--Cleo, on Between the Lions

The feedback is in on my last entry -- much more than I've received for any other recent one -- and the consensus is that it was cute and clever and generally fun to read.

On the one hand, I'm naturally pleased at the reaction. On the other hand, given that most of my entries are nothing like that one, I can't help but wonder if I'm doing things all wrong the rest of the time.

I know, I know, you can't win. It's like that old joke, in which a man gets two ties as a birthday present from his mother-in-law. A few weeks later, she comes to visit, and he makes sure to put on one of the ties. She walks in, takes one look, and says, "What's the matter... you didn't like the other tie?"

On the other hand, I did finally return to the college library, where I returned a bunch of books, and found myself faced with a bill for $55.40. The librarian on duty kindly dropped some of the fines against me, whittling them down to $32, which I paid. This left me with $1.87 in my wallet, but with the restored ability to take out more books and rack up even more overdue fines.

Supporting libraries is important. I try to do my part.

(One recurring joke after segments by "Sam Spud, Par-Boiled Potato Detective" has a girl sitting in front of a television set, disgustedly saying, "Mom! There's a potato with no mouth talking on the TV!" From offscreen comes the response, "Don't worry, sweetie. It's educational television! I'm sure it will help you in school, somehow.")

Otherwise, you have a pride of lions in a library (Theo, Cleo, Lionel, and Leona); an animate computer mouse who can "drag and drop" characters and objects from books to the outside world; "Heath the Thesaurus," who looks like a dinosaur and knows lots of synonyms; the adventures of Cliff Hanger, each segment of which begins and ends with the eponymous protagonist hanging from a cliff; and occasional appearances by "Dr. Ruth Wordheimer," a word doctor who just happens to be played by that Dr. Ruth. Among other sundry delights.

It's a good show. If your tastes run to children's programming, definitely check it out.

Well, my score came in last weekend, and I turned out to be right on the mark. I got a grade of 620 on the 200-990 scale, a meaningless number which puts me ahead of 79% of those who took the test. So, not great by any means, but not a complete shambles.

It turned out that only one of the schools I applied to required the scores from this test at all, which is all to the good. I just wish the school in question weren't the top one on my list... I'm just hoping it weighs the test as a minor factor. A very minor factor.

As for the general GRE scores, the percentile rankings are in. Plus the scores themselves; apparently, I reversed the verbal and quantitative scores, although I'm not entirely certain whether that was because I remembered them wrong, or they were recalibrated slightly between the unofficial scores and the official ones, moving one up ten points, and the other down ten. Probably the former, but you never know.

Anyway, for whatever interest this may hold (and so I'll have this onhand should I need the information in the future but can't find the relevant letter in the depths of my room -- it would have helped if I'd done this before filling out my grad school applications), the 710 in verbal puts me ahead of 98% of those taking the test; 700 quantitative is only ahead of 76%, but math ain't my subject, so that's okay; and 750 analytical is ahead of 94%.

I've been debating whether I should even try to return to the family this Shabbos. On the one hand, my sleeping schedule has now moved to the point where I'm going to sleep in mid-afternoon, so I could make it there before crashing and burning; on the other hand, that would mean that on Saturday night I'd wake up too late to return to my apartment until the next day, which I don't want to do. So I guess I'm staying put.

Anyway, that'll do it for now. I'm gonna get some food, and possibly even get to work on writing an essay. That'd be nice.