danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

I took the Graduate Record Examination today.  Most graduate schools require students to submit GRE scores as part of their applications, and UF is no different.  I had known for some time that I’d need to take the test, but I did no preparation at all, figuring it would not help much.  After all, you can study thousands of vocabulary words, but the chance that any one of them will be on the test is small.  Besides, I have been overwhelmingly busy with other school work.  I did look at a sample test, and felt reassured that I got all the questions in the verbal section right.

I arrived for the exam this afternoon a half hour ahead of time.  It’s given in a plain office on 8th Avenue west of 43rd Street.  Security is very tight.  No one can bring anything into the exam room.  All personal belongings must be left in a locker outside.  The proctor made me turn my pockets inside out, and sign an oath that I would not reveal any questions.  The statement had to be written in cursive for some reason.

The test is given on a computer.  After going through fifteen minutes of instructions, the first section began.  In it, a claim was made, and I was to write an essay that accepted, rejected, or qualified the claim.  I can’t reveal the actual statement–since I promised not to–but it was something along the lines of, “Scientific achievements have been more important than artistic achievements in the history of civilization”.  The second section featured a statement of opinion that included statistics and drew conclusions, and I was to write an essay questioning if the argument was valid based on the evidence in the claim.  Those two went fine, and I had an hour and fifteen minutes to complete them both.

Next was the verbal portion, and it consisted of analogies, sentence completion, reading comprehension, and antonyms.  The first two questions seemed easy.  I knew what the words meant, and I could easily identify which word meant the opposite.  Then the words became very difficult, and stayed that way for the rest of the test.  Evidently, the GRE uses a type of adaptive questioning.  If you get questions right, it makes the subsequent ones more difficult until you get one wrong, and vice versa.  That way, it soon figures out what level you’re on.  The reading comprehension passages got very long, and the questions it asked about the passages were extremely nuanced, with only subtle differences between the potential answers.  A half hour was given for the verbal portion.

Forty-five minutes were given for the math portion, and I was lost.  I could tell it felt sorry for me, because I’d get a tough question wrong, and the next one would seem easier, but I’d still only be guessing, and the question after that would be legitimately easy, and I’d get that one right.  My math score was very poor.

My verbal score wasn’t as high as I’d have liked, and I really feel like I could do better if I had another shot, but my score was high enough that I needn’t bother.  The minimum required GRE score for admission into the Ph.D. program is 500, and the average student admitted to the program in the last couple years had a score around 600.  I exceeded that by quite a bit, so I won’t fret.  Still, it would have felt nice to get a perfect score.

Filed under: School on November 15th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

I am not a graphic designer, nor will I ever be, but I do love me some fonts.  I have for a long time – at least since I first got a computer in the mid-1990s.  You might not think so, but fonts and typefaces have militant advocates and critics.  On Flickr, for example, there is a group dedicated exclusively to mocking a font called Comic Sans.  On the other hand, I saw a film this year that was all about Helvetica.  I had never really given much thought to Helvetica, but the movie made me a big fan.  It’s a fine font.

In the New York Times today, Alice Rawsthorne writes about the use of anachronistic fonts in films and television.  She quotes a typography designer (that’s a real job?) who points out how odd it is that films in which enormous efforts are made to ensure accuracy in wardrobe and set design do not go to the same lengths to ensure typefaces that appear on screen are period-appropriate.  I have never looked for this when watching a movie, but, as I am constantly annoyed by anachronistic music in films (particularly diagetic music), I can’t deny anyone else the right to find font abuse upsetting.

Filed under: Musings on November 15th, 2009 | No Comments »

I was very excited last weekend when an American won the New York City Marathon for the first time since 1982.  Meb Keflezighi finished in 2:09:15, beating the second-place finisher (from Kenya), by forty-five seconds.  Keflezighi was wearing a shirt with “USA” written in large letters across the front.

Apparently, though, nobody is ever happy about anything anymore, because complaints about Keflezighi’s victory are apparently being made by some in the running world.  “He’s not really American, so don’t think that this means Americans are suddenly better than  Africans when it comes to marathons”, goes the absurd argument.  Here’s the thing:  What makes America America is that people in this country come from everywhere, and have since the very beginning.  Keflezighi was born in Eritrea, but has lived in the USA since he was a child.  He is an American citizen, not by accident of birth, but because he wanted to be.  I am proud that an American won the New York City Marathon.

Filed under: Current Events, Sports on November 3rd, 2009 | No Comments »

I’m not trying to neglect my website, but I am busier than ever, and haven’t had a chance to write about what I’ve been up to.

In a nutshell, I scored some bargains at the Friends of the Library sale, including twenty-four classical CDs–among which were three Arthur Fiedler RCA Living Stereo discs–and several hardcover biographies, and Norton editions of Moby Dick and Madame Bovary.  The afternoon of the FoL sale, Miriam and I went to a picnic at the Thomas Center, and later that night met up with Matt and Kerri to see their new house.  We drove with them up to Newberry and experienced bizarre things.  We walked through a corn maze, took a hay ride and got chased by a thresher, and stood ankle deep in corn.  In front of Backyard Barbecue in Newberry we saw the aftermath of a horrible motorcycle accident.  Some guys had been running from the police and wiped out.  The regulars at Backyard Barbecue take karaoke very, very seriously, and a guy who looked otherwise like any redneck you’d see in a small town sang a spot on version of “Mr. Roboto”.  Then, when we were about to leave, Matt got locked in the bathroom, and the manager had to kick the door down.

Sara had a birthday dinner at La Fiesta, and afterward Miriam and I went to Laura’s house so I could determine whether her cat was fat or just really fluffy.  She’s fat.

Last night was Halloween, and though I would never wear a costume, Miriam did get me a classy fake mustache, and I enjoyed waiting to see if people would recognize me at Big Lou’s.  Jackie walked past me several times, then sat right behind me without noticing me.  She was dressed like a girl from an Old West saloon.  One of the Big Lou’s waitresses was the Hamburgler.  Though I don’t like dressing up, I enjoy seeing how other people dress up, and at the party we went to afterward our friends had some great costumes.  Ryan and Miriam had dueling pirate outfits, and no fewer than three girls dressed as Lady Gaga.  Mark’s zombie hunter costume, and Karla’s “Sacred Grove” were wonderfully improvised, and our hosts–Kerri’s sister Kristen and her girlfriend–dressed as Luigi and Mario respectively.  It was good times.

Filed under: General, Special Occasions on November 1st, 2009 | No Comments »