Friday, May 18, 2012

What I Learned about Life Years after Taking the SATs in My Pajamas

By James Altucher

I showed up at the SATs in my pajamas. I had woken up late for the most important test of my life – the one test that determines what college you get into, which then determines how happy you are, who will marry you, how much money you make, and how many people you can legally kill or maim before they jail you in a minimum security prison while your money rests in Swiss bank accounts.  I rushed out of bed, got two number 2 pencils and went off to the school on that Saturday morning.


About 200 kids from all over  the county were waiting to take the test and were crowding up the hallway. I am not exaggerating: when I arrived they parted down the middle like I was Moses. I was in my pajamas: glasses, acne, my hair uncombed and in every direction and grasping those two number two pencils. I was like the God of the SATs.

I clearly looked like someone who was going to kick ass on the SATs. I was 17 but I had been taking the SATs every year, as practice, since I was 12. I remember crying at age 12 begging my mom to teach me the quadratic formula, “just in case”.

What a joke. I can’t even remember the quadratic formula now or what it’s used for.

Read the rest here.

No comments:

Post a Comment