She Shoots, She Scores!

I got what I really wanted for Christmas: a 161 on my LSAT. This puts me in the 84th percentile of everyone who took the test. This is pretty amazing, considering that going to law school was not even on my radar screen three months ago.

Of course, a 161 is not high enough to get Yale or Harvard law schools to take a second look at me. But, frankly, who needs three years in the cold Northeast? My 161 is probably high enough to get me into ASU, my first choice of law schools.

Santa must have known I’ve been a very good girl, studying hard, so he brought me just what I wanted for a happy holiday.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Making the Grade

I received an e-mail today that the LSAC, the clearinghouse for collecting law school application information, had received my college transcripts. I eagerly signed on to their website to find out how I did.

It’s been so long since I graduated, I had no idea what my g.p.a. was. I thought I’d done pretty well but was pleased to see I had a 3.66 which will be helpful in being accepted in some law school. Kiddies, let that be a lesson to you. Make good grades because you never know WHEN you may need them.

And speaking of good grades, with all but one class results in, Taylor has made straight As! I wonder if ASU sells an appropriate bumper sticker for proud parents. No, if they had, I would have already covered my car and my sweater and the cat with stickers celebrating Alec’s undergraduate grades. Maybe I should just follow Taylor's example and get a tatoo.

The LSAC also informed me that I had one unregistered transcript holding up my file. I then remembered that I had taken a summer course in Ponca City from Northern Oklahoma College. The ONLY reason I remembered this was because the teacher misquoted media theorist Marshall McLuhan. As a journalism major and budding know-it-all, I, of course, pointed out his error. The teacher insisted he was correct and I got it wrong.

After the course was over, I went back to OU and found that I was, indeed, right. A few months later, the Oscar-winning film “Annie Hall” was released. In the film, Woody Allen bemoans the fact that the guy waiting in a movie line in front of him was misquoting Marshall McLuhan. When Woody challenged him, the guy told Woody that he taught communications and understood Marshall McLuhan very well. At that point, Woody Allen pulls Marshall McLuhan into the frame. McLuhan chastises the professor and tells him he isn’t qualified to teach anything. Allen looks straight into the camera and says, “Boy, if life were only like this.”

Boy, if only! Where was Marshall when I needed him in Ponca City? That’s the kind of thing I remember from college which is much more colorful than my grades.

Does Mother Theresa Need a Makeover?

The other night, I flipped on the TV and watched an American show called, “Ten Years Younger.” It seemed vaguely familiar. I realized I had seen the British rendition of this show a couple of times in Abu Dhabi. The two versions had the exact same format: Some haggard-looking woman was trotted out to strangers who all guessed her age at somewhere between decrepit and death.

The woman was then taken to the dermatologist/dentist/hairstylist for expensive and painful treatments in the relentless quest to appear younger. At the end, the woman was again paraded before strangers who now all swore she was barely out of kindergarten.

But there was an important difference in the two shows.

The American version featured women who were recovering from chemotherapy, who had neglected their looks to buy medication for their elderly parents, or who were injured going into a burning building to rescue baby seals. If Mother Theresa had been up for a makeover, this show would have wanted her.

The British version, however, featured women who ruined their looks by too many years of junk food, cigarettes and drinking at the local pub. In about ten years, Amy Winehouse or Kate Moss would be great potential candidates for that show.

I guess in America, we feel that only the truly worthy are deserving of public humiliation followed by a free painful chemical peel.

A Tale of Two Performances

This week, I took Alec and Saori to one of the Phoenix Symphony’s performances of Messiah. (As the Queen of Useless Information, let me point out that the oratorio is properly called “Messiah,” not “The Messiah.”)

The Phoenix Symphony and Chorale performs this at churches all over the Valley before Christmas. We chose a performance close to Alec’s apartment. Green may be a traditional Christmas color, but it’s also the way Alec strives to live. After fortifying ourselves with hot chocolate and some of my homemade Christmas cookies, we were able to walk there.

Incidentally, my cookies this year are wonderful. It’s amazing what I can produce now that I have ready access to American baking ingredients and an oven that bakes at a constant temperature.

Along with goodies like Gold Medal Flour, Phoenix also offers me a wide variety of professional-quality live music. Unfortunately, I haven’t been taking advantage of this. The last time live music I heard was a production of Madame Butterfly at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. It was the first Western opera performed in the U.A.E. but I swore it was the last time I’d get suckered in to buying another ticket there.

The Emirates Palace is a completely over-the-top hotel that still manages to be refined and gorgeous. I tried to console myself with the opulent beauty of their theater to distract myself from the stage, where bad singers in boring costumes were standing around a set that was slowly falling apart. Taylor dealt with it more effectively by sleeping through the entire second act.

We had just the opposite problem with Messiah. Other than one racing violinist who must have had critical Christmas shopping to do that night, the performance was good. The problem was the venue. While the church was beautiful in that typical Southwestern-Frank Lloyd Wright inspired way, the acoustics were not. Sitting in the back was sort of like listening to Messiah from down the hall. You could clearly hear the music but you didn’t feel surrounded by it.

Next year, we may have to jump in Alec’s Prius and use a few gallons of gas to get to a church with better acoustics. Still, homemade goodies, a Christmas performance of Messiah and a walk home in Phoenix’s cool, crisp evening. Not a bad way to celebrate the season. It’s enough to make me sing “Hallelujah.”

Old School

I haven’t taken a standardized test in awhile, say 30 years, and I discovered that a few things had changed. When I was in college, to ensure you hadn’t hired someone as a stand-in test taker, you had to write down your mother’s maiden name.

Today I had to verify my identity with both a photo i.d. and a thumbprint. The proctors gave us each a sealed test booklet and an answer sheet with ovals to fill in. “I’ve never seen ovals before,” said the youngster next to me. “They’re always circles.”

“It’s old school,” I said, using a term I’d gotten from Taylor.

As part of our extensive paperwork, we also had to copy a paragraph certifying we wouldn’t disclose anything on the test until the LSAT people released it for sale. If we did, we faced legal action. (I guess they know some lawyers.) The paragraph had to be copied in its entirety in cursive. This turned out to be a real issue for one student. Although he was apparently a college graduate and at least a third generation American, he didn’t know how to write in cursive. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let him do it as a text message.

The LSAT consists of six 35 minute sections, with only one 10-minute break. For that reason, I drank only enough coffee that morning to ensure I wouldn’t be going through caffeine withdrawl and had NO other liquids. Bladder control was one of my most important strategies for conquering the LSATs.

At least I didn’t have any problems with stamina. Having taken 12 complete LSAT practice tests over the past two weeks I was up for that challenge. (Thanks to everyone who had to quietly tip-toe around me for hours over Thanksgiving while I was practice testing.)

I was a bit nervous at the start of test and had more trouble concentrating on the reading, which is normally my best section. I am hoping I made up for it with a stronger than normal performance on the puzzles where I effectively channeled all that extra adrenalin.

The last section of the test is an essay. The essay is not graded and there is actually a lot of controversy over whether it is EVER reviewed by anyone. The proctors emphasized that you had to do it anyway and you had to write on the topic assigned. No fair copying your favorite song lyrics.

If you are on the borderline for acceptance, some law school may look at your essay to ensure you know how to write a complete sentence. Since writing is recreational for me, I sort of enjoyed writing the essay. And if anyone looks at my essay, they’ll discover that not only can I write a complete sentence, I can do it in cursive! I’m sure they’ll be very impressed.

Testing, One, Two, Three

I slept well the night before my LSAT, despite the fact I had TWO different dreams where I didn’t make it to the test.

Unlike my dreams, I arrived at my assigned testing place, Gateway Community College, in plenty of time. But where to go from here? I had not been given any room number and there were no signs. Instead, a woman stood outside the main entrance, stopping people she thought might be taking the LSAT.

I approached her, gave her my last name and she told me to follow the student she’d just dispatched.

This is a test that is likely to determine the rest of my life. I’m supposed to hope that the teenager in front of me knows where he’s going? Lucky for me, he did and I found myself in a long line outside of the appropriate classroom.

I checked out my fellow test takers. Not only was I at least 20 years older than everyone else, I was one of few women there. I seemed to be taking the LSAT with fraternity boys. I obviously did not fit in.

Then I heard the rumblings from the frat guys: “I can’t believe the organization on this. One woman giving out directions…”

“Would it have killed them to use a sign?...”

“All we need is MORE stress today…”

People complaining about the organizational inefficiencies? I don’t care what age or sex they were, these were MY people! I was going to fit in just fine.