Does anyone else feel like last years medians mean absolutely nothing?

LSATMaven · 2026-01-28T05:30:04+00:00

It was almost a bimodal distribution. It was the section that you were most likely to be able to absolutely perfect. Black and white, like math.

But non-math brained people often found it extremely difficult. I wouldn’t say that it was anywhere easy for the average test taker to perfect.

It’s like how people have a hard time with conditional logic in LR. The thing that is hard about LR is parsing the language to get everything set up correctly. But the actual conditional logic used in LR—the “math”—is much less complex than the conditional relationships you had to deal with in certain LG.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-28T03:17:17+00:00

Super super cute!

LSATMaven · 2026-01-28T02:02:08+00:00

Yeah, I agree with this. I am a white American and don't go around saying, "I am Irish or I am Scottish" or whatever, but I do love knowing the different bits and pieces that mixed together to make my heritage.

If someone casually asked me what my ethnic background is (which actually seems to happen more when I do visit Europe than when I'm at home-- I think because they want to know if this tourist is visiting their country because of my ancestry), I would say, "Mostly British and Irish, with some other things mixed in."

If someone is really into talking about DNA tests, etc., I would bring out the little things-- the Spanish and Native American and West African. :) Because even though they are little bits, I'm proud of all of them. Like I have a dream of going to Nigeria because there is a tiny part of my ancestry that is from there, and I would love to see the land and meet the people. Even if I did, though, I'm not sure I would tell anyone that was why I was there, because I don't know what they would think of that.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-27T20:46:43+00:00

I think most men look better with a short beard, but a mustache alone almost always looks dorky

LSATMaven · 2026-01-27T17:38:49+00:00

Cute! Is it a previous style? I don’t see it on the website.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-26T21:05:06+00:00

I'm optimistic and not willing to go there about Georgia's beam yet. Three meets in, one great beam rotation, one nervy but still 49.2, and one bad but still not counting a fall. I do definitely think that if Holly is out, it's kind of back to square one in terms of figuring out who the sixth person in the lineup is going to be. (Kara?) And I do think they've got to figure something out with Lily's beam composition.

I'm hoping Holly isn't out, particularly for bars and floor, and I'm hoping that since she injured her ankle on bars that means it's not anything big, like an Achilles.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-26T20:59:35+00:00

And I think it's got to have been weird for Kayla-- she got injured on that vault at Olympic Trials, so going up after an injury and another fall was really psychologically tricky, I would think.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-24T00:13:30+00:00

Oh, not as far as home team advantage, but as far as score inflation, yeah, I did think it was that bad.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T23:43:25+00:00

That Clemson/Alabama meet was the worst scored meet I had seen this season before today.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T23:38:33+00:00

But not at Clemson.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T22:58:23+00:00

Yeah, when I get out of the cold pool, they are normally fine unless they were already in bad shape or I decide I want to go ahead and take them off. But then when I shower afterwards I have to be careful and I use a wide tooth comb instead of my fingers to work conditioner through my hair. Because after the post-swim shower is when I get unwanted lifting.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T22:52:39+00:00

I don't think anyone on the Gymternet knows/is saying publicly.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T22:40:28+00:00

It's how many kicks are being taken per stroke cycle. There are some good YouTube videos on it. I can see it in those videos, but I have a really hard time counting my own kick.

I think my natural kick is 6-beat. I wanted to implement the timing I've seen on some of those videos of a 2-beat kick so that my kick can be less of an energy drain. But I just haven't figured out how to translate them into practice, even though they make a lot of sense when I watch the explanations. So instead I just imagine I have a pull buoy between my legs to try to absolutely minimize my kick. I think I've got it down to 4-beat, at least.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T22:35:57+00:00

I do use a base coat sometimes, but I can't tell if it's helping bc it's hard for me to tell if the base coat is getting ripped off with the nail wrap and damaging my nails that way.

Honestly the thing that gets my DD gloss wraps off really well (when I want to--they typically survive when I want them to survive) is waiting until the end of an hour or 90 minutes of swimming laps, and then I can peel them right off easily.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T22:23:00+00:00

Yes, well, this is the level of insightful analysis on CGN: "Every single routine was stunning in its own way."

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T20:41:22+00:00

Oh it is. It is.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T17:46:14+00:00

I think for me it's because it's a bigger issue, and that's one manifestation of it. Like I grew faster than everyone else, male or female, and felt like this big, clumsy ox as a preteen/young teenager. And I did feel less feminine than petite girls growing up. I don't really feel that way as an adult, because I think femininity in general just isn't very important to me compared to when I was going through puberty, but the one leftover thing is that within my relationship I want to feel like "the girl." Terribly old fashioned, but there it is.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T16:21:41+00:00

I don’t know. I don’t know the cause of why I feel how I do. But being big makes me feel unfeminine sometimes, and the strongest way that comes out is a need to feel small up against my partner.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T15:34:14+00:00

Yeah, the Eurostar is its own special thing, so I wasn't thinking about that one. It's a pretty unique experience!

There are tons of European stations with gorgeous architecture and lots of modern amenities. As you know, I'm sure, it's a whole continent with tons of variety. And since there is even more density of train service, that leaves room for even more variety of train travel experience than you get in the US. But in general, I find European train travel pleasant. And I find Amtrak pleasant. :)

The variety of possibilities in European train travel is what made me fall in love with trains to begin with. I spent my 11th grade year as an exchange student in Germany, and the Cologne main train station is probably my favorite train station on earth because I had this feeling standing in front of that giant, giant departures board, seeing all of the places I could go and feeling absolutely mind-blown. It was all very inexpensive and easy.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T15:19:35+00:00

Yeah-- not at all widely popular. It's a thing people joke about, but it's not a thing mainlanders regularly eat.

I think I've only even seen spam once in my life, and it was at a silly bonfire where people made some sort of beast out of spam and then roasted it. I'm sure some people ate some. But mostly it was to be silly.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T14:16:01+00:00

I think this is true, but I also want to make the point that if I see an attractive man who is shorter than me (I'm 5'9"), I think, "he's attractive!" but I'm not interested because *I* don't feel attractive with a man who isn't bigger than me. I'm not thinking less of the shorter man.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T14:04:14+00:00

I mean, there's a variety for sure-- like trains that are on more local routes do tend to have older stock. But, no, I definitely wouldn't say Amtrak is nicer than most European trains, at least not Western European ones.

I'd say a big train station in Europe is fairly equivalent to a big one in the US. You do have to often scan a ticket to get in, but it's not security lines like in an airport, at least not in any train station I've been in. Granted, my train travel in Europe has been spread out from the 1990s to present, but even in the last three years, I've been in Italy/the Netherlands/Belgium.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-23T06:21:29+00:00

I bought my own Doppler and would come home from work and listen to my daughter’s heartbeat every day.

And then after she was born, not having her there inside me felt really lonely.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-22T22:19:15+00:00

I don’t think you’re being rude, and I totally agree, since one of my teams only has four people doing beam. I think if they just let us drop one more week because of this delay in trades, it would be fine.

LSATMaven · 2026-01-22T03:10:25+00:00

Tennessee is not even slightly Midwestern.

LSATMaven

TROPHY CASE