From: andsol@cml.rice.edu (Andrew Solberg) Subject: Aliens In The Home And Workplace To: dragon (Dragon Mailing List) Oh, JEEZUS H. CHRIST. This weekend my wife and I took the GRE exams, since we're both fishing with increasing senses of urgency for an escape from increasingly senseless jobs. My view is: why slave your life away doing pointless things for little reward under Herr Himmler, when you could be slaving your life away doing pointless things for little reward under Dr. Mengele or some similarly erudite pro? I mean, *really* now. So anyway, we took the general exam in the morning and the subject test in the afternoon this Saturday. The general test was very much like other college entrance exams in content and difficulty; we had few problems. Most of our fellow testees were your standard, average near-graduates who wanted four more years of pain -- just like us. We got out of the test feeling a little fried, but we went to lunch at our favorite Greek restaurant and had a little walk before returning for round 2; we were feeling recovered and ready for more by the time the afternoon check-in occurred. Never once did either of us suspect that, upon our return to the testing center, we would be greeted by visitors from another planet. I must, at this point, utter my standard disclaimer: I am not making any of this up. You may question my wife at length, if you like; she will back me up, and may even show you the mysterious triangular tattoo that has appeared on the backs of her palms..... I explain thusly: the GRE subject exam, unlike the general test, is HARD. At least, it was for both of our tests -- very information-specific and non-broad-based; there were a large number of questions on my engineering exam that I had *absolutely* *zero* *idea* how to go about answering. Because of the difficulty of the tests, most people avoid taking one if they can at all help it. Some graduate programs do not require subject tests, so people don't take 'em; other people use alternate means of application within programs. In general, less people take the subject tests than do the general exam; Those who *do* take both rarely take them on the same day. For this reason, the crowd that showed up in the afternoon was totally different from the morning crew. When we walked in, I *instantly* knew that something was NOT QUITE RIGHT. Instead of the motley, irritable, confused crowd of kids that we had mingled with in the A.M., we found a small, hushed grouping of neat-looking teens waiting patiently for the test to begin. They all looked up as we came in, and I could SWEAR I felt their alien probes carress my mind..... For one thing, they were all neatly spaced at ten-foot intervals, and they were *studying*. STUDYING??? this was the alien's first mistake, friends: students do many strange things, but study? Please. It was as if our clever ET friends, desiring to camoflage their field agents as young academicians, patterned their forward observers' behavior after intercepted transmissions of _Superboy_, or perhaps _BH90210_. I think their objective is to infiltrate the ranks of our sensitive research institutions, wary citizens, because a very large number of them were taking technical tests. There was this weird guy next to me who had made a series of flash-cards. The front of one card might say "Minimum energy necessary to dislodge an electron from a metal", and the back would give the answer. This poorly-disguised native of Aldebaran was mouthing the words to our confusingly primitive science to himself, and peeking at the backs of his cards. He did this for perhaps half an hour. His antennae were well hidden, but I could plainly see the twitching of his tertiary mandibles under his epoxy rubber mask...... I had a brief but illuminating conversation with one person, in hopes of spreading interspecies amity, or perhaps scuttling their nefarious bug- eyed plans. The conversation, near as I recall it, went like this: Andy: Excuse me, what time is it? Alien Life Form: It is eight minutes to two. Andy: If this test is going to start at two, they'll have to get moving on the registration. Alien Life Form: Are you concerned that the test might start late, and cut down on your test-taking time? Andy: No. I'm sure they'll give us the full time, and just run late. Alien Life Form: It makes no difference to me. I took a practice test last night, and I finished an hour ahead of time. Andy: Really! Which test? Alien Life Form: Physics. Andy: (removes blaster pistol) DIE INVADER! Well, okay, I may have embellished at the end. Suffice it to say, however, that our alien made several crucial mistakes in our conversation: 1) He used absolutely no words with apostrophes. Try doing it some time. It requires some thought; few conversations use no contractions at all. 2) He was unbearably snotty. Some people are like that, but we usually try to weed them out in college. By the time they reach graduation, they've usually been reduced to helpless bits of jelly by the force of will of their peers. It's all part of the cycle of nature, man. 3) When giving me the time, he did not look at his watch. We registered for the test and sat down. The registration went ridiculously smooth, since the aliens formed up in orderly lines, and they had also clearly dominated the proctors with some kind of mind-control ray. The proctors read the mind-numbingly boring instructions, every word of which was hung upon by the inhumans, and the test started. DING! That test was HARD. I'm sorry, call me a moron, but the engineering subject test was 140 questions of sheer hell. We had 170 minutes to answer all questions, some of which required quite a bit of calculation. I skipped over the ones that looked really work-intensive and did the ones I could do quickly. I got all the way through the test that way with about ten minutes to spare; I only got through about three or four of the skippers before time was called. I think I did well on the exam, but more time would have helped. Not so for the alien invaders: when I looked up, I discovered I was one of the few persons still sitting in the room. It seems my talkative extra-terrestrial wasn't boasting. He cruised well into the test. Now that I think about it, I wish I hadn't just embellished with the blaster pistol. The worst bit is, one of the people who vacated the test center early was my lovely and charming wife. AUGH! the aliens have *gotten* to her! If you see Dema, ask her if she's had any 'strange visions', or if the 'little voices' have given her new instructions recently. Above all, if she starts making mountains out of her mashed potatos, LET ME KNOW. In the meantime, keep a sharp eye peeled for aliens. They are here on earth, dwelling among us, trying to destroy our defenses and will from within. They are clever, but they have one disadvantage: their entire set of behavior patterns are based on episodes of _Dobie_Gillis_. If you happen to spot such an individual, do not call the police -- we can't trust 'em anymore. Take care of 'em yourself. You know what to do.