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Big Fan

I’m becoming a big fan of the ESSAY article in Time magazine (shhhh! don’t tell). I hadn’t heard about this story until I read this article (I don’t get out much), but Deb said she recognized it from somewhere. Anyway, I’ve also heard a lot about The Purpose Driven Life, but am curious what others have heard. I’ve heard it criticized as “McChristianity” or “Christianity Lite,” but I haven’t read it and don’t know much about the author (or the critics).

Anywho—as the article says—Happy Easter everyone!

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Pre Nursing Exam Results

So, here’s the part of the blog where I get to tell everyone how smart I am!!!

I got the results of my pre-nursing exam back today. I needed to do at least better than 55% percent of those taking the test and it turns out I did better than 97% of those taking the test. Yes, that’s right, I scored in the top top 3% of people taking the exam.

I was called for an interview, which is on Monday. And then I should hopefully hear after April 4th whether or not I officially made it in!

Wish me luck!

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P.S. I Hate Taxes

Wrote some checks tonight. Funny how they all have you make your checks out to anything but “taxes,” the Franchise Board, U.S. Treasury, whatever. Like it makes it better to not write that word on the check.

Anyway, it is official. I hate taxes.

At least they’re done (thanks Deb!).

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The Case for Compromise

TIME.com: The Case for Compromise on Abortion — Mar. 07, 2005

Deb and I just read this in TIME magazine (like most people who read magazines, I get to them only when I have time—unlike my issues of The Wall Street Journal which are must read news as soon as I receive them) (and yes, I am contractually obligated to say that). In any case, I think this is one of the most intelligent arguments I’ve seen articulated regarding abortion.

[Let me know if the link goes dead---not sure how long it stays live.]

* UPDATE *
I just scanned the page so we don’t have to worry about Time Inc. trying to hit y’all up for money.

What’s that? Can’t read it that small. Click on it, braniac.

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Pre Nursing Exam

I just got back from a 3 hour pre nursing entrance exam and boy am I glad it’s over.

To get into the nursing program of my choice, Philips Beth Israel School of Nursing, I was required to take the NLN’s pre nursing school entrance exam which consisted of verbal, math and science questions.

I went into the test knowing that verbal would probably be pretty easy, math wouldn’t be too difficult but I would have to keep my eye on the time and science would be the most difficult subject for me. Well that turned out to all be true.

I need to get in the 55th or above percentile, which is weighted when compared to other people taking the test, so it’s not like I need to get 55% or more of the questions right, but rather I need to do better than 55% of those who took the test.

I should know in 2 weeks and then hopefully soon after that I will hear something from the school!

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Portly Police

CNN.com - Security door blocks portly police - Mar 3, 2005

A friend here at the office (well—he’s actually at a remote office) forwarded me this article as an example of probably the best CNN.com article he’s ever seen. Not sure about that, but it is entertaining…

I’m not sure which is funnier: what the door says to the Portly Policeman, or the police department spokewoman’s response explaining why they have to get it fixed (”we’ve got some big strong men around here”).

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We Saw Them

And I don’t think my estimation of their worth really increased by seeing them in real life. I enjoyed seeing them, in the same way I enjoy seeing massive scales of almost anything (enough Oreo’s—which I don’t really care for—stacked in one place is interesting, too).

About the only thing I’ve heard that made me think differently about the Gates was the description of a story our pastor was told by an elderly lady whose husband had just died about why she spent much of her time during the 16 days the Gates were installed in Central Park (they were removed at the end of February) wandering through the almost 23 miles of “Gated” pathways. “I walked through the Gates thinking about all the Gates that had opened in my life and all the Gates that had closed…” Something to that effect. Sounded profound at the time but as I typed it in it seemed less compelling. I still think it looked a bit like a construction zone, or—as a friend Bryan Taback mentioned—perhaps like an oversized CalTrans ad (one of the very few organizations besides Halloween thinking orange is the appropriate color with which to market themselves).

I did like the Gates from the perspective that it let us spend some time with my folks outside during their visit to New York. Mom took some photos:

Joe—the friend from upstairs who is now something of a recurring character on the blog—sent us a link to NASA’s satellite photo of the Gates, which I thought was very cool. The image below is a very small (!) portion of the complete image, all 2.4 megabytes of which you can download here.

There, John, now there is a blog entry about the Gates.

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