LiveJournal Project - June 2005

This was one of those months where the blackbird discovered that he's either too smart for his own good or not as smart as he likes to think he is - depending on your perspective.  It is sort of funny that the LSAT was the only standardized test that I was ever nervous about taking. I knew I'd rock the SAT and PSAT back in high school, and I knew I'd do well on the GRE when I finally got around to taking it (later this year, I believe), but the LSAT was legitimately hard compared to all the others.

Date: 2005-06-03 22:26
Subject: calm down, dammit!
LSAT on monday. this is the first time that i've ever been genuinely nervous about my performance on an upcoming exam. given that my GPA is not in the upper echelon (i'll probably graduate with around a 3.7) i really need to rock-and-roll this thing in order to have a chance at getting in to any of the tier-1 law schools. that means a score of 170 at the bare minimum, but 175 would be much better. i've taken 3 practice tests so far, and gotten scores of 174, 168, and 168. those last two - not good - 168 simply will not get the job done. realistically, i know that if i just relax and let the brain flow, i should be more than capable of getting the score i need, but for some reason i'm still getting the heebee-jeebees about it all, and the exam isn't even for another two days. gah!!
Mood: anxious

Date: 2005-06-06 19:07
Subject: my brain! my braaaaaaiiin!!!
the LSAT is over. how'd i do? i'll find out in three weeks - i'm not going to make any predictions, but over the last several hours my brain transformed itself from a smoothly running precision machine to a gray lump of absolute mush. right now i would like nothing more than to climb into bed and sleep for a good 36 hours, but, alas, i have two essays to write for my women in religion class that are due by midnight. it just never ends.
Mood: exhausted

Date: 2005-06-14 07:54
Subject: nothing in particular.
looks like i'm going to be playing a party called 'freaky shit happens' on october 29th. the psychedelic assault will be unstoppable. and it also appears that someone's going to be throwing a party called 'fire and ice' on new year's eve. i'm not sure whether to think that's kinda cool or to have a sort of melancholy feel about the whole thing, but i think i'm leaning toward the latter. this event name is only going to have meaning for one person on my friends list who may not even read this entry anyway.

t-13 days to LSAT scores. that's another odd situation. on one hand, i'm hoping that i do incredibly well, but there's a part of me that will, in a sense, be relieved if i did poorly. how fucked up is that? it's not because i have some secret fear of going to law school or some anxiety about being able to do the work - it's that if i do score well enough on the exam to warrant applying to the schools that i'd want to go to, i'm going to also be forced to reopen an unpleasant chapter of my life that i'd thought had been permanently relegated to that pile of personal history books that we like to call "what the hell was wrong with me?"

i should get back to work.
Mood: blah

Date: 2005-06-23 17:08
Subject: the daily update.
t-4 days to LSAT score.

the supreme court today decided 5-4 that it's ok for government to take private property and give it to other private parties (i.e., developers) as long as the legislature that decides to use eminent domain in such a way has a rational basis for their decision. as much as i find this decision completely abominable, a review of court precedent in the matter shows that it's not much of a stretch from existing jurisprudence. berman v. parker (1954) and hawaii housing authority v. midkiff (1984) both deal with cases where governments (federal in the first, state in the second) used eminent domain power to take private property and ultimately transfer it to other private parties, even while claiming that it was all being done in the name of the public interest. in both cases, the court sided with the governments and said "fuck you" to property owners.

the moral of the story? if you own property, and the government wants it, you're screwed. if you own property, and some developers want it, and they can convince the government that what they're going to do with your land is going to increase the tax base, you're screwed.

and then we have the latest attempt to pass a flag-desecration constitutional amendment. it cleared the house, and will be headed to the senate for consideration after the 4th of july. said amendment has never passed the senate before; hopefully it won't pass this time, either. supporters of the amendment speak of increased patriotism in the wake of 9/11. i'm so incredibly tired of people invoking the memory of 9/11 as justification for pulling this kind of bullshit. don't these assclowns have something better to do, like reform the tax code, reform social security, maybe implement an energy policy? fuck, the list of concerns that they SHOULD be working on goes on and on, and our congressional dumbfucks are reminding us how little they actually know about the ideals that this nation was supposedly founded on by voting on a flag-burning amendment. bloody hell. i've tried to understand the perspective of the people that support this amendment, and i just can't do it. the flag is just a fucking piece of fabric. burning it does not in any way diminish the nation. it doesn't disrespect the people who died in the name of freedom - because burning the flag as a means of political protest is exactly the sort of freedom that people died to protect.

Date: 2005-06-24 10:14
Subject: your kung fu is no good.
i've been thinking about starting up martial arts training again, and what could be more fortuitous than for a new kung fu school to open up about a mile from my house - well, actually, not a new kung fu school, but an existing kung fu school that changed locations. i went in there yesterday to check it out, and as it turns out, i actually know (well, "know" in the sense that i used to be friends with his daughter and went to a new year's eve party at his house about 8 years ago) the head instructor, and i can say with confidence that this place is the real deal - none of this mcDojo / burger kwoon stuff. so i'd say odds are pretty good that i'm going to start training there within the next couple weeks, although the one thing that gives me pause is that is still have shoulder and knee problems. none of it is as bad as it was a few months ago, so that's a good sign, but i also don't know if it will ever go away completely, and i'd rather not sit around and wait for something that may not happen and as a result, avoid doing something that i want to do.

t-3 days to LSAT score.

Date: 2005-06-25 14:44
Subject: LSAT disaster.
i got my score today. 167 - which comes in at the 96th percentile. i'm sure there are plenty of people out there that would be happy with a score like that, but i'm not one of them, and actually, i'm rather upset about the whole thing. i'm not so upset about the fact that i changed two answers which were correct to answers which were incorrect, but more about the fact that i really thought that i did better and now i'm not sure about my chances of getting in to any of the schools that i want to go to. although i didn't make any predictions, i was unconsciously thinking that i'd be around a 172. so what does this mean? i don't know, but i'd say my odds of getting into harvard or stanford have just headed into the astronomical range. i'd originally said that if i didn't get at least a 170, i wasn't even going to bother applying, but i don't know if i'm going to stick with that or not. the LSAT is the single largest determining factor when it comes to law school admissions, so i don't know if other factors that i have working in my favor will counteract this clusterfuck.

maybe i'm being unnecessarily negative, but at least for right now, it's hard to look at it any other way. at least i can take solace in the fact that i aced the logic games section. go me.
Mood: disappointed

Date: 2005-06-27 14:37
Subject: law school, intellectual engagement, blah blah blah
i suppose first i should respond to everyone who commented on my last entry. thanks for the support. really.

second... i said that i wasn't too upset by the fact that i'd changed two correct answers to incorrect answers. well, i was wrong. i printed out my actual answer sheet as scanned in by LSAC, and based on prominent eraser marks that are visible on the sheet, it turns out that i did this 3 times, not two. so had i just followed my usual test-taking strategy, in which i go through tests once, write down my answers, and turn them in without bothering to check or review what i've written, i would have had a 170. in one sense that actually makes me feel a little better, but in another sense it also really pisses me off. what do i blame for this? more than anything, probably those damn prep books. in retrospect, i think i would have been better off avoiding them entirely and just taking the test cold. oh well, can't change it now. so that brings us to the next point. why does it (law school - or, more accurately, top-5 law school) matter in the first place?

school/learning/academics have always been easy for me - i've never really come across anything of an academic nature that i couldn't do and do well (except, perhaps, for quantum mechanics, although i could just as easily attribute that to the fact that the professor who taught it at new college was not exactly known for his pedagogical ability). this isn't me being arrogant, it's just the way things are and have been. that's all well and good, but it's also boring. what's the point in having skills if you don't use them and challenge yourself to improve? sure, you can do that on your own to a certain extent - buy books, give yourself projects, whatever - but i believe there's a lot to be said for being in an environment surrounded by people who are interested in what they're doing and capable enough to be doing it well. you learn a lot that way. you get inspired. you get challenged, and you do better. or, maybe you find that you're really not as talented as they are (or not as smart as you think you are) and you get humbled, and that motivates you to do better. and that's really what i'm going for with this whole law school business. it's why, in some strange way, after i got over the original reaction to my LSAT score, i found within it some inspiration and motivation to GET SHIT DONE. if keeping that motivation means plastering the number 167 all over my office walls, then so be it (no, i haven't done this, and i think that might be overkill). it's why i'm only interested in attending someplace like stanford (ranked #3) or harvard (ranked #2). i want to learn from the best, compete against the best, and push the envelope of my brain as far as i can (yet ironically, yale, which is ranked #1, doesn't interest me). maybe i'll find that i'm just as smart as they are. maybe smarter. maybe not as smart. maybe i'll love it. maybe i'll hate it. maybe i'll have a nervous breakdown. i don't know. i look at it as a challenge unlike anything that i've done up to this point - all of us that attend ASU (or have attended in the past) know that it isn't exactly a paragon of academic excellence. sure, you run into smart folks from time to time, but more often than not the people you encounter on a daily basis are more interested in working on their tans, chugging some beer, and spending their parents' money, knowing that they'll still end up with a piece of paper in the end just the same. but i digress.

am i dead-set on becoming a lawyer? fuck no! law school might be fun, but i look at non-law grad programs the same way. i'm only going to be applying to top-level schools - caltech, MIT, stanford, UMich, etc. - all for the same reasons. to work with and learn from smart people. to do cool shit. where i end up and what i end up doing for the next few years is largely dependent upon where i get in and what i can do when i get there. maybe i won't get into any of the places i apply to, in which case i'll simply have to achieve world domination without the advanced degree.

either way, the wheels are in motion.
Mood: focused

Time: 15:59
Subject: woo!
a two-ton weight was just lifted off my ass.
Mood: relieved

Date: 2005-06-29 01:44
Subject: ravyn's musical pick of the week.
every so often you hear a song that totally blows you away. every time i hear this track, my mind just wanders off to some mystical place, as if somehow my imagination has been given wings and i'm flying. odd, i suppose, that i would think of fantasy and spirits, since the track itself is the opening theme from a science fiction anime series (ghost in the shell: stand alone complex). in any event, i invite y'all to give it a download. the lyrics are in russian and english. Except that there is no link here, but the song is called Inner Universe, by Origa. -Ed.

Date: 2005-06-30 01:08
Subject: everybody was kung fu fighting
started kung fu classes today... granted, it's only been one day, but i think i'm going to enjoy training at this school. in case anyone's curious, this is where i'm studying: Meng's Martial Arts

edit... as nichiyume pointed out, i wrote this entry at 1am... so technically, i started classes yesterday (wednesday). but since i haven't slept yet, it still feels like today.