dizzying.
i took the lsat!
man, oh man. never have i had a more harrowing experience getting anywhere, except maybe to my aaa interview back in april. i mean there was that time that i got lost in the swiss alps, and that was probably more intense than this, but the day of my lsat will go down in infamy as the Day I Learned Kenmore Was Not on the Red Line. or the Day My Kidneys Almost Exploded on the Boy Taking the Test Next to Me. or the Day I Looked Like I Was Wearing a Stripper Wig and Everyone Stared at Me on the T.
(those could have all been excellent titles for this blog entry but they were all so good, i couldn't pick just one.)
the day started off well enough. i got plenty of sleep the night before--although not too much--so i was well-rested and in a good frame of mind. i went to starbucks at around 11 to get some coffee just to secure my alertness and...i guess i had always envisioned going to starbucks on the morning of the test. it just seemed right.
i got an iced double shot. and bumped into laura, who accompanied me to the sketchy little grocery store next to the indian place (not diva, the other one) to get a banana and a bottle of water.
i was on the red line by 11:30. my plan was to get out at kenmore and walk 10 minutes to the bu law center.
except apparently, kenmore is not on the red line. no, i was not confusing it with kendall. i thought it went kendall, charles, park, something, something, kenmore...
no.
maybe i would have checked one of the little t maps located all around the train, but i made the mistake of striking up a conversation with an overly friendly paralegal student from the ivory coast who wouldn't shut up about needing to find a career that would let her do music but also affect social change. i guess i was too busy feigning interest to notice that it was now noon and kenmore hadn't been any of the last five stops.
oh, by the way, i had gotten a haircut on sunday (the day before) that was supposed to look like a katie holmes/posh beckham angled bob but ended up making me look like natalie portman in leon the professional. i guess that kind of cut works if you're 12, or if you're living in 1993, or if you're prince valiant, but i looked like macaulay culkin. so i was getting some stares.
but i really got stares when i bolted off the train at south station, leaped on the one heading towards alewife, got off at downtown crossing, raced as fast as my lungs and shoes would allow through the concourse to park street, and muttered "come on, come on, come on" to no one in particular on the B train as i checked my watch and realized it was 12:15 and i still had seven stops to go.
luckily, fate intervened in my favor. my train didn't crash into any other trains, my conductor didn't die, and we didn't mysteriously stop on the tracks for seven minutes, which is one of the mbta's favorite pranks. somehow, i got to the law center with five--yes, five whole minutes to spare.
and that would have been the end of my test morning shenanigans if i hadn't gone to room 570 instead of 520 to take the test. but seriously, who could blame me? i checked the sign-in sheet and saw that i was assigned to room 520. i got on the elevator, went up to the fifth floor, and was immediately greeted when i got off with a line of people waiting to go through the test entry-room procedures. (fingerprinting, blood testing, ass probing...you know, the usual.) how was i to know that my room was the one at the other end of the hall with no one in line?
but once again, fate intervened. someone up in lsat heaven likes me, i guess. i got to the right room just as the proctor was about to close the door. yeah, it was embarrassing being in the last one in (and keep in mind, i had that ridiculous haircut), but at that point, i didn't care. i was just happy to be in the right place at the right time for the first time all day.
i thought i was safe. i thought everything was okay.
silly me.
about five minutes into filling out my name and social security number and address and test form, i realized i had to pee.
i thought i could hold it.
but by the third section of the test--which, for all you non-lsaters out there, translates into about 2 hours, i was seriously considering just peeing my pants. i found myself wondering things like, could i just pee a little? just enough to keep my bladder from exploding? or would all the pee in my body come out against my will? would people hear it? would they see it drip down my pantleg? would they smell it?
i'll admit it. i tried to pee my pants in my seat. i was that desperate. i had weighed it over and decided that even if i would forever be branded as The Girl Who Peed Herself During the LSAT, even if i would forever go down in the anals of lsat message boards as a Funny Story or a Horror Story, it would be worth it to feel the sweet, sticky relief of emptying the contents of my aching bladder.
but i couldn't do it. no matter how hard i tried, societal pressures (and maybe the pressure of my jeans, which were a little tied) wouldn't let me do it.
so i sat there and crossed and uncrossed my legs and prayed that my kidneys wouldn't shrivel up and die before i got to question 26.
when the proctor called time at the end of the third section, which was the only break during the entire test, i bolted to the bathroom like my life depended on it. which it did. i mean, i pushed people out of the way. i stepped on people. i think i actually trampled on and killed a small-boned asian girl. it was like i was fourteen again at a blink-182 concert and the space between the test room and the bathroom was the only thing standing between me and mark hoppus.
once i peed--and believe me, i spent the entire fifteen minute break peeing as girls went in and out of the bathroom--the test went pretty smoothly. it was nice having the logic games section (my best section) last, because i finished seven minutes early and looked like i had my act together. i mean, i'm sure my proctor thought i was a hot mess when i walked in, but i looked pretty badass stretching out in my chair and staring off into space while everyone else's pencil tips cracked.
i didn't think the lsat was that hard overall. my experimental section was logical arguments, which sucked because those always take the most amount of brain power for me, but i think i scored within the range i was getting on my practice tests. i've been going online constantly this past week to read what people have been saying on discussion forums and it seems like the general consensus is that the logic games and reading comprehension were particularly hard while the logical arguments were par for the course. i thought the logic games were some of the easiest i've ever seen on an lsat but i thought the arguments were actually pretty hard. one reading comprehension section was tough because it was a very technical article about oil drilling, but i'm not worried. i just hope the scale is kind.
i'll find out my score on july 7. fingers crossed.
so yeah. that was the lsat. needless to say, between the train hopping and bladder bursting, i was relieved to go home after it was over. and it was nice seeing all my friends at underbones that night who were nice enough to come out and celebrate me being done.
the rest of the week was pretty uneventful. i played at starbucks on wednesday night, which went pretty well considering it was only my second time doing it. but i've vowed that i'm not going to play again until i have a new song, because i feel really uncomfortable playing "jamie's song" in front of people.
last night was toad's fifteenth anniverary, so max and i went out to see dennis brennan and christian mcneill play. but i was an idiot and didn't eat anything except a hot pretzel at the mall, so i ended up puking my guts out at max's house until four this morning just from two beers and a margarita, which i admittedly downed pretty fast. i was hoping when i woke up this morning that all the vague recollections i had of weeping and screaming and making intense eye contact with the depths of max's toilet bowl were just part of a horrible, horrible nightmare, but the sweet lingering smell of urine and porcelain on my face told me otherwise. that, and the fact that i woke up wearing the clothes i had worn the night before.
i'm so glad that no boyfriend i've ever had has ever been scarred for life at the the sight of me throwing up all night. i guess i must be kinda hot when i do it or something. or i date guys who have a thing for puke.
even though all i wanted to do tonight was stay in bed and eat bread and crackers, i forced myself to go on the double date max and i had arranged with marc and mathilde to cambridge common to have dinner. i had about six nachos and a thimble's amount of soup before i started to feel completely miserable, so i politely (and semi-demurely) asked the waiter to wrap up my fried chicken so i could eat it later. but it's later and i still don't feel very good so it looks like i'm having cold fried chicken for lunch tomorrow.
all right, this new denise richards reality show is putting me to sleep so i think i'm gonna sign off and hope that i feel all better tomorrow morning. sigh.
oh, ps: from now on, i won't be able to update at work, which means that i won't be updating very much this summer. apparently "they" (i don't know exactly who "they" are but they sound scary) can see which websites we go to and how long we stay on them, and livejournal is on the no-no list. i don't think it's a big deal because a) they have no way of knowing who goes where because we don't have individual log-in names, and b) even if they did find out i went to livejournal (or myspace or facebook or any of the other godforsaken sites they discourage us from visiting), i'm a summer temp so it wouldn't make very much sense to discipline me. oh. oh aaa. i've been a baaaad girl. i've been sooooo naughty. maybe you should spank me with a thick, comprehensive road map of cape cod or whip me with a triptik book spine.
1. not throwing up anymore
2. being done with the lsat
3. this picture:
