With little over a month left, I still have to prepare for the CFA. Here's what I have to do for a top score :
Event ..................................Male .............................................. Female
BB. Throw .......................... 102 .................................................... 66
Pull-Ups .............................. 18 ....................................................... 7
Shuttle Run ........................ 7.8 sec. ............................................. 8.6 sec.
Sit-ups .............................. 95 .......................................................95
Push-ups.............................75 .................................................... 50
Mile Run ............................ 5:20................................................... 6:00
You get two minutes for each, unless the score is a time, and three tries on the throw.
Now, I don't play sports. My school has no teams, and I'm better at individual sports anyway. I do run, love to swim, and I'm willing to try playing just about anything (I want to play rugby sometime, looks violent) although I've never actually trained. I'm actually fairly athletic.
Push-ups, however will be a problem. The arms are willing, but the core is weak. Basically, a push-up is holding the plank while your arms do the macarena.
The plank: put your body in push-up position but rest on your forearms. Stay there. The following timeline shows the important incidents when I do the plank:
0:00 seconds: begin
0:50 seconds: start to tremble
0:55 feel back start to bow down, tighten stomache muscles and tremble even more.
Between 1:05 and 1:10 tightening muscles no longer has any effect on stability, I'm headed toward the ground whether I like it or not.
1:20 I'm making maximum effort even though my whole body is on the ground and my trembling muscles have reached Richter 8.
1:25 Collapse, luckily, there's nowhere to fall.
I'm getting measurably better, though. I can do 17 push-ups in a row. Hurray.
I can't do a single pull-up properly (I can do a couple if my hands are facing away from me). It's another case where my energy goes into shivering. There has to be a more efficient way to do this.
Sit-ups won't be a problem. I'm progressing with the basketball throw. I hurt my knee...
I run around my back yard for excercise. It's sloped and full of trees and broken branches to dodge. I trot doggedly up-slope and race across the level part leaping over fallen trunks and run back down. Speed isn't a problem here, judging the depth of the overgrown grass is. Suddenly, my leg is in the hole left from a rotten tree stump and temporarily delayed while the rest of me tries to leave it behind, forgetting that we're connected by some seriously loyal ligaments intent on keeping us together. My knee explodes in the ensuing battle, sending shards of bone like bloody shrapnel into the trees and an exposed artery throbs sickeningly, crimsonly in contrast with the green undergrowth...
No, of course not. I'm just kidding. It is sore, though.
On a related note, my father knows a guy well on his way to West Point who wrecked his knee (and chance of acceptance) kick starting his bike.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Promotion!
Wheeeee!!! I've been promoted!
According to my Air Force Academy Admissions Status page, I am now a Candidate. With a little asterisk next to it because I still lack a nomination, but a Candidate none-the-less.
With this comes a cheerful note informing me that I now have 45 days (of which only 37 remain) in which to complete the following forms (incomplete list and paraphrasing names):
High school profile, senior year profile, and transcript. (I suppose my English teacher, who is also something like the vice-principal, will have to help fill this out, since he's the guy that actually speaks English. My principal is rather unhelpful about stuff like finding out students' grades and class rank, she's really stressed. Of course, she just got the job this year, and isn't quite qualified. This isn't an insult, she literally doesn't have the training required to be a principal, however, she's doing a pretty good job of it, all things considered. )
Writing sample. ("Where did you hear about the Air Force Academy? What career do you want to go into? Why?" "What will be the hardest part of the academy for you, and how will you succeed?" "Describe a hardship you overcame in the past and how you would handle it now". These are limited to 300 or 500 words, so you have to keep your answers concise, but with enough relevant detail to make them stand out.)
Drug and Alcohol Abuse Statement (This was easy, I have never done drugs and I don't drink, for a few reasons. One of my friends drinks at parties and always throws up, falls asleep (or blacks out) in the bathrooms, slurs unintelligibly, or pees somewhere inappropriate. At every damn party. While other party-goers drink as much as he does and stomach their booze politely, if a bit too loudly. The other is that I have no intention of risking my motor functions, or any other for that matter, when they're just too valuable. The first reason is so much more concrete, though)
Personal Information. (Addresses, phone numbers, information about parents and guardians.)
Activities Record. (Sports teams, clubs, extracurriculars, jobs, volunteer hours, and a place to explain, in 5000 characters or less, your many accomplishments, of which I plan on taking full advantage (and don't end sentences with prepositions))
Evaluator Selection Form from Math, English, and Other teachers. (Language dilemma, do I send a letter from the guy who is actually my English teacher, who teaches English as a Second Language because it's a Spanish speaking country, or from my Spanish teacher, who's actually the one teaching Literature, Writing and Grammar?)
Candidate Fitness Assessment. (Suffice to say it's tough. The only requirement identical for men and women are the sit ups. 95 in two minutes for the top score. Ouch.)
Interview with a Liaison Officer. (In my case, it's going to be by phone. The Officer contacted me by e-mail asking for a brief resume so he could get to know me a bit before the interview. Normally, he speaks to the candidates in person a few times before the actual formal talk.)
According to my Air Force Academy Admissions Status page, I am now a Candidate. With a little asterisk next to it because I still lack a nomination, but a Candidate none-the-less.
With this comes a cheerful note informing me that I now have 45 days (of which only 37 remain) in which to complete the following forms (incomplete list and paraphrasing names):
High school profile, senior year profile, and transcript. (I suppose my English teacher, who is also something like the vice-principal, will have to help fill this out, since he's the guy that actually speaks English. My principal is rather unhelpful about stuff like finding out students' grades and class rank, she's really stressed. Of course, she just got the job this year, and isn't quite qualified. This isn't an insult, she literally doesn't have the training required to be a principal, however, she's doing a pretty good job of it, all things considered. )
Writing sample. ("Where did you hear about the Air Force Academy? What career do you want to go into? Why?" "What will be the hardest part of the academy for you, and how will you succeed?" "Describe a hardship you overcame in the past and how you would handle it now". These are limited to 300 or 500 words, so you have to keep your answers concise, but with enough relevant detail to make them stand out.)
Drug and Alcohol Abuse Statement (This was easy, I have never done drugs and I don't drink, for a few reasons. One of my friends drinks at parties and always throws up, falls asleep (or blacks out) in the bathrooms, slurs unintelligibly, or pees somewhere inappropriate. At every damn party. While other party-goers drink as much as he does and stomach their booze politely, if a bit too loudly. The other is that I have no intention of risking my motor functions, or any other for that matter, when they're just too valuable. The first reason is so much more concrete, though)
Personal Information. (Addresses, phone numbers, information about parents and guardians.)
Activities Record. (Sports teams, clubs, extracurriculars, jobs, volunteer hours, and a place to explain, in 5000 characters or less, your many accomplishments, of which I plan on taking full advantage (and don't end sentences with prepositions))
Evaluator Selection Form from Math, English, and Other teachers. (Language dilemma, do I send a letter from the guy who is actually my English teacher, who teaches English as a Second Language because it's a Spanish speaking country, or from my Spanish teacher, who's actually the one teaching Literature, Writing and Grammar?)
Candidate Fitness Assessment. (Suffice to say it's tough. The only requirement identical for men and women are the sit ups. 95 in two minutes for the top score. Ouch.)
Interview with a Liaison Officer. (In my case, it's going to be by phone. The Officer contacted me by e-mail asking for a brief resume so he could get to know me a bit before the interview. Normally, he speaks to the candidates in person a few times before the actual formal talk.)
Bull' s Eye
I did indeed go to the ophthalmologist yesterday. When I called to set up the appointment, I made a point of doing two things:
An optometrist did a few quick tests to see how my eyes were. The first thing I discovered is that my eyes are incredibly over-corrected. I got the glasses I wear close to three years ago. The correction is -0.1. The optometrist puts me through my paces having me read off a chart and gaze past a lens into a picture of a ballon in the distance. The picture becomes blurry and then refocuses as the computer considers by eyes. She asks for my glasses, looks at them, and goes
"This is shocking, you shouldn't be wearing these."
Apparently my correction should be more along the lines of -0.05. Quite a difference, actually. She asks me if I always wear them (I usually don't), whether my eyes tire (not really), and whether I need them (to read the blackboard from the back of the class).
"Don't use these, ok? It's bad for you. Get a smaller correction as soon as possible and try not to use them too much."
What was really strange was that only 2 months ago I had my eyes checked and told the correction should be -0.075. Someone messed up... The good news is that eyes with a bit of under-correction can correct themselves. Over-corrected eyes tend to get worse and worse. So no glasses for me.
Next the ophthalmologist calls me in. We go through the obligatory chart readings. A screen half red, half green, asks me to identify the colors. Takes my eye's internal pressure. This is cool. He puts some drops in my eyes, pulls down my lower lids and inserts the round part of a tiny spoon-shaped thing. I don't really notice. A bit later, I realize my eyes are feeling really weird. I reach up to wipe them and notice I'm actually poking my eye and don't feel a thing. Weird. I ask the doctor what he did too me, and he responds that it was anesthetic. Cool! I spend a while happily poking myself in the eye as he fills out some sheets and feeling returns.
He then hands me a box lined with round, colored circles. He takes them out, mixes them up a bit, and leaves a blue one in the box. The rest are a mix of green, yellow, pink, violet and purple. There are maybe 15, and he asks me to order them beginning with the blue in the box. The final result should be a gradation from that, through the other colors, to purple. It's pretty easy to follow, generally, but two blues and two greens threw me off. I swear they were identical. I switched them around a couple of times, but whatever position I put them in, the other always looked better.
Then some more charts, and finally the fun part. He dilates my iris. He puts some drops in each eye and sends me outside to wait. I go out into the street, it's evening and beginning to darken, but not for me. My eyes expand. I come back inside, my father takes one look at me and goes:
"Whoa, man, what're you on?!"
I checked myself out in the mirror and it looked awesome. The Eye Guy checked it out with a very bright light. Everything is in working order. Supposedly, the results, along with my photocopied form, should be ready today, but the secretary told me there was an emergency and he couldn't finish his report. I should get it in the mail Monday or Tuesday.
- confirming that he speaks English.
- faxing him the complete instructions for the eye exam, along with a photocopy of the form to fill out, even though Dr. Zoidberg (in my previous post) is actually the one in charge of filling them out. However, this way I can be certain that he does all the necessary tests, and can check them off the boxes as we go along.
An optometrist did a few quick tests to see how my eyes were. The first thing I discovered is that my eyes are incredibly over-corrected. I got the glasses I wear close to three years ago. The correction is -0.1. The optometrist puts me through my paces having me read off a chart and gaze past a lens into a picture of a ballon in the distance. The picture becomes blurry and then refocuses as the computer considers by eyes. She asks for my glasses, looks at them, and goes
"This is shocking, you shouldn't be wearing these."
Apparently my correction should be more along the lines of -0.05. Quite a difference, actually. She asks me if I always wear them (I usually don't), whether my eyes tire (not really), and whether I need them (to read the blackboard from the back of the class).
"Don't use these, ok? It's bad for you. Get a smaller correction as soon as possible and try not to use them too much."
What was really strange was that only 2 months ago I had my eyes checked and told the correction should be -0.075. Someone messed up... The good news is that eyes with a bit of under-correction can correct themselves. Over-corrected eyes tend to get worse and worse. So no glasses for me.
Next the ophthalmologist calls me in. We go through the obligatory chart readings. A screen half red, half green, asks me to identify the colors. Takes my eye's internal pressure. This is cool. He puts some drops in my eyes, pulls down my lower lids and inserts the round part of a tiny spoon-shaped thing. I don't really notice. A bit later, I realize my eyes are feeling really weird. I reach up to wipe them and notice I'm actually poking my eye and don't feel a thing. Weird. I ask the doctor what he did too me, and he responds that it was anesthetic. Cool! I spend a while happily poking myself in the eye as he fills out some sheets and feeling returns.
He then hands me a box lined with round, colored circles. He takes them out, mixes them up a bit, and leaves a blue one in the box. The rest are a mix of green, yellow, pink, violet and purple. There are maybe 15, and he asks me to order them beginning with the blue in the box. The final result should be a gradation from that, through the other colors, to purple. It's pretty easy to follow, generally, but two blues and two greens threw me off. I swear they were identical. I switched them around a couple of times, but whatever position I put them in, the other always looked better.
Then some more charts, and finally the fun part. He dilates my iris. He puts some drops in each eye and sends me outside to wait. I go out into the street, it's evening and beginning to darken, but not for me. My eyes expand. I come back inside, my father takes one look at me and goes:
"Whoa, man, what're you on?!"
I checked myself out in the mirror and it looked awesome. The Eye Guy checked it out with a very bright light. Everything is in working order. Supposedly, the results, along with my photocopied form, should be ready today, but the secretary told me there was an emergency and he couldn't finish his report. I should get it in the mail Monday or Tuesday.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Progress!
I called the Embassy and got through to an actual human being. Patty asked me to send her some info (name, SSN, phone number) and she would get back to me. So I sent it, and she very kindly called back about 5 hours later. Which was cool, because precedent (described in my previous post) suggests it could take years.
We had had brief back-and-forth of :
"Get the tests done and then call.."
"Wait, what? Schedule tests, embassy physician"
"Embassy doesn't have one, but this one guy is really good at filling out forms...
"Wait, what?"
"Get the tests done, get this guy to do the forms"
"So...what?"
Obviously, I was the "wait, what?"er.
My mind was still stuck on the naive fantasy that maybe I could get an appointment, take one day to go to some clinic, get the tests and forms filled, and go happily on my way. Actually, the embassy has no physician they can just schedule appointments with. I get to figure out who's willing to do the examination piecemeal (because the people in charge of the urinalysis aren't checking out my eyes), get the info from them, then take it all to a certain doctor hereafter referred to as Zoidberg who'll fill in the appropriate boxes and give me the physical.
Dr. Zoidberg then looks at the documents I got from the other doctors and fills out all the forms based on that. This isn't as weird as it sounds, the people from the lab probably dont speak much English and have neither the time nor inclination to pore over the annoying paperwork. Zoidberg has worked with the embassy before, so the paperwork is just run-of-the-mill stuff to him (I can only hope) and he speaks English. So all is cool.
I hope to get everything finished by the end of the week (ha!), because school starts again Monday (I'm on vacations at the moment) and will make getting to a doctor that much harder.
A quick rundown of what this entails:
Urinalysis. Take a sample, send it too a lab, pick up the results an hour later. It checks for blood, sugar and protein. I was negative on all counts, which is good. Sugar means diabetes, protein means diseases in the kidney, and blood can indicate some kind of infection.
Eye examination. At least 8 separate tests. I have an appointment on Thursday, so I'll describe them in detail then.
Hearing test. I've yet to schedule that. The last one I took it was in elementary school, they put a pair of earphones on me and asked me to raise the hand corresponding to the side I heard the beep in.
Reading aloud. Hones in on speech impediments. It's just standing and reading a paragraph out loud, this paragraph is included in the instructions, so you can practice and there's absolutely no reason to mess it up because of nerves. The tester stops you sharply if you make a mistake and has you start over. The idea is that if you stutter or stammer in the exact same spot, it's likely a speech impediment, if you make it through, it was probably just nerves.
Complete physical. Everything. Just everything. Mobility and strength of limbs. Skin problems, skeletal problems, GU system, the works.
My high school also made its students get a routine blood test done
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Bureaucracy
I shouldn't have any problems with the Medical Examination.I'm in good health, no sickness, no accidents, no conditions, no allergies, don't smoke, don't drink, not depressive, fine hearing, all my limbs move correctly, all organs in their proper places, so on. Average height and weight. A bit myopic, but I already knew that. Nope, no problems at all.
If I could just schedule the damn thing.
Living in a country with no US Military Bases, I was referred to the US Embassy. I have to schedule the examination with an Embassy Physician, ask for help scheduling it with some other physician in this country's military base, or pay a private physician. In that order of preference. This country has no military, consequently, no military bases. The private physician is the absolute last option because this place already has an Embassy. There's no excuse for going somewhere else. What, is the Embassy not good enough for you?
It does have an Embassy. A singularly unresponsive one. Two phone calls and one e-mail later, and no human contact at all. Actually, they're probably busy. It is tourist season (no, you can't get a license to hunt them).
I left messages both times I called, although one time the machine told me I could press (some number) for assistance or hold and leave a message. I should have pressed, but since they speakthisfast and you have to dial NOW! Too late, please leave a message after the tone. BEEP. You're still wondering whether you should supersize that before you realize you're being recorded.
Also, the phone operators, who send you across this wide expanse of wires, putting you on hold often, don't listen so much to your explanation as much as they do to key words. I could just have said "Medical examination, medical review board, service academy application" and ended up at the same place instead of giving my whole explanation, because that's what they hear anyway.
I know this because as I was explaining all this to a person, the second I said the keyword: "Medical review board" I was transferred with nary a word from my listener. One second I was saying "... board to schedule an..." to actual flesh and blood and the next some cold, toneless voice was interrupting to tell me to leave a message while I tried to explain my plight. There's no telling where they'll send you, either, the first time I was welcomed to the Health Department (or something like that) and the next there was nothing at all. I can only assume the sent me to some abandoned phone in a cellar used to receive calls no one knows what to do with. No doubt it's checked periodically to make sure it can still take calls, but they remain there unheard, unattended, until they have to be erased to make room for more.
Really, though, it seems as though it all went into a black hole. I'll call again tomorrow, and if I don't get through to someone who can schedule that appointment, I'm going in person. Where no doubt I'll be placed in a small featureless room with piped music and eventually told to leave a message with the secretary.
Oh, bureaucracy.
If I could just schedule the damn thing.
Living in a country with no US Military Bases, I was referred to the US Embassy. I have to schedule the examination with an Embassy Physician, ask for help scheduling it with some other physician in this country's military base, or pay a private physician. In that order of preference. This country has no military, consequently, no military bases. The private physician is the absolute last option because this place already has an Embassy. There's no excuse for going somewhere else. What, is the Embassy not good enough for you?
It does have an Embassy. A singularly unresponsive one. Two phone calls and one e-mail later, and no human contact at all. Actually, they're probably busy. It is tourist season (no, you can't get a license to hunt them).
I left messages both times I called, although one time the machine told me I could press (some number) for assistance or hold and leave a message. I should have pressed, but since they speakthisfast and you have to dial NOW! Too late, please leave a message after the tone. BEEP. You're still wondering whether you should supersize that before you realize you're being recorded.
Also, the phone operators, who send you across this wide expanse of wires, putting you on hold often, don't listen so much to your explanation as much as they do to key words. I could just have said "Medical examination, medical review board, service academy application" and ended up at the same place instead of giving my whole explanation, because that's what they hear anyway.
I know this because as I was explaining all this to a person, the second I said the keyword: "Medical review board" I was transferred with nary a word from my listener. One second I was saying "... board to schedule an..." to actual flesh and blood and the next some cold, toneless voice was interrupting to tell me to leave a message while I tried to explain my plight. There's no telling where they'll send you, either, the first time I was welcomed to the Health Department (or something like that) and the next there was nothing at all. I can only assume the sent me to some abandoned phone in a cellar used to receive calls no one knows what to do with. No doubt it's checked periodically to make sure it can still take calls, but they remain there unheard, unattended, until they have to be erased to make room for more.
Really, though, it seems as though it all went into a black hole. I'll call again tomorrow, and if I don't get through to someone who can schedule that appointment, I'm going in person. Where no doubt I'll be placed in a small featureless room with piped music and eventually told to leave a message with the secretary.
Oh, bureaucracy.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Scores! For Real, This Time.
After refreshing my collegeboard page for a few consecutive hours (having forgotten about time zones) my scores finally showed up. Here they are:
Math: 650 Not good enough for the schools I'm after.
Writing: 580 I did explain about my essay, right? Worth 30% of this score.
I read a lot. I mean a lot. A whole bunch and almost constantly, so my reading score isn't a surprise. I should have done better on math, though, and since I bought a score report, I got to look over the questions I got wrong and wonder what the hell I was thinking. Apparently, I don't know what an integer is, I can't do conversions, and don't know how to find the area of a square. Wow, I feel like an incredible idiot. I could have done so much better. On the other hand, there were questions deep in WTF territory, but only about two, and thus this is not an acceptable excuse.
Writing has its reasons, if we accept the premise that I lost most of my points on the essay, on which got a score of 6 (highest score is 12), so it's a pretty stable premise. I don't get much of a chance to write it English, at least not essays, and not in under 25 minutes. My English teacher sometimes asks for short essays, but we get a full week to turn them in. Hell, I'm not used to writing fast in Spanish. The ministry test requires an essay, but we get to chose one of 4 topics, and 3 or 4 hours to write it (yeah, it gets hard to sit still that long). Basically, I've never had to write a coherent English essay in a short time on a given subject. I suppose I'll do better on that next time, now that I know how to prepare.
An interesting (if often depressing) statistic on CollegeBoard is the "How Do I Stack Up?". It lets you put in some information (mainly GPA and SAT/ACT scores) and then tell you how you compare to the middle 50% of a college's incoming class of last year. Mine was pretty interesting, my reading score was above average, by math score average (except MIT, more on that later) and my writing score low. I forget what my GPA was, but it's something like 3.75 or 3.8, which is mainly thanks to ninth grade, where I got straight As, while I dropped to mostly Bs and some Cs last year, due to my change of school from normal public to
About MIT. The middle 50% were somewhere in the range of [something]-800. Which means that more than a full 25% of last years freshmen got 800s on math. Holy freakin' cow, do my grades pale and faint in comparison.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Scores! No. Just the reports.
I have to send my scores now, and I haven't actually seen them yet. In fact, I don't get to see them for another 10 dyas or so. I'm limiting myself to four schools for a couple of reasons:
Free. My first 4 score reports are included in the price of the test.
Still unsure about where I'm headed. I can always send the scores later.
I finally decided on:
Air Force Academy: tough, right? There are more problems involved with this than you think. I'll explain them later. It's the one school I'm absolutely sure I want to go to, although the next one looks pretty damn good, too.
Naval Academy: close second, if not tied, with the Air Force. Interestingly enough, the eye-sight requirements for flying are stricter than the Air Force's. I do want to fly, but I'm a bit myopic (20/40, I barely make Navy requirements).
MIT: because who doesnt want to go there? Honestly, it's a cool school, tough (yessss) but rewarding,and an engineering school, which is great for someone who wants an engineering degree (I do). Not first choice because I can't stand having my heart broken into that many pieces. It also has ROTC.
Cornell: because an Ivy League had to be in here somewhere. Just kidding. Also a good engineering school, it's the only Ivy League with ROTC on campus (the others offer ROTC scholarships, but you have to travel to a nearby university to attend classes. Inconvenient when some start at 5:30 in the morning).
You may have noticed two things:
One: that is one tough list. Really.
Two: Military. Academies and scholarships, all pointing at one Ambermutt wanting to be an officer in the Navy or Air Force.
And one more university:
State. Which is actually the best school in the country, since this place's education system is nothing like the US. All private schools are held in contempt and my Social Studies teacher enjoys making fun of them. I could be a practicing doctor in 6 years, and graduate debt free, if I get in. My high school is known as "pre-college", basically its only reason for existing is to get its students into college, and that's practically a guarantee. There'll be another post soon about the admissions process to get into the State school. It's incredibly simple, if unforgiving.
Now I have to handle four different sets of deadlines. I can't start my online application to MIT until August. I already started the AFA one (which includes a marvelous Pre-Candidate Questionnaire). I haven't started the other two yet.
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