he'll get a lower score and Sally will be chosen for the competitive medical program even though Tommy's little sister died of cancer and he wants nothing more than to start researching ways to save other kid's little sisters--

--aaaand breathe wow I just got a little dramatic and carried away just there.

The point is: I don't think it makes sense to require a standard that really doesn't asses anything other than how well you take a test. The study guide section of the GRE website even says that you don't have to know actual information:

"Reading passages are drawn from many different disciplines and sources, so you may encounter material with which you are not familiar. Do not be discouraged if you encounter unfamiliar material; all the questions can be answered on the basis of the information provided in the passage."

Well how does that help anybody? Because the kicker, the real actual kicker, is that they already give you the answer. It's either A, B, C, or D, but it's there, and the Gamemakers (whoops sorry, that was a scarily apt Hunger Games reference just there) have already decided which one it is. So I don't even have to learn how to take a test ... I have to learn how to interpret a question that some group of Very Smart People has decided is relevant to my critical thinking skills. I wonder if anyone in that special group of people has a life, let alone a relationship, and what they actually do when they aren't constructing (poorly-written) paragraphs for us poor Tributes to analyze critically but also correctly.

I wonder if I can bypass this torture by writing a very intelligent and well-researched letter to UW-Madison explaining all the reasons I shouldn't have to take the GRE to prove that I would be a worthwhile student.

post script: i know that i'm breaking every single rule about citation with my url-link quotes. i also don't care, because i trust that you'll trust me not to make this shit up, and to be smart enough to find the quote if you care enough to click the link.

the human condition

My friend Jasmine found this article, and it actually doesn't sound like a terrible idea.

Arguments happen. Two people in a relationship will not always agree, and this results in a conflict. This is normal, and this is a part of what makes life interesting, to say the least. But I am always so confused when those arguments become actual fights ... because even while they're happening, a part of me is standing on the outside going "what the hell is wrong with you guys?!"

Don't get me wrong. I fight, and I fight dirty, and usually there isn't much to bring me down from my passionate indignant moment because I'm right, dammit, and the other guy is being a total moron, and why can't he see that? But you have to admit, once you've got a little space, you can look back and go "wow. that was kind of pointless." Because usually, they are. Well ... sort of. Usually the specific fight is pointless. But the big thing underneath the fight, the usually-unspoken-(semi)permanent-issue, is something that still needs fixing. And that's the thing that it's so hard to talk about, because sometimes it's even beyond our actual conscious thought process.

I guess the question I'm getting at is why do we fight. And the initial answer is pretty obvious. We have frustration with one thing in our lives and we take it out on the unfortunate person next to us. We have baggage from past relationships and project those issues on to the unfortunate person next to us. The person next to us does something that irritates us, and for whatever reason (see above) we snap and lash out at them for ticking us off. Heck, sometimes that other person is just being a jerk and we don't like it--and that actually gets closer to the question I'm asking.

What is that moment between "argument" (a conflict of interest) and "fight" (the kind with yelling, and slamming doors, and being so sure you're right that you refuse to see the other person's point). How does that happen? Why do we suddenly lose control and need to win? What are we even trying to win?

In my experience, these fights only happen with the people you love. Namely here the person with whom you are in a romantic relationship. And in that scenario, isn't the idea to work together? To take on the rest of life side by side (or back to back, depending on the situation)? So why is it that it's so easy for conflict to put the two of you at war with each other?

... I don't have an answer for this, if that's what you're hoping for. I mean obviously people fight because they perceive that something they value (usually about themselves) is being attacked. And then they want to defend it, and when people are defensive they are also ... offensive. And that's where the fights start. And yes, let us not forget that there is sin in the world and no one is perfect. Selfish nature wins involuntarily over love, and we put our own bad self (see what I did there) over the other person's well-being, and a fight is begun.

Okay. I get all of this. So that's where the fight sparks to life. But what keeps us going? Where do our brains GO in that half hour, and why can we come back together at the end of it, or even a day later, and go "wow that was stupid, let's never do THAT again"? Are we no longer ourselves when we fight? Do we just check out and let the territorial angry-animal side take over for a little while? Why is it so impossible to take a minute to try to see it from the other person's point of view, and try to understand what is bothering them, and (most importantly) put that person's interests before our own and therefore not only resolve the dispute but also help that person?

I know, I know. Original sin. Sinful human nature. I guess the answer is obvious; it's just not an answer I want, because I can't do anything about it. So maybe a safe-word would help, because that distance from each other is what clears heads and helps people think more rationally. More like themselves. The problem is that you have to have a certain amount of humility to call that time-out, and when I'm all crazed and animal-like it's kind of hard to muster that up.

post script: muster is such a weird word

things to take: a breath; stuff to storage; one day at a time

I haven't written in a while and this is kind of disappointing to me, since I was pretty excited to have a blog that wasn't just a compilation of funny and/or geeky re-posts of pictures or quotes (that's what tumblr is for). But I think the problem here is that I haven't yet figured out this blog's purpose. I created it on a day when I was feeling particularly wise and intellectual, and I have tried to write only things that had some sort of intellectual point to them. And then I kind of stopped, because sometimes I just don't feel intellectual... sometimes I just feel regular, or even kind of silly (or even kind of dumb), and then I don't feel moved to write anything at all.

So maybe that's my problem: that I need to feel inspired, one way or another, to write something smart. I have to be feeling it, and I have to have the time and nothing else to do in order to feel that way. I also have to be inside, because it's hard to see my laptop screen inside and I really like to be outside when it's so damn nice out.

But then I leave this blog to sit and gather dust, and I spend a lot of time reading (which is good) but not writing (which ... is less good). I keep waiting for days off (like today) so I can sit in Arcadia (the Spring Green bookstore/coffee house) and write something thoughtful and intellectual, and then I get here and discover that this blank-page of a day is too wide open for me to make up my mind. Do I want to finish my hard copy of the Princess Bride? or do I want to start Water for Elephants, which I have just borrowed to my brand new Kindle? Am I feeling up to applying my mind to my email to Keaton, or to a similar discussion with a friend over previous posts? Should I be studying for the GRE so I can pick a day at random to take the exam, so I can start applying to grad schools? (there's a right answer to that last one, and it's "yes" except ... ugh. studying for standardized tests is NOT how I want to spend any day, let alone a day off).

On the bright side, all of my options are relatively intelligent. Lack of internet access means no watching of netflix, so I can even go home and do smart things, since I don't technically need the internet for them. But going home means finishing thank-you notes (which are already a month overdue) or packing up wedding gifts so we can get them out of the living room and into our (overpriced) storage unit. Going home means what am I making for dinner, and maybe I should nap on the porch because it's just mmm so lovely out there.

I guess that's my life right now. A big blank page of "you just got married! what are you gonna do next??" filled with a lot of good intentions but not a lot of action. And to top it all off, I really miss being around my friends back home or back at school, and even though I really want to go to UW Madison for school, I don't look forward to the fact that it will be a few years before I'll be able to call one of them up for a last-minute Target run.

Days like today remind me that life is still ... life-y, even though it feels like a major section of the story has concluded and I've begun a new one (entitled "Grown Up and Married and Everything"). It's actually pretty awesome to realize that all I'm doing is working right now, and I have wide open afternoons to sit and be intellectual. I've been reading a ton and I have writing projects and it's actually pretty lucky that I don't have internet at home, so the battle is really between me and myself. I think this summer is going to be about making decisions (to read or to write ... that is the question) and about being less stressed out about time. Days off happen twice a week whether I realize it or not, and they don't have to be chock-full of Getting Stuff Done!!! because there are still five other afternoons to do things. And I have no deadlines for any of this (another blessing-and-curse, but there it is). And the sun will be here, all summer, and I will still get to spend some time in it, even if I also spend some time in Arcadia writing posts with unexpected and less-than-truly-intellectual themes.