GRE (i.e. Genuis' Revolutionary Envy)
The Graduate Record Examination is a standardized test that determines how prepared one is for graduate school. The prep class through the Kaplan company comes with things like online tutorials, practice tests, teachers who always are available for help, stress management seminars, etc.
Based on the three sessions so far, it is my opinion that there should be one more addition called “Attitude Adjustment.” Here is what I would put on the syllabus:
Class 1: The Rules
a. First and foremost, no matter what, if you have an opinion, it ain't no good no more. Disagreements with answers are not even like...well, just...no.
b. As stated in pg. 48 of the 465 page book: “CAUTION! Creative writers, beware! The GRE does not test poetic skill-Sentence Completions should always be interpreted literally, not imaginatively.”
Got it? Imagination is not appropriate behavior. Time out for all you imaginationers.
Class 39: Things to do in the classroom as well as test environment:
* In class:
a. Spill your gram cracker crumbs all over the spotless carpet and the smooth little table. Give the room, bright purple walls, and buzzing fluorescents some personality.
b. While your teacher teaches, with his Harvard bachelor’s and U. of Chicago MBA degrees, neat haircut, white toothed, enthusiastic-about-learning disposition, don’t think too much about what’s behind it all. Don’t bother to ask questions in your mind like:
How much was that shirt? Are you trying to look like a "snob" or is it just who you are? What’s behind that everything-is-in-my-reach attitude? Do you ever let trash acquire in the back of your car?
* In the Test Environment:
a. Throw up, cry, and fail.
b. After failing, go home, get in pink pajamas, curl up under blankees, and talk to your stuffed animal about how much you miss childhood when the biggest test of your intelligence was how high you could stack blocks.
g. Get up, throw down stuffed animal, get out and play your instrument in the subway station where the people who you know for two seconds as they drop a dollar into your case are who really understand you, and feel great about giving your art.
Class 2300: How to eliminate negativity that commonly occurs through the following:
- Cursing (if you don’t like cursing I’m sorry because I curse in this section…), and more specifically how to stop annoying phrases that occur all the time (ones that you remember from high school SAT preparation) such as:
“Who fucking cares?”
“This is bullshit.”
"Um, well, shit."
"Fuck this."
- And other less severe yet still bad thoughts:
“I don’t care.”
“I want to shoot the person who wrote this.”
Class ?: Solution:
* Say mantras over and over until negativity is eradicated:
“There is nothing better I could be doing right now than being here."
"I am so happy!”
“Despite my lugubrious mood, I have fervid veneration for this erudite material because it is so...good...that it is unassailable in its opulent appositeness to real life. No need to be foolhardy in my recalcitrant feelings toward standardized tests given my limpidity towards these things and quibble towards unemotional, artistic-diminishing crap...ah! uh, I mean...impedimenta. I will go outside and watch a bevy of quail fly by, and as I do so, think of the imperturbable freedom I crave, and if my score is particularly halycon (which would be scarily fortuitous), I will experience it myself.”
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Chilly yet Philosophical
I am writing at this particular moment because I figured typing is a good way to get blood flowing to my fingers.
It is 1:45 a.m., 37 degrees, raining, and the heater in my apartment is broken. But that’s okay. This is like the tropics compared to what it will probably be a couple months from now. Besides, I am tough! (I am pounding my fists on my chest like a guerrilla from southern California)
Here is an organized list of experiences in the last week, as well as their overall significance:
1. I went to a lecture by author Susie Squire on her book, I Don’t (about the evolution of marriage).
“Back in the day,” she said. “People died young. If you think about how high the divorce rate is nowadays, it is because divorce is really just a substitute for death.”
At one point in talking she trailed off, looked around, and said, “I’m thirsty.” Before someone could reach her with a bottle of water, she picked up a cup, walked to the refreshment table, and poured herself some wine.
“I’ve been married twice,” she continued. “And the second marriage has been going for twenty years now. I haven’t divorced yet because frankly I’m too old to find somebody else. Just kidding. No but seriously. My husband isn’t here tonight.”
All throughout, people were laughing. While she signed my book I asked her what age she thought was appropriate to get married.
“Well,” she said. “You’re young. You don’t want to marry for love alone. That is not enough. You need to marry for stability. Someone who will support you when you’re pregnant.”
On the train back I looked at what Susie wrote in my book.
For Elizabeth – The best of luck whether it is I Do or I Don’t.
Questions came flooding in. Were people laughing because they thought she was joking or because they were too shocked to acknowledge that she was serious?
2. I went to Salem, MA for a day. It is a fun place to go this time of year. It indeed has a slightly haunting quality. The memorial for the witches is a long row of engraved concrete. The words are those quoted from the people who were executed, cracked in the middle of the worlds to symbolize the way they were well...interrupted. I feel bad for those people (witches) who were caught in such a ludicrous situation and so lucky to live in this day and age.
Side note: It is also good to live nowadays because of heating systems. Oh wait, unless they don’t work. Even though you pay rent.
3. A couple days ago I tried to play music in public. There I was standing in the Boston common. For fifteen minutes I didn’t play one note, but it certainly was a show. Right when I was ready to start, the music stand, with all its weights and paperclips, crashed to the sidewalk, sending the music flying. I tried the same process three more times before putting away the flute, throwing my stuff back in my bag, and storming off.
4. Yesterday after a meeting with my writers’ group I walked out of the café to discover that my car was not where I parked it. I looked on adjacent side streets to see if I was suffering from temporary dimentia, but a call to the police department confirmed that it had been towed. When I reexamined the place I parked it, I realized that the sidewalk, though not that low to the ground, was a driveway to a house about 50 yards back. After I got my car back, driving home, I got philosophical.
a. The unnerving experience of thinking your car has been stolen releases adrenaline. Coming down from the adrenaline was when I realized, that lot of my experiences here have been fueled by adrenaline...not always as a result of panic, but rather, anxiety. Anxiety is the motivator for accomplishment. I'll admit that most of the time I feel dissatisfied with myself, constantly striving for higher levels of success, and I guess more importantly, lack of failure. Preparing to come here was all about the big picture, but the little picture is actually much more difficult to figure out.
It is 1:45 a.m., 37 degrees, raining, and the heater in my apartment is broken. But that’s okay. This is like the tropics compared to what it will probably be a couple months from now. Besides, I am tough! (I am pounding my fists on my chest like a guerrilla from southern California)
Here is an organized list of experiences in the last week, as well as their overall significance:
1. I went to a lecture by author Susie Squire on her book, I Don’t (about the evolution of marriage).
“Back in the day,” she said. “People died young. If you think about how high the divorce rate is nowadays, it is because divorce is really just a substitute for death.”
At one point in talking she trailed off, looked around, and said, “I’m thirsty.” Before someone could reach her with a bottle of water, she picked up a cup, walked to the refreshment table, and poured herself some wine.
“I’ve been married twice,” she continued. “And the second marriage has been going for twenty years now. I haven’t divorced yet because frankly I’m too old to find somebody else. Just kidding. No but seriously. My husband isn’t here tonight.”
All throughout, people were laughing. While she signed my book I asked her what age she thought was appropriate to get married.
“Well,” she said. “You’re young. You don’t want to marry for love alone. That is not enough. You need to marry for stability. Someone who will support you when you’re pregnant.”
On the train back I looked at what Susie wrote in my book.
For Elizabeth – The best of luck whether it is I Do or I Don’t.
Questions came flooding in. Were people laughing because they thought she was joking or because they were too shocked to acknowledge that she was serious?
2. I went to Salem, MA for a day. It is a fun place to go this time of year. It indeed has a slightly haunting quality. The memorial for the witches is a long row of engraved concrete. The words are those quoted from the people who were executed, cracked in the middle of the worlds to symbolize the way they were well...interrupted. I feel bad for those people (witches) who were caught in such a ludicrous situation and so lucky to live in this day and age.
Side note: It is also good to live nowadays because of heating systems. Oh wait, unless they don’t work. Even though you pay rent.3. A couple days ago I tried to play music in public. There I was standing in the Boston common. For fifteen minutes I didn’t play one note, but it certainly was a show. Right when I was ready to start, the music stand, with all its weights and paperclips, crashed to the sidewalk, sending the music flying. I tried the same process three more times before putting away the flute, throwing my stuff back in my bag, and storming off.
4. Yesterday after a meeting with my writers’ group I walked out of the café to discover that my car was not where I parked it. I looked on adjacent side streets to see if I was suffering from temporary dimentia, but a call to the police department confirmed that it had been towed. When I reexamined the place I parked it, I realized that the sidewalk, though not that low to the ground, was a driveway to a house about 50 yards back. After I got my car back, driving home, I got philosophical.
a. The unnerving experience of thinking your car has been stolen releases adrenaline. Coming down from the adrenaline was when I realized, that lot of my experiences here have been fueled by adrenaline...not always as a result of panic, but rather, anxiety. Anxiety is the motivator for accomplishment. I'll admit that most of the time I feel dissatisfied with myself, constantly striving for higher levels of success, and I guess more importantly, lack of failure. Preparing to come here was all about the big picture, but the little picture is actually much more difficult to figure out.
When one thing makes you question your entire life, you have to take a step back and look again at the big picture. It is so very big that each disaster is merely one tiny piece on a beautiful, gargantuan mosaic. ☺
That was probably a lot of information.
That was probably a lot of information.
To end, here is a picture of a 1 and 1/2 ton pumpkin:
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