The GREs are officially over. THANK THE GOOD LORD JESUS H CHRIST. I've never been that nervous about a test before. My future in grad school was largely dependent on the scores, which is a lot of pressure to be bearing down on me, and I normally put a lot of pressure on myself to do well. So the combination of those two factors was killer. I couldn't eat breakfast Friday morning, had a slice of toast for lunch, and couldn't eat dinner. Had a lot of trouble falling asleep that night, and couldn't eat breakfast on Saturday morning before the test. All nerves. At least I hadn't spent the night retching over the toilet again... heh... so anything other than that is a step up.
So the taxi comes to pick me up Sat morning, I had given myself an hour and 10 minutes to ensure that I'd get to the testing center on time. We're driving a long, I'm reviewing some notes, and the next thing I know a cop is dashing out in front of us in the middle of the street. He has a radar gun in his hand. Fuck. The cabbie was speeding, of course. So it takes about 20 minutes for him to write the ticket and send us back off on our way. heh. I was so close to losing it, but thankfully I had given myself that extra time.
The test itself was fairly tricky. Took me 3 1/2 hours. I'm very glad I prepared well, because I knew how to take certain shortcuts and could recognize some of the trick questions. The verbal was really hard, half the words in the antonyms and analogies were completely new to me.
Since the test is computerized, you actually get your verbal and quantitative results back immediately upon finishing. You get your score for the two essays in about 2-3 weeks. My scores pop up on the screen. Of course, I have no idea what they mean. I write them down and spend the whole cap ride home wondering if I did well or not. When I get home I googled GRE scores on the internet, and they give you all sorts of averages - depending on your field and such. Turns out I scored quite a bit above average! HOORA. Upon discovering this, a HUGE weight was lifted and I spent the next 20 minutes jumping up and down and squealing. heh. I've been ecstatic ever since.
Now I can
really start getting ridiculously excited for Ireland. 3 DAYS. Whoo!!
Listening to:
Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
Two big things coming up soon:
1.) I write my GREs (Graduate Requisite Exam to get into grad school) on the 24th. I'm incredibly nervous. There's a lot depending on these scores, and I'm having trouble with some of the practice questions. The math is simple, but hard - and no calculator. Those things together = bad times for Jo. It's all the fucking way in Cambridge, which means about 100$ in cab fare to get there. Like that makes anything easier on me. I'm going to spend this weekend (which was supposed to be spent with my cousin, Tracy) hibernating and studying for this damn thing. Am going out to Waterloo's best and cheapest dive on Saturday night, which is at least good. AHHHHH I'm starting to panic. Stupid future. Too much pressure.
2.) I leave for Ireland on the 28th. At least that's something to look immensely forward to. I'm so bloody excited. I have some euros already, they're perty :D So we're staying in Dublin for 2 nights, then off to Galway for 3 nights. Going to take a day trip to Connemara from Galway. Following that, we're off to Kilkenny for a night. Then back to Dublin for our last night, and we fly home the next morning. Going to be a fantastic time - meet people, see places, drink AUTHENTIC Guinness, and party my general ass off.
I bought a digital camera especially for the trip. It conveniently takes video and audio... heh.... Irish accents here I come!!!!!!
Listening to:
Out of Range - Ani DiFranco
Well, last night is officially worth blogging:
see the article in the Montreal Gazette,
here.
Hoards of greek individuals stormed the streets of downtown Montreal, driving around with multiple greek flags sticking out windows and repeatedly honking their horns. We had dinner outside on a terrace and there was hardly a 5 minute quite span in between bursts of honking. Crazy soccer loving people.
We went to see some free shows at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. We saw an amazing 13 year old kid from Ontario named Jimmy Bowskill. I've never heard a voice like that coming out of such an unexpected package. He was an amazing guitarist to boot, very fun music. Following that was the huge 150,000 person free concert. It was the Funk Brothers headlining, with all the great motown songs. My Girl, Grapevine, Let's Get It On... all that fun stuff. I've never seen so many people crammed into 3 city blocks like that, it was insane. Humid, sweaty, and insane. Not to mention full of drunken dancing people. Good times.
Ireland approaches: 3 weeks and counting. WOOHOO!
