Done and DONE

Test is done. 

B is home. 

Life is goooooood. 

Twenty-fifth night

Tomorrow's the big day. I think I care more about the fact that B's home tomorrow than about the test. My priorities might be a little screwy, I admit. 

I tried to wear myself out enough today that I'll sleep soundly tonight, regardless of the multiple sources of jitters. Either way, these last few weeks have taught me that I can function marvelously well on less sleep than I ever thought before. 

Wanting to skip the next 15 hours. Where's a time machine when you want one?

Twenty-fourth night

Today was the final push.  Though I don't know how much of a "push" it was.  I did a full timed test.  Took a long lunch break where I took time to put away all the papers that had gathered in my pile(s).  I then did another test, but without the essays, and just timed each section rather than the whole thing.  I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that nearly all the mistakes I was making were pretty stupid.  Hopefully I'll be able to mitigate that on the actual test.

Tonight I just tried to do little house chores.  Tomorrow: cleaning, cake baking, self-pampering.  And no alarm clock.

And in less than 48 hours, he'll be back.

Twenty-third night

I don't think I've felt this fried since college.

Then again, I probably haven't studied this much since college.  What a (not) nice preview of what two years of grad school will be like!

Questioning everything in... 3...2...1...

Twenty-second night

Didn't get much done at all today in terms of studying.  Since I had a class and a doctor's appointment today, I already knew it was going to be a more challenging day to focus.  So I worked out, went to work, checked out the testing center, got home, ate, doctors appointment, grocery shopping, and then studying, starting at nearly 6pm.  Then I thought that since I hadn't gotten much sleep the last couple of nights, I might try and hit the sack early (DON'T want to get sick!) and just get a really good full productive day in tomorrow.  I do have a meeting at work, though it's only an hour.  And I've made late night dinner plans with a friend.  Then I have all day saturday.  And then hopefully, a day of rest before the exam.  I get nervous just thinking about it.  I really did wish I had a chance to retake this thing.  Then again, I also know that it's too expensive to do that, so I'm glad I don't even have the temptation.  I could do a lot of regretting of all the studying I didn't do, but that won't get me anywhere.  I'm just going to do my best given what I've done.  Eeeeeeek!

Twenty-first night

I'm feeling a bit tepid about it all, and at this point (tonight), I don't care.  I'm going to do how I'm going to do.  And there's probably not a lot I can do about it now.  I'll keep working, because at the very least it might calm my jitters on the day off.  But I'm done aiming for any sort of number.

It occurred to me that in a week, this will all be over.  Actually, it will already be so far behind me I'll already be moving on to the next plan of action.  I don't know whether that's a relief or just overwhelming.

At least he'll be back by then to help me, calm me.

Twentieth night

This afternoon/evening was definitely more productive than this morning.  Although, when I listed all that I had done today, it didn't really look like much in the end.  I did a short practice test - 2 timed math sections and 2 timed verbal sections, and then reviewed all my answers.  I also did 2 essays.  And I went through my math sets from last week, looking for any rules or notes that I made to consolidate them and then made a list of all the questions I got wrong.  I'm hoping to go through those in the new few days and do them again, hopefully with better results this time.  

I also called the testing company because I was trying to figure out how they do the whole score-sending thing.  Turns out, with your fee of $185, you get 4 free reports sent to institutions of your choosing.  But they're only free if you select which schools on the actual day of the test.  Say, you don't know any or only know a couple, then if you want to report them later, it's an additional $25 per school.  Ugh.  I absolutely hate paying into a system that's totally corrupt.  There's no administrative reason, that I can think of, that it would be more money to send results after taking the test.  It's all done online anyway.  So anyway, what that means for me is I'll probably end up shoveling more money over to them in the end because I don't quite have my shit together to know which schools I'm applying to yet.  I mean, I can put in three schools now because those are my guesses.  But because I'm not sure of anything yet, and probably won't be by Monday, I'll probably end up paying if I do apply to a program that I might decide to apply to later on.  But that kind of dilemma is pretty unavoidable for anyone who takes the test, so really, it's just them ripping off a portion of the population that can barely pay for it in the first place.  It just infuriates me.

Tonight's issue essay was a doozie, although, I might have pulled out something OK in the end (I didn't read the solution yet, but I'll do that tomorrow).  The prompt was: "The fact that technology is outpacing the needs of those in cultures that can afford the technology creates cultures of excess consumerism."  I just kind of stared at it for a while.  I wrote something that may or may not have been on topic.  Sometimes these questions - even the objective math ones - seem pretty confusing.  I'm sure it's just me, but it just doesn't seem right for such an exam.