Why I Miss Bill Clinton (and other thoughts):

Official word was dispensed via snail mail late this week that my prelim answers were deemed acceptable by the faculty prelim committee. I found the letter in the pile of mail that had built up in our entryway during our trip to Chicago. Notice I'm refraining from saying that "I passed." This is an intentional move on my part to try and separate whether or not my work was passable from my worth as a human being. Not an easy thing to do in fact, but at least I can do it in words.

As has been the case in my scholastic career for as long as I can remember, my writing skills ("clear," "coherent," "logical") were regarded as a key strength in the graders' comments. It seems that, at least in some cases, I can make something that is probably really mediocre in terms of idea/originality sound good enough by writing about it well.

One thing I found satisfying in this experience is that I was not surprised by the weaknesses the graders found in my answers. In fact, I had anticipated nearly all of them. This is satisfying to me in the sense that I feel I can actually judge the quality of my own work fairly well at this point in my career. None of the weaknesses were particularly profound, but I was happy that I already knew what they were.

Needless to say, I'm really happy that I can move forward from here without having to take that test again!