We'd wanted to practice surgery on three rats but, due to some weird complications, only got around to one. Fine by me. I'd thought about starting to try histology (i.e. extracting brain tissue and staining it for certain brain chemicals), but I've only done the..er..extraction procedure once. It's not pretty. So not pretty..but I'm the only one with the experience.

Dr. Ziv is going off to a science cabal for the next week--both to present his and my poster. That means I can take friday off and just study for this upcoming test; definetely a good break.

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And I finally got my GRE scores back, more importantly with the percentiles attached to them. Mind you, I did this test on two hours of sleep...

*I did better on the verbal section than I thought: 95th percentile. Definetely nothing to snort at in any graduate field.

*Analytical writing also went well. I didn't score a straight perfect score, but I got the next highest, so: 85th percentile. They probably wanted another section on my 'rip this argument a new asshole' topic.

*The quantitative was worse than I expected: 58 percentile. But hell, if you got a 'perfect' score you'd be ranked in the 92 percentile. Quantitative scores tend to be what many psychology departments focus on. Still, this is the only handicap I have. I've also got a little leeway since I'm racially considered Native-American.

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But then I got a sudden flash of inspiration when I was looking at these scores. I don't know how this bout of applying to Psychology graduate schools will go...but all things considered, I'd be one hell of a candidate for History..or maybe Religion. Would it be a major shift from science? Hell yes, but it's not completely ludicrous:

Case for History: I minored in it, got all A's except for one upper division course I took, which showcased a leading world expert on Machiavelli and Renaissance Italy. It happened to be my first history course in college; a B+ wasn't none too shabby (especially when she completely misunderstood my final paper). The other profs in the department loved me.

Case against History: the only problem with History would be that I only know English and have a passing fluency in Spanish. I'd want to focus on inter-cultural relations between Islam and Christian Europe, circa 13th-14th century after the real crusades were over and the Holy Land had been reclaimed. I'd have to learn Latin and Arabic. Latin is not a fun-in-the-sun language. Arabic isn't much easier.

Case for Religion: I took 3-4 religion classes in college. I aced every single one, so my GPA for that discipline is a 4.00. I took a Junior-Senior level class on Apocalypticism as a freshman; got the highest grade. I entered into a class on Islamic Sufism (their form of mysticism) not even knowing what the five pillars were. I ended up getting the highest grade in the class. I got a 98% on the final. I did a 'history of Tarot' class under the guidance of the department chair, who really took a strong liking to me. Getting recommendations wouldn't be a problem.

Case against Religion: I didn't minor, nor major in the subject. I'd be stuck in academia. I'd have to figure out exactly what I wanted to study that hadn't already been done to death.

So we'll see what happens with Psychology..but I've got back-up plans now in case nothing goes through--or even if graduate school psychology isn't my thing.

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I need to go study now. Apparently the test is on the 8th, not the 11th. Not a huge big nasty surprise, though, just unsettling. I'm on pg. 460 of about 600. I know I can finish it and take some practice tests. Hopefully reading through that entire book will be good enough.

Hope all is well with you.

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