Grouchy
I expected to get my LSAT score back on Monday, but it came in today. On this test, you could miss one question and still get a 180. I missed both of the questions I thought I might miss, plus two more through mistakes I made—not careless mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless. My score was a 175.
On (what was, IMO) the hardest Logical Reasoning question on the test, I stared at it for a good minute, put down a plausible guess and circled it, then came back at the end of the section to stare at it for three or four minutes more. Just as time ran out, I got a flash of insight into the problem and furiously erased and rebubbled my answer.
But I was right the first time. If I’d gotten that question (or any other) right, I would have had a 177.
That’s still not a 180. I didn’t miss it by a hair; I missed it by three questions. My “score range” (172–178) doesn’t even cover 180. I know, I know, a lot of it comes down to luck, especially at the high end of the scale. And don’t get me wrong: scoring at the 99.5 percentile is awesome. It’s just that scoring at the 99.95 percentile is AWESOME. And I wanted those caps.
I still want them. I think I’ll take the test again, probably in September. It’s not that much money, and I enjoy taking the test itself, so it’s worth it to me. I’ll be teaching LSAT again this summer, starting in a week or so, and I imagine that’ll be excellent practice.
In other news, albeit in the same grumptastic vein, my kitchen is full of dirty dishes. I had friends over for dinner last night, which was fun, so it’s all worth it, but dishes? Are not fun. I do have a dishwasher, yes, but I would still have to RINSE the dishes and then LOAD them into the dishwasher and then UNLOAD them when they were done. No, I’d rather continue to be bummed out by the crusty piles every time I walk into the kitchen, thank you very much.
Sam has been really pissy these last couple days. He barks at EVERYONE, and it’s getting on my nerves. Every single person we meet on a walk must have his or her face ripped off, posthaste. No amount of firm commanding in the mommy voice or jerking of the leash can dissuade him—he can be dangling by his harness, back feet just touching the ground, and still be twisting his body around, barking and lunging at the MONSTER we’ve encountered. Also, he likes to run out into traffic. I have to be vigilant and drag him back whenever he tries to set foot on the edge of the curb. Almost every night I dream that he gets hit.
I haven’t logged into my own blog for two days, so just now I went through and deleted 196 spam comments, including for the first time a series of political spam comments. They want me to support Ron Paul and have written a number of poems on the subject.
I’ve played the clicky-clicky tile-matchy game for hours now, while listening to podcasts from SXSW 2006 . . . because it gives me an excuse to keep playing the tile game. Normally when I’m grumpy I drown my sorrows in food, BUT I’ve somehow managed to injure the underside of my tongue. Extending my tongue in any direction has been painful for about three days, with no sign of improvement. Today my ear on the same side hurts, too—no idea if that’s related. If it doesn’t start getting better by Monday, I’ll go to the doctor.
The point, this point over which I am attempting to evoke pity in you, is that I now have lots of yummy food in my apartment, including cake, cookies, shrimpy dip stuff, bread pudding, and avocado, and I feel compelled to eat it, as a result of my sour mood, but (1) walking into the kitchen reminds me of all the dishes I have to do, and (2) eating hurts like a mother. Is that not pitiful? Woe is me.
Maybe I will go get tea. Tea is nice and cold and not-scratchy. I don’t have to open my mouth wide to drink it. Tapioca is soft and squishy and also not-scratchy. In the half hour it will take me to fetch the tea, I won’t be able to click on any tiles, sparing my wrist and my eyeballs. This solves . . . well, none of my problems, really, but did we mention the food? Making me feel better? It will. I will have tea.