I have low gpa, but i want to go to grad school in diff subj

[riceOnWok]

I graduated from a top undergraduate program in applied mathematics with a general GPA of 2.91, subject GPA of 3.13 from a T1, or T2 applied math program in the nation. I found that my GPA don `t reflect my true capacity, and that i chosen the wrong subject to get a degree in. My low GPA might also be due to the fact that i tend to pick "hard classes" without regard much for my GPA.

My current objective is to go to graduate school in economics. I never took a single course in economics, but i tend to find myself reading economic journal articles in the field. I am interested in contract theory, and game theory. Since i have low GPA, and hardly a single course in economics. How am i going to find admission in a top research program in the world?
I plan to do the following to help solve my two problems( GPA, and course requirement):

I plan to be a non-matriculated student at UCLA, or UCSD for 4 continuous quarters, and take only, and only economic courses. I plan to network with my professors, so that they may write to a good recommendation when i ask them.

By doing the above, I would hope to convince the admission people in economic graduate that i can do it. Doing the above would also generate new problems:

The opportunities cost wasted for that one year.

Since i am a matriculated student, i am given low course priority.

No financial assistance from government.

Give that fact that i did year of economic courses, economic admission people might still reject me from consideration due to my previous low undergrad performance.

After one year of taking economic courses, i will apply to a host of masters(T11-T20), and phd programs(T1-T5).

Will my plan work?

[HappyQuark]

I graduated from a top undergraduate program in applied mathematics with a general GPA of 2.91, subject GPA of 3.13 from a T1, or T2 applied math program in the nation. I found that my GPA don `t reflect my true capacity, and that i chosen the wrong subject to get a degree in. My low GPA might also be due to the fact that i tend to pick "hard classes" without regard much for my GPA.

My current objective is to go to graduate school in economics. I never took a single course in economics, but i tend to find myself reading economic journal articles in the field. I am interested in contract theory, and game theory. Since i have low GPA, and hardly a single course in economics. How am i going to find admission in a top research program in the world?
I plan to do the following to help solve my two problems( GPA, and course requirement):

I plan to be a non-matriculated student at UCLA, or UCSD for 4 continuous quarters, and take only, and only economic courses. I plan to network with my professors, so that they may write to a good recommendation when i ask them.

By doing the above, I would hope to convince the admission people in economic graduate that i can do it. Doing the above would also generate new problems:

The opportunities cost wasted for that one year.

Since i am a matriculated student, i am given low course priority.

No financial assistance from government.

Give that fact that i did year of economic courses, economic admission people might still reject me from consideration due to my previous low undergrad performance.

After one year of taking economic courses, i will apply to a host of masters(T11-T20), and phd programs(T1-T5).

Will my plan work?

This is in every conceivable way the wrong forum to ask this question. In case you didn't spot the giant blobby blue and red letters at the top of this page, this forum is called PhysicsGRE.com and the members of this forum are mostly concerned with and, for the most part, can only comment on issues relating to the GRE exam and admissions to Physics,Astronomy and Engineering programs.

[riceOnWok]

I suspect the difference between the two is not all that great, and so i ask my question here. Both econ and physics have GRE requirement. Both rely a lot on mathematics. People in both discipline publish papers for a living.

[HappyQuark]

I suspect the difference between the two is not all that great, and so i ask my question here. Both econ and physics have GRE requirement. Both rely a lot on mathematics. People in both discipline publish papers for a living.

I would argue that they there in fact extremely different. They both require the General GRE but in physics admissions, your scores are so insignificant as to practically be unnecessary. Economics has no subject GRE, which is what the title of the forum actually references, as opposed to the general GRE. In the case of graduate school admissions in physics, your primary objective is to demonstrate research capability via undergrad research experience and letters of recommendation. I freely confess that I have no idea what economics admissions committees look for (which I suppose is precisely the reason I claimed we were the wrong people to ask) but I'm sure that the things an econ committee look at and with what weight they judge the aspects of your application is quite different from in physics.

[WhoaNonstop]

I suspect the difference between the two is not all that great, and so i ask my question here. Both econ and physics have GRE requirement. Both rely a lot on mathematics. People in both discipline publish papers for a living.

I don't know man. Economics math is pretty damn hard compared to what we are required to do in Physics.

-Riley

[riceOnWok]

I suspect the difference between the two is not all that great, and so i ask my question here. Both econ and physics have GRE requirement. Both rely a lot on mathematics. People in both discipline publish papers for a living.

I would argue that they there in fact extremely different. They both require the General GRE but in physics admissions, your scores are so insignificant as to practically be unnecessary. Economics has no subject GRE, which is what the title of the forum actually references, as opposed to the general GRE. In the case of graduate school admissions in physics, your primary objective is to demonstrate research capability via undergrad research experience and letters of recommendation. I freely confess that I have no idea what economics admissions committees look for (which I suppose is precisely the reason I claimed we were the wrong people to ask) but I'm sure that the things an econ committee look at and with what weight they judge the aspects of your application is quite different from in physics.

No gre in economics? What hell do you called this http://emoney.al.ru/english/gresubject.htm#economics

[HappyQuark]

I suspect the difference between the two is not all that great, and so i ask my question here. Both econ and physics have GRE requirement. Both rely a lot on mathematics. People in both discipline publish papers for a living.

I would argue that they there in fact extremely different. They both require the General GRE but in physics admissions, your scores are so insignificant as to practically be unnecessary. Economics has no subject GRE, which is what the title of the forum actually references, as opposed to the general GRE. In the case of graduate school admissions in physics, your primary objective is to demonstrate research capability via undergrad research experience and letters of recommendation. I freely confess that I have no idea what economics admissions committees look for (which I suppose is precisely the reason I claimed we were the wrong people to ask) but I'm sure that the things an econ committee look at and with what weight they judge the aspects of your application is quite different from in physics.

No gre in economics? What hell do you called this http://emoney.al.ru/english/gresubject.htm#economics

I had never heard of a subject exam for economics so I decided to check the ETS website and found, as I expected, that there isn't one.

http://www.ets.org/gre/subject/about/content/

Upon further inspection, I discovered that at one point they offered a number of other subject exams, including one on economics, but they were discontinued with the primary reasoning tending to be that not enough people were taking them in these fields.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_R ... xamination

In addition to the General Test, there are also eight GRE Subject Tests testing knowledge in the specific areas of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology; Biology; GRE Chemistry; Computer Science; Literature in English; Mathematics; Physics; and Psychology. The length of the exams are 170 minutes.
In the past, subject tests were also offered in the areas of Economics, Revised Education, Engineering, Geology, History, Music, Political Science, and Sociology. In April 1998, the Revised Education and Political Science exams were discontinued. In April 2000, the History and Sociology exams were discontinued, and the other four were discontinued in April 2001.

I don't mean to be rude, but it took me all of an entire minute to go to the ETS website to see that an Econ exam wasn't offered and to do a google search to find out why your link claimed there was one. Then again, I shouldn't have to be the one to tell you what exams you do and don't need to be taking and, for that matter, which exams even exist and are used as a part of the admissions process to an economics program. It's your future at stake and if you can't be bothered to visit the website of the organization administering the test, then perhaps you have answered your question about whether you are actually cut out for a future that requires so much critical thinking.

Since I've made a number of harsh, albeit true, statements and I don't want to come off as a jerk, here is a picture of a hamster with a friendly message

[grae313]

Finally! I can take a rest from my job of telling the idiots that they are idiots. HappyQuark, you are a forum ***-talker of the highest caliber.

Carry on.

[WhoaNonstop]

I'll be shocked if that guy even posts again.

-Riley

[riceOnWok]

I made the mistake, and there is no excuse for it. Regardless, my question still hold. For the person that called me an "idiot". *** you. It is not a big deal mistake, and i was rushing when i made that reply, moron.

[HappyQuark]

I made the mistake, and there is no excuse for it. Regardless, my question still hold. For the person that called me an "idiot". *** you. It is not a big deal mistake, and i was rushing when i made that reply, moron.

Again, I'm going to preface my very rude response by saying, I don't mean to be rude but...

Regardless of whether your question is valid, we still don't know the answer to it. The majority of users on the site are undergraduates who haven't gone through the admissions process for any program and a very small percentage of the users went through the process but only in physics. If you do a search of the forum, you'll find that we spend a lot of time speculating on the physics admissions process, meaning that among the group, we know relatively little about the actual process and can't do much in the way of predicting success. What hope do we have of predicting any measure of success in a field we know little to nothing about?

As to the rest of your post, your comment wasn't just a mistake, it was a major oversight. Somehow you convinced yourself that you needed to take a test that hasn't existed for 10 years. Did you not once look at the ETS website? Have you never looked at the admissions requirements for any graduate schools? Presumably they haven't all been asking for test scores on an exam that is no longer taken. I point this out not to make you feel bad but to highlight how ridiculous your excuse is. Do you suppose that while in graduate school, you can explain away shoddy work and bad research by saying "sure I managed to miss a fundamental piece of information that should have taken mere minutes to discover, but I rushed so you can't criticize me". So far you've displayed a complete inability to do the smallest amount of personal research without a ridiculous amount of hand holding and, again, I have to wonder if this isn't indicative of how difficult it will be doing actual 'big boy' research.

[riceOnWok]

I made the mistake, and there is no excuse for it. Regardless, my question still hold. For the person that called me an "idiot". *** you. It is not a big deal mistake, and i was rushing when i made that reply, moron.

Again, I'm going to preface my very rude response by saying, I don't mean to be rude but...

Regardless of whether your question is valid, we still don't know the answer to it. The majority of users on the site are undergraduates who haven't gone through the admissions process for any program and a very small percentage of the users went through the process but only in physics. If you do a search of the forum, you'll find that we spend a lot of time speculating on the physics admissions process, meaning that among the group, we know relatively little about the actual process and can't do much in the way of predicting success. What hope do we have of predicting any measure of success in a field we know little to nothing about?

As to the rest of your post, your comment wasn't just a mistake, it was a major oversight. Somehow you convinced yourself that you needed to take a test that hasn't existed for 10 years. Did you not once look at the ETS website? Have you never looked at the admissions requirements for any graduate schools? Presumably they haven't all been asking for test scores on an exam that is no longer taken. I point this out not to make you feel bad but to highlight how ridiculous your excuse is. Do you suppose that while in graduate school, you can explain away shoddy work and bad research by saying "sure I managed to miss a fundamental piece of information that should have taken mere minutes to discover, but I rushed so you can't criticize me". So far you've displayed a complete inability to do the smallest amount of personal research without a ridiculous amount of hand holding and, again, I have to wonder if this isn't indicative of how difficult it will be doing actual 'big boy' research.

Did you just say "big boy research"? Pathetic. I been mining open problems in technical journals when i was in *** junior high.
Do you really think there is much of a difference between physics, and econ? The latter being more competitive because more people want to go into investment banking, than pretending to be Einstein. Ultimately, graduate school is for producing researchers. The primary function of a researcher is to write papers, present results, and reproduce new researchers.

If you cannot help me, then you are useless to me. It is laughable that you think you represent the voice of everyone else in this forum.

[HappyQuark]

I made the mistake, and there is no excuse for it. Regardless, my question still hold. For the person that called me an "idiot". *** you. It is not a big deal mistake, and i was rushing when i made that reply, moron.

Again, I'm going to preface my very rude response by saying, I don't mean to be rude but...

Regardless of whether your question is valid, we still don't know the answer to it. The majority of users on the site are undergraduates who haven't gone through the admissions process for any program and a very small percentage of the users went through the process but only in physics. If you do a search of the forum, you'll find that we spend a lot of time speculating on the physics admissions process, meaning that among the group, we know relatively little about the actual process and can't do much in the way of predicting success. What hope do we have of predicting any measure of success in a field we know little to nothing about?

As to the rest of your post, your comment wasn't just a mistake, it was a major oversight. Somehow you convinced yourself that you needed to take a test that hasn't existed for 10 years. Did you not once look at the ETS website? Have you never looked at the admissions requirements for any graduate schools? Presumably they haven't all been asking for test scores on an exam that is no longer taken. I point this out not to make you feel bad but to highlight how ridiculous your excuse is. Do you suppose that while in graduate school, you can explain away shoddy work and bad research by saying "sure I managed to miss a fundamental piece of information that should have taken mere minutes to discover, but I rushed so you can't criticize me". So far you've displayed a complete inability to do the smallest amount of personal research without a ridiculous amount of hand holding and, again, I have to wonder if this isn't indicative of how difficult it will be doing actual 'big boy' research.

Did you just say "big boy research"? Pathetic.

I'm not sure why it is pathetic. It is a colloquial phrase meant to convey the stark contrast in difficulty between graduate research and using Google to find a website.

I been mining open problems in technical journals when i was in *** junior high.

Now now, there is no reason to start throwing around the triple stars. Just out of curiosity, what aspect of searching the internet for an organization website did you find you couldn't overcome, despite your veritable wealth of junior high research skills?

Do you really think there is much of a difference between physics, and econ? The latter being more competitive because more people want to go into investment banking, than pretending to be Einstein.

I seem to recall from my economics coursework a thing called the supply and demand curve. If memory serves, the cost of something (or for the purposes of our discussion the relative competitiveness) is dictated not solely by the demand for the thing but also by the available supply. In other words, economics would only be the more competitive field if the demand for economists vs the number of people trying to become economists gave us a higher competitiveness than the demand for physicists vs the number of people trying to become physicists.

And to answer your question, yes I do think physics and econ are very different. Not to side step the question, but had you planned on going into Econ-Theory, Econ-Experiment or Econ-Phenomenology?

If you cannot help me, then you are useless to me.

That was the very first thing I said to you! The fact that you are just figuring this out now is, once again, upsetting and belies your world class junior high research SkILLz! None of us are going to be helpful to you in any meaningful way. Any one of us can tell you that your very low GPA will hurt your chances but you didn't need anyone to tell you that. We can also confirm that having taken no courses in economics will almost surely not be helpful in getting you "admission in a top research program in the world" which you also should already know. I can tell you as a fact that you would not get into a top level physics program if you only took non-physics classes and then sat in as a non-matriculated student in some physics classes for a couple semesters. However, like I said that is physics and again I don't know if econ admissions committees are concerned about whether or not you did things as extreme as "taking relevant classes". The fact that you get warm fuzzies when reading articles about econ might be sufficient for their program, but none of us will know that.

Despite my better judgment, I've gone ahead and done some more research for you (eventually you are going to have to learn to do this on your own). If you go to any of the graduate programs you are interested, they list the minimum departmental requirements for admissions and so far a number of them require you to have taken and passed actual courses in economics. Unless the undergraduate university you will be attending is somehow special, I'd imagine being a non-matriculated student and taking an econ class doesn't actually get you a grade and transcripts to send off to these schools and you will have failed to meet this basic requirement. As such, you might consider finding out which schools actually will allow you admission without econ coursework on your transcript.

As a small side note, I find it amusing that you simultaneously believe that physics research and economics research are in essence the same thing and yet you also maintain that you can and should be able to attend a premier economics graduate program despite having taken almost no courses in the subject. I assure you this is something you couldn't do in physics.

It is laughable that you think you represent the voice of everyone else in this forum.

I'm not sure where you feel I claimed to speak for the forum. I did suggest that nobody would be able to help you but that is just an inevitable consequence of asking a question to the wrong group of people. Out of curiosity, did you ever think to ask an economics professor at the school you went to for your math degree or at UCLA/UCSD? It's my understanding that most professors host these one on one meetings between students that they refer to as "office hours" and if you don't feel comfortable discussing your half-baked plans to them face to face, you can use one of these newfangled devices the kids are calling the computer, which apparently gives you the ability to send electronic letters.

Here is a picture of a smiling kitten. Enjoy!

[grae313]

goddamn, that's a cute kitten.

FYI the language filter automatically puts stars in place of genuine emotion unless you disable this in your CP.

For the person that called me an "idiot". *** you. It is not a big deal mistake, and i was rushing when i made that reply, moron.

loooooooooooooool!

[WhoaNonstop]

Do you really think there is much of a difference between physics, and econ? The latter being more competitive because more people want to go into investment banking, than pretending to be Einstein.

First of all, I'm not sure how we can compare field "competitiveness." However, I'm sure you have some interesting data to back it up. With that being said, I've known more people in Physics who have traversed over to "Investment Banking" or stock market jobs and I can't recall ever hearing an economics major move over to a physics related career.

Also, I did a little searching and found that not all students in an economics graduate program receive a fellowship or assistance ship. However, it is very rare for a student in Physics to not get one of these awards to help pay for school. It seems much more "economical" to get a graduate physics degree.

All in all I think we have solved your problem here: You should forget this economics idea and try to take classes to get into a Physics program, where you will receive a stipend to cover any expenses and you will have a degree that you can use in versatile ways.

This shouldn't be any problem for you, since economics and physics are basically "the same."

-Riley

[kroner]

Physics is a hard science which means physicists are entitled to belittle economists at will. It's clearly stated in the rules.

However, those of us in math get to lord it over all a y'all.
QUEEN OF THE SCIENCES. YOU CANNOT TOUCH THAT.

[schwiss]

Is mathematics a science? I always thought it was just a tool.

[kroner]

No it's not a science, it's the queen of the sciences. Like how the queen of blades is not a blade, or the king of pop is not a pop. Just think of it like Willy Wonka and the oompa-loompas.

[HappyQuark]

Is mathematics a science? I always thought it was just a tool.

You are close. Mathematicians are tools but not mathematics.

Ok, not really but I couldn't resist.

[schwiss]

No it's not a science, it's the queen of the sciences. Like how the queen of blades is not a blade, or the king of pop is not a pop. Just think of it like Willy Wonka and the oompa-loompas.

So she's only a relic of old ages, without any function other than to pretend to be important?

[WhoaNonstop]

However, those of us in math get to lord it over all a y'all.
QUEEN OF THE SCIENCES. YOU CANNOT TOUCH THAT.

Wonderful, you're putting the original poster of this thread at the top of the pyramid. What a spectacular idea...

-Riley

[grae313]

This shouldn't be any problem for you, since economics and physics are basically "the same."

To be fair, I think the OP was only trying to claim that the nature of the studies and the mechanics of a the graduate programs were similar. Even an idiot like this one wouldn't try to say that the subject matter is similar in more than a few minor ways.

[riceOnWok]

.........

Do you have nothing better to do that to waste your life write long post here? For your information, i did ask many admission people, and they all advise me to do what i wrote in the op. You do want to know me, since you take the effort to research the school i went to. How pathetic. "junior high research"? Can you not *** read?

[riceOnWok]

This shouldn't be any problem for you, since economics and physics are basically "the same."

To be fair, I think the OP was only trying to claim that the nature of the studies and the mechanics of a the graduate programs were similar. Even an idiot like this one wouldn't try to say that the subject matter is similar in more than a few minor ways.

I am an "idiot"? This is funny. You made my day.

[WhoaNonstop]

Do you have nothing better to do that to waste your life write long post here?

Well, I think he only spends about 1/3 of his time on this forum, another 1/3 getting decent enough grades to actually get into graduate school, and the other 1/3 of the time dressing up as spiderman and fighting crime.

For your information, i did ask many admission people, and they all advise me to do what i wrote in the op.

Did these admission people also tell you there was still an Economics GRE?

You do want to know me, since you take the effort to research the school i went to.

I don't see where he researched the school YOU went to. I don't even know how he'd be able to figure that out even if he tried. He was simply doing research to prove that you hadn't lifted a finger to do your own.

How pathetic. "junior high research"? Can you not *** read?

I can't read very well, but you obviously said: "I been mining open problems in technical journals when i was in *** junior high. " Does that not mean research in junior high?

-Riley

[grae313]

I am an "idiot"? This is funny. You made my day.

I find this a mutually beneficial relationship of day-making and I thank you, sir, for your services.

[HappyQuark]

.........

I think you misquoted me here. At no point in my rambling did I ever say "dot dot dot, dot dot, dot dot dot dot".

Do you have nothing better to do that to waste your life write long post here?

I assure you I spent no significantly measurable amount of time writing any of the responses you see above.

For your information, i did ask many admission people, and they all advise me to do what i wrote in the op.

Ok, great! Remind me again why you then decided to re-ask the question to a bunch of anonymous strangers who know very little about economics or the graduate admissions process in that field when you were already given very specific instructions from economics professors on how to best handle your situation.

If you wanted to become a famous pianist and you were given advice from instructors at Juliard, would you then turn around and ask the members of electricguitarforums.com what their thoughts on the matter are?

You do want to know me, since you take the effort to research the school i went to. How pathetic.

I would hardly call reading your original post an effort to "reasearch the school (you) went to". Did you forget that you specifically said, "I plan to be a non-matriculated student at UCLA, or UCSD for 4 continuous quarters, and take only...."? The crux of your problem seems to be that any slight use of brain power, in your mind, equates to elaborate and time consuming research and you just can't be bothered. Out of curiosity, when you claim to have started doing research in Junior high, are you using the same criteria you've been using in your previous posts? If so, I regret to inform you that the following thought does not qualify as scientific research:

"Dude, like what if all of reality was just a dream. Like an alien was having this dream and we were just a part of that dream world and all of our interactions weren't real. Dudeeeee!!!"

[WhoaNonstop]

"Dude, like what if all of reality was just a dream. Like an alien was having this dream and we were just a part of that dream world and all of our interactions weren't real. Dudeeeee!!!"

I sure hope we end up at the same school so we can talk more deeply about this.

-Riley

[HappyQuark]

You do want to know me, since you take the effort to research the school i went to. How pathetic.

After re-reading what you said, I decided to address this bit again but more thoroughly. Frankly, I'm a little annoyed that you would accuse me of stalking based off of one of your classic memory lapses that we've all grown to know and love so much. The original comment, and only comment, that I made which references any universities was

Out of curiosity, did you ever think to ask an economics professor at the school you went to for your math degree or at UCLA/UCSD?

Before pressing forward I'd like to propose a completely ridiculous and radical description of language that may be hard to grasp but is absolutely crucial to understanding my argument

1. Words have meanings
2. Permutations of a sentence, which we will define as a meaningful combination of words, alters the meaning of the sentence (i.e. The property of associativity doesn't hold in the English language)

Now, looking back at my original post let's analyze the aspect of my sentence in red, which reads "at the school you went to for your math degree". Reading the section before this, we can clearly see that the sentence in red is referencing the act of asking a professor. That is to say, I unambiguously asked you if you had spoken to any professors at the university at which you earned your math degree. At no point in that sentence did I name a specific university and so surely it couldn't be this section in which you feel I revealed your undergraduate institution.

Now, let's look at the word in bold black letters, specifically or. In the english language, words like 'or' aswell as 'and' are used to describe the relationship between two distinct statements. I chose to use the word 'or' and more specifically the inclusive 'or', meaning that either the statement before the 'or' was true, the statement after the 'or' was true or both of the statements were true.

Finally, looking at the section in blue, which reads "at UCLA/UCSD" we can see from the previous analysis that this sentence also references the same section prior to the red. That is to say, it asked whether you had spoken to any of the professors at UCLA or UCSD about your predicament. The fact that the words "at the school you went to" and "UCLA/UCSD" are in the same sentence does not mean, by virtue of my use of the word 'or', that I am suggesting that you went to UCLA or UCSD for your undergraduate education. To make things abundantly clear, here is an unnecessarily verbose version of the question I asked you (as if this whole post wasn't already overly verbose)

"riceOnWok, did you ever speak to any economics professors at your undergraduate institution (i.e. the one where you got your math degree) about your plans? riceOnWok, did you ever speak to any economics professors at UCLA or UCSD, (i.e. the two universities which you explicitly told us that you were going to go to so that you could take unofficial coursework in economics)."

As my formal literary analysis has demonstrated, at no time did I declare your UG institution in the forum. However, the fact that you feel that I did from a mis-reading/misunderstanding of my post means that you, on the other hand, did accidentally declare to us your UG institution, or at least narrowed it down to 2 choices. I'll assume that this settles the matter and, for the purposes of gaining a bit of PhysicsGRE street cred and inciting simultaneous fear and respect into the heart of all who tread these dangerous waters, I'll end with.



In case it wasn't clear, I'm the cute white kitten bustin' out made bboy tRickz and you're the taby that "got served'.

[twistor]

pffffttt.... internet cat jokes are sooooooo passe.

[HappyQuark]

pffffttt.... internet cat jokes are sooooooo passe.

If you can think of something better to soften the blow when reality strikes, I'm all ears.

In the mean time, to mix things up here is a LoLRat

[twistor]

whoooooshhhh....


the sound of my joke going over your head....

[HappyQuark]

whoooooshhhh....


the sound of my joke going over your head....

I got the joke just fine and my response was not serious. Explaining a joke always ruins it but it seems you've left me no choice.

You stated that "internet cat jokes are soooooooo passe" which was ever so cute and clever coming from the forum member who undoubtedly holds the record for the longest use of a lolcat styled image as an avatar. The first sentence in my response was meant to poke fun at the OP, specifically that his plans were so ill-conceived that when he eventually accepts facts, the only thing that can console him will be photos of cats in silly poses with grammatically poor captions. The second sentence was a joke because it asserts that when a forum is over-saturated with lolcats, lolrats are somehow still acceptable despite the fact that the essence of a lolcats references isn't about them being cats but about, more generally, animals with clever captions that paint them in a human light. This reference is then driven home by the fact that I specifically chose a lolrat that referenced an excess of lolcats.

I hope your confusion was just a minor slip and not a sign that you are losing your touch. After all this time I've come to expect so much more from you.

[twistor]

Sarcasm doesn't always come across in text. I would've believed you if you said you got the joke, no explanation required.

I hope your confusion was just a minor slip and not a sign that you are losing your touch.

Maybe I'm getting too old for this :\