ELEVENTH IN LINE




About This Blog
A blog about my life, universe, etc. At any given time you might find something endlessly interesting or just me ruminating on something else, which no one (not even myself) finds interesting. That's the way blogs go, I suppose. Anyway, I was eleventh in line, and you weren't. Hah!

About Me
Name:
Sarah
Age:
26
Residence:
Columbus, OH
Religion:
LDS
Political Score:
5.00/-2.15
Job:
Temp @ JPMorgan Chase
College:
Ohio State University
Majors:
Political Science, International Studies
High School: Home Educated
Hobbies:
Reading, standing in line for things, writing, research
Resume:
HotJobs
Email:
lloannna@gmail.com

About My Family
My mom is a
lawyer in Pickerington; my stepdad and dad are computer guys, and my stepmom (who works with my dad) is an engineer. My sisters are, in order of age, a photographer, an artist, and a person too young to have her own website. My brothers are, in order of age, living up north, and again, a person too young to have a website. At some point soon I'll be collecting links for my aunts, uncle, and cousins. ^_^

Message Services
(Please see the notes below the Comment Policy before sending me a message)
AIM:
lloannna
ICQ:
29395930
Yahoo:
lloannna



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NaNoWriMo 2007:
My Novel: Cipere Lumen

Official NaNoWriMo 2006 Winner


NaNoWriMo 2006:
My Novel: The Manatee Conspiracy

Official NaNoWriMo 2006 Winner


NaNoWriMo 2005:
My Novel: Beyond the Cliffs of Kefira

Official NaNoWriMo 2005 Participant



NaNoWriMo 2004:
My Novel: sul Okyar tir taTz'ileea

National Novel Writing Month

Tuesday, July 26, 2005
 
Some things never change...  
So, the Atlantic Monthly (article expires July 28th, 2005) did a profile of Mitt Romney. A few people have noticed that its tone was inappropriate. I tend to agree, and sent the Atlantic Monthly a letter:


Re: The "Holy Cow!" Candidate

I note with displeasure the final section of your article on Mitt Romney, in which your correspondant Sridhar Pappu asked the governor about his LDS temple garments. Pappu characterized himself as being "uncomfortable" asking the question.

Of course he was uncomfortable. That's what happens when you ask something grossly inappropriate like that, and then publish it in a national forum. That question is the grossest possible combination of "boxers or briefs" and "how many days out of the week do you go to church?" Neither question is germane to anything but sensationalism and superficial notions regarding spirituality. The question is not a proxy for "how Mormon are you?" -- and even if it was, it wouldn't need to be asked in this interview, given that the governor answered that very question immediately before hand.

It almost seems like the question was designed to slap readers in the face. 'Ooh, ooh, let's talk about the(peculiar) habits of the (obviously creepy) Mormon candidate for President!' I can't imagine why the interviewer would want to do that -- my goodness, that might obscure the actual issues and let people rest on nonsensical prejudices. Might even make them decide to vote for a 'safer' Democrat, whose underwear and religious practices are left essentially unexamined, as they should be in all cases.

But that would be an indication of prejudice on the part of this publication, and we can't have that. So I'm going to interpret the inclusion of this question as simple immaturity, and poor judgement, on the part of your editorial staff. One hopes you'll refrain from such choices in the future; I'll look to your presumably upcoming profile of Harry Reid to see if you can control yourselves in the future.


(The governor is a topic of conversation within the Bloggernacle at large, of course...)

I don't know whether I'd vote for Romney for President or not. But I know I'd never give an interview to Sridhar Pappu.

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Monday, July 25, 2005
 
I drove 50 miles for...  
Diddly squat. My first training session at my new job was scheduled for this afternoon, but apparently sometime between my interview (in June, remember) and today, they decided to push the start date back to Wednesday. I said "but I didn't get any kind of a call," and they said: "We only call to confirm start dates one day in advance."

Which means that I'll be getting a phone call tomorrow, letting me know that I don't need to show up for training today but rather two days from now.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. This on top of their whole "if you apply today you can work on Monday!" ad campaign (I applied in late May and will get my first paycheck on August 24th) has not really inspired a whole heck of a lot of confidence. We'll see. Meanwhile, now I have to be extra careful with gas and driving; hopefully I can get some cash for fuel by sealing the driveway next weekend, because otherwise I'm not sure what I'm going to do. And I can't go to YSA tonight (Caroline has to go straight to work so she can't give me a ride) because I wouldn't be able to get us to church on Sunday if I went to the building tonight.

Grr. At least this is forcing me to study more for the LSAT.

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Saturday, July 23, 2005
 
This makes no sense at all...  
So I spent all of Comic-Con making up logic puzzles, and this afternoon/evening I spent about two hours solving the easiest five logic puzzles in a book of games my mom lent me. And this evening, I took a second practice LSAT... and I got a 153 again.

Now, at first I wasn't all that surprised, because one of the logic puzzles in the practice test left me so utterly lost I simply guessed at the answers. But -- and this is the part that's got me annoyed -- I actually raised my score in the games section of the practice test! And, correspondingly, lowered my score in Reading Comprehension (I'm going to go over that one again, because I was pretty confident about that section.) My percentages?

Arguments (Logical Reasoning) -- 74%
Reading Comprehension -- 51%
Games (Analytical Reasoning) -- 54%

Erm, yeah.

I've got two months left (Arwyn: yes, I'm taking it in October.) And I start my new job on Monday. Let me therefore take this opportunity to freak out slightly:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGGHHHHH!

Okay, that makes me feel better. I think I'm going to go sic some armies on one another (Age of Empires, WOOT) and take another look at Reading Comprehension tomorrow. Maybe I'll try to LSAT-ize the Book of Mormon or something. Heh.

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The end of an era?  
I'm about one episode away from giving up on Stargate SG-1. No, I'm serious, I am. It's been fun, sure, and yeah, I endured the rough periods: they killed Daniel, they killed pretty much everyone who knows Teal'c or Daniel, they killed Sam's dad, they killed Daniel again, they ditched Hammond, they promoted Richard Dean Anderson almost out of the show, and all of this I endured. But in the last ten episodes, they've imported the main Farscape team, they've completely ditched O'Neill, and quite frankly they're just being stupid now. Even their Comic-Con appearance just annoyed me. I mean, how sad is it that the Atlantis episode that showed this evening is at least twice as good as SG-1, and still awfully pathetic? I can also console myself, there, with the knowledge that they're only adding one extra cast member to that show.

At least I've got Battlestar Galactica to look forward to. But boy, I'm not sorry I asked for Sunday/Monday off (for my new job) instead of a Friday/Sunday split...

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Tuesday, July 12, 2005
 
Leaving for a bit...  
Comic-Con calls. Things would be dead with or without me around here -- my sister just took her test at driver's ed, and my other sister is starting a job at Wal-Mart tomorrow. Mostly I'll be missing an awesome fireside on Sunday and a missionary farewell on Friday; I'll also have more bugs to fight off and clean up once I'm back. Hopefully when I get back I can also find some cash-generating activities; my job at Call-Tech doesn't start till the 25th and it'd be swell if I had gas to get to and from... bleh.

On the cash note: counting all my coinage, I'm going to Comic-Con with just $26.50 in my purse. That is officially insane. I'm not doing it again till I have actual money.

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Sunday, July 10, 2005
 
Well, it's a start...  
I took one of my mom's computerized LSAT practice tests just now. All I can say is... heh.

Okay, fine, I can say more than that.

The score I got, according to the computer, was 153. This is not as good as I'd hope for, though to put it in some perspective I can recall that the first time I took a practice SAT I got an 1150 score (my eventual score was 1380.) Also, it'd qualify me for a 50% scholarship at my mom's law school. Still, I need to raise that by about 15 points before the end of September.

The -- how shall I put it -- greatest area of "opportunity" is, unsurprisingly, the Games section. I had to flat-out guess on two of the questions (always a terrible sign) and got just 45% of the questions right. For comparison's sake, I got 64% of the Reading Comprehension questions right, and 71% of the Arguments section right. I had a feeling the Games section would be the worst, since I'm not much good at the logic games in puzzle books.

My eventual goal is to get 85% or more of the questions right on the practice exams (that works out to a score around 170, I believe.) I figure I'll have to put in at least 10-15 hours of work to raise my practice score by 1-3 points (I figure it's something like five hours per point, but it probably won't work out quite like that) and I have a little less than 2,000 total hours between right now and the start of the test (that translates into a more convenient 'nearly 11 weeks,' by the way.) Anyway, since my goal is to gain 17 points, I figure an hour or two a day for the next, you know, 82 days, will be more than sufficient. I can probably even take Sundays off. I suspect I'll try another practice test every week or so; expect boring analysis like this every five to ten days, therefore.

Bleh. 153.

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Thursday, July 07, 2005
 
I hate tents!  
Okay, so some friends decided to arrange a "we'd really like to see you" thing for Comic-Con, in which all of this year's birthday presents are going towards airfare and such, and I'm actually able to go. Which is cool, and I love them, and yay for Comic-Con.

BUT. My major logistical contribution is the tent. Yes, we are camping out for Comic-Con (and when you consider that Larry is spending like $760 for five nights in a hotel...) and it'll be fun. Assuming, of course, that we can get a tent that will work. Since there will be between 2 and 5 people in the tent every night, I figured a nice, large, 2- or 3-room tent would be perfect. And it just so happens that my family has one of those, in the garage. 10ft x 14ft, 2 rooms, woohoo!

Or not. Now, let's ignore the fact that I haven't actually asked if I can use the tent yet (I figured I should see if it's still in working order,) because the tent isn't in working order! We're missing two critical elements: the instructions, and 1 Tent Pole Segment #2. For reference's sake, the tent should look like this, only a different color and without those awning things. Tent Pole Segment #2 is one of the two types of tent segments that goes straight across the top of the tent. In this case, we're looking for one of the two side arches, rather than the one down the middle. Ugh.

Anyway, setting up tents (especially ones this large) is already not a ton of fun, but with rusty/sticky tent poles (don't worry guys, if I can use the tent I'll clean the poles before I pack them up) and not enough space/light and with all these annoying setbacks (why do we have pieces left over, AND missing pieces too????)it's extra BLEH. I can't even figure out who made the tent (American Broadway? Greatland? Neither actually exists... I think they're both North Pole Ltd. brands.) Like I said, BLEH.

That is all.

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Because only so many people can be eleventh in line.