I only have time for a short post today (famous last words, I hear you mumble) because I am supposed to be studying for the GRE, which I am preparing to take next week in my never-ending quest to be admitted back into a graduate writing program. (I said “admitted”, not “allowed”; a slight but important distinction.) In my weeks studying for the test, I have learned some very illuminating things about myself, the test, and other people:
- When my Geometry teacher asked me to promise never to take another Math class again as long as I lived, I should have listened.
- People who write questions for the GRE are the worst sorts of sadists.
- People who write self-help books for others to use to prepare for the GRE are the second-worst sorts of sadists.
- I am not nearly as smart as I thought I was, though I have discovered I’m nearly twice as literate, so perhaps that will even out on my scores.
- I would rather have my second mammogram this year than ever do this again.
- I should have taken the GRE immediately after completing my undergraduate degree, long before approaching middle age, motherhood, and a generally complete indifference to all topics mathematical or scientific robbed me of any remaining memory of having studied those topics.
- I am definitely not smarter than a 5th grader, which I can say with confidence, since I now live with one.
- People who have not taken the GRE do not understand when you say “No, I can’t go out to lunch today, I have to study”; or “No, I can’t serve on any committees right now”; or “What do you mean, ‘What’s for dinner tonight?'”(With all the fast food I’m subjecting them to this week, we’re becoming a walking ad for Lipitor.)
So there. Any additional GRE-related information I will have to share with you sometime next week, if I am still able to put together a coherent sentence after completing the non-Verbal portion of the test (I refer to it as “Nonverbal”, because I have a feeling that that is precisely how I will be after completing it: a gibbering, shaking, wreck of a human being who has lost the ability to speak.) Wish me luck…not that it will do any good, but at this point, I’d almost consider live animal sacrifices, if I thought it would help (PETA: I’m just kidding…)
Yeah, you really should have listened to your geometry teacher. What are sadists? Maybe it will even out your scores, but you never know… What’s a mammogram? Yeah, you should have taken it before motherhood, while you still remembered everything you needed to, such as what a ratio is… Yeah, you’re not smarter than a fifth grader, me being one. I know i’ve heard it before, but what is Lipitor?But you weren’t a gibbering, shaking, wreck of a human who has lost the ability to speak! The only thing that happened was that it fried your brain! How could you consider live animal sacrifices, even though you were kidding? You love animals!