My my it is getting quite cold. Temperature right now: 50 degrees farhenhietuit. I can never ever spell that word correctly. Feh-ren-height. Fahrenheit. Probably a German dude's last name. Maybe someday, I'll be famous for converting the U.S. to the metric system. Then the economy will dwindle, stock market will crash, and all would be blamed on me. So for now at least, I will secretly measure everything in the metric system.

I have decided to take up studying for the GRE. I do believe that probably less than 5 years from now I will go to graduate school -- either graduate school to pursue a masters degree, or medical school. Or both consecutively. If so, I will inevitably have to take the GRE, and if I skip the grad school part, I would either way have to take the MCAT. Both are standardized tests, which is a weakness that I have. For the SAT's I would have expected myself to have gotten 1400-1450. But needless to say that despite several attempts, my score did not get that high. I went to Kaplan and answered some sample verbal questions. I had about 40% correct and the rest were flat out wrong. They were fill in the blank (in a sentence) and analogies. That led me to believe that I have a depressingly sad range of vocabulary. Yes, I am a foreigner with limited English knowledge. So I dug out some vocab flashcards I had since the 9th grade (which I didn't bother to study then... I should have...) and some SAT vocab flashcards that came with a study guide. I realize that I don't know a lot of words. Imagine what it would be like if I knew double the amount of words I know today. It would give me much more power as a writer, and also as a speaker. I would be able to sound more intelligent. Not some blithering idiot who can't write a complex/compound sentence and don't know its difference from a simple sentence.

For example, what is relegate? Garbled? Ascendancy? They sound like easy words with roots that seem familiar, but I really don't know these words. I think I know most of the words in the SAT flashcards -- I'll have to tackle them first. Maybe I'll reserve a section of my blog for "word of the day" or something like that. The only way I will remember these words is to use them. As my 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Hancock used to say, "make it your own~!" You have to use it to own it. After all, property is nine-tenth of the law, right?

I was kind of at a loss after I dropped math, because I didn't have a challenge to overcome. I didn't have a mountain or hill to climb, I didn't have a goal. Until the end of 2003, I will learn some new words! When I say these things -- I don't realize how much like a uber-geek I sound. Well, I am an uber-geek. Now you know.

I still haven't had a chance to get music to play for the clarinet. But I did listen to some violin concerto on 105.1 FM and I was intensely aroused to get my violin out from under my bed. Boy, do I wish I had a word other than "intensely" to describe how much I was provoked. Well, I can work on that.