I took the PSAT again this year, thus making it (probably) my last practice step before taking the SAT, which could very well be the most important thing I ever do in my entire life. The PSAT (Preliminary SAT) is the practice test for the SAT. Your SAT score is used by colleges to determine whether they'll let you in. (Of course, they do look at other things, such as grade-point average, extracurricular activities, race, sex...)

The only things it tests are the two subjects that are deemed most important: reading and math. English has recently been given the upper hand, because writing now constitutes an additional portion of the SAT. But not the PSAT, whose goal is to prepare you for the PSAT. It does have some writing-related things, like finding errors in sentences, but there is no actual writing to be done. Likewise, in English class, we learn big words and do multiple-choice questions in preparation for the SAT, but we do very little extemporized writing (hey, there's an SAT prep word right there). I like (not really) how everyone seems to be ignoring this new section of the test because they don't know what to make of it.

When I took the PSAT last year, I did well, but I found the math to be more challenging than the English parts. I could do the latter with time to spare, but I ran out of time doing one of the math sections and filled in random answers hoping that they would be right (note to self for when I get my test results: they were questions 31 and 38). When I think about it, I've always done better in English than in math, so when I decide to take the big SAT, I'll have to have to study my PSAT results and get my the mathematical side of my brain running again with the help of pre-calculus class, which I'm taking next semester.

My test was administered by two teachers for some reason. One was Mrs. Hill, my old Spanish teacher who once thought I was a foreign exchange student (no, I'll never forget that). The other was the new teacher who now shares her room. It was kind of strange going back into Mrs. Hill's room. It wasn't exactly how I remembered it. I remembered it being darker and scarier (and with yellow walls, for some reason). She seemed weird as usual because she didn't go over the parts of the answer sheet where we had to fill in our sex, age, social security number, or birthdate, or the part where we had to sign indicating that we were ourselves. When the test was over, I managed to fill in some of those. My sister had asked her if we had to, and she said no, it wasn't important.

Toward the end of the day I got a slip from the Guidance Department. This was really weird because I had no idea what they could have been calling me down for. Since whoever wrote it wrote "See Ms. Cardoso in [illegible] room," I just headed down to the Guidance office and was guided into the back hallway by a senior. She stopped me when we reached a window with a woman writing on the other side and said this was where I needed to be. I went into the woman's room through an open side door and asked if this was where I had to be. Ms. Cardoso then spoke up from the room than was now in front of me: the Record Vault (that's what the sign outside said). She had a pile of PSAT answer sheets and told me that I needed to sign mine as I had failed to do. She wasn't mean about it or anything, but when I kept trying to say it was the teacher's fault, she kept saying that there was nothing to worry about regarding my little mistake. According to her, they won't grade the test if you don't sign it, and some of the people who hadn't done so (probably all from Hill's room) had already left for the day, so I guess they're screwed.

Listen to the eerie sounds of Saturn's radio emissions. Saturn doesn't really make those strange sounds, of course. The site has them greatly sped up and lowered in pitch (to the levels of human hearing) for convenient listening. Only then do they sound eerie.

These are some crazy optical illusions that you've probably never seen (no, they weren't made by that Japanese guy). They involve color perception and are truly amazing. It's interesting to see how our brain sorts out things that seem different depending on the context but actually aren't. You'll understand this as you see them.