It’s GRE time tomorrow and I couldn’t be more scared. My vocabulary seems to shrink every moment. I remember fewer… what are those called?… words. Or maybe my realization of the enormity of the English language now daunts me to the core of my soul. By now this post is probably causing incredible ennui so I’ll stop here.

Yes, actually, you’re right… ennui is the one word I’m going to remember from my studying today. Hopefully.

Update: The scores are in! It’s computer-based so I received my scores for the Verbal and Quantitative (math) sections immediately upon completion of the exam.

Verbal: 540 (approx. 71 percentile)
Quantiative: 690 (approx. 70 percentile)

Percentiles estimated per GRE Scoring section at Wikipedia in turn taken from official GRE stats in this PDF. The percentiles are “[b]ased on the performance of all examinees who tested between
July 1, 2003, and June 30, 2006.”
Essays: Waiting for results to be mailed to me. Should take about two weeks.

Categories: Life
Tags: grad school, GRE

The power button for my computer monitor (19″ Dell flat panel) broke today. I called Isaac to ask him to Google for fixes. No luck — nobody knows how to fix computer monitor power buttons. At least, not anyone on the internets.

I called Tyler to ask him if he knew how to fix it. He informed me that monitors aren’t typically designed with deconstruction and fixing in mind.

I called Dell in a feeble attempt to receive “customer service.” In general I like Dell, but their customer service sucked. At first, it’s IVR couldn’t figure out what I was saying, then I got angry and yelled at it and it told me to wait. I waited ten minutes before giving up (plus from previous experience I figured they would ask me to pay them money to give me advice that probably wouldn’t fix the problem anyway — that and my warranty is probably expired).

In frustration with the entire situation, I took out a pocket knife, stabbed the power button repeatedly, and proceeded to cut it out off. I then found where I needed to push to turn on the power, stabbed it, and now my monitor is turned on again.

Categories: Life, Tech
Tags: computers, Dell, screen

Hillary Clinton: at the 2008 New Hampshire Debates
“I want to make change, but I’ve already made change, I will continue to make change!”

I found this moment in the debate amusing. I think it says a lot about why she’s likely to lose the debate in NH on Tuesday. Sure, things could change directions at any moment as with any race, but Hillary doesn’t have momentum and that’s difficult to gain in the first place and even harder to recover.

Barack Obama and Ron Paul are the candidates I’m most interested in watching. They have campaigns that seem to legitimately be seeking to bring about change for the country. Ron Paul especially has interesting economic principles. He’s a bit libertarian in some senses, but a more open and more powerful economy are certainly something to shoot for and would be nice to see happen. Paul’s still a longshot candidate coming in with only 10% of the votes in Iowa and not placing highly in the polls for New Hampshire, but he’s fundraised the most money of any candidate at this point and the race is far from over.

If you’re like me and becoming slightly interested in or obsessed by the 2008 Presidential Primaries, I’d recommend checking out Politico for coverage. It’s all about covering the politics and the campaigns and not so much about ripping on the candidates or saying who is right or wrong. (If you want that, there’s plenty of sites, but you can find those for yourself.)

Categories: Politics
Tags: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul

I was handed a photo of David Beckham today and told to get a haircut.

Categories: Life
Tags: David Beckham, haircut

I will clean the toilet! I will see a concert this year. I will change jobs at least once this year. I will eat pizza. I will feel pain (done!). I will watch the sun shine over the tree tops (done!). I will bite my fingernails (done!). I will rock out (All Time Low - done!). I will take the GRE.

Should be done by the end of January. Not sure what I’ll do with the other eleven months.

Categories: Life
Tags: New Year's, resolutions