Thursday, April 21, 2011

Ennui? Who Me?

I'm lost. I just don't know what I want to do with myself these days. Truth be told, I'm a bit bored, but at the same time I'm not sure I'm willing to take on all of the stress of going back to teaching full time either, and there just aren't a lot of part time teaching options that I can live with. So, I'm thinking that I might go back to school in pursuit of either a second Masters or perhaps a PhD. It's in the let the idea bounce around in my head and see how it feels stage right now, so I'm researching the possibilities and trying to get all of my ducks in a row on the chance that I do decide to pursue this option.  One unfortunate requirement that I've already discovered is that most schools want a GRE score from within the last 5 years. Since I took the GRE 12 years ago, that means that I am going to have to retake that sucker. Enter today's delivery from Amazon.com:



Uggg. It's going to be a bit tougher this time around having been removed from the world of academia for so long. Preparation is the key. After doing a few practice sets of problems I have come to the following conclusions:

  •  At the risk of appearing hubristic, I have to say that I am fairly astute in the realm of verbal reasoning. This is one benefit of being a word nerd. Not to mention that I am also quite adept at guessing well. POE is not just a modern rock goddess people.  Still, there is always room for improvement. Since I look at learning new words as a game though, I don't really think that studying for this section will feel much like work to me. And bonus: this pursuit will in no way vitiate my moral fiber unless I focus too much on unvirtuous words--which I totally would not do. Vitiate is my new word of the day, by the way. I'm so going to own this. 
  •  My math? Meh. I used to be such a math brain too, but as they say--if you don't use it, you lose it. My life today has very little use for most algebraic functions and practically zero use for geometry theorems. While most of the problems I could reason my way through and figure out long hand, I just don't really have the patience for it. Or the desire. Plus the test is timed. Hence the purchase of the above book. I figure if I devote a month or two to brushing up on all of those formulas and rules and whatnot, I'll be good to go. That is my hope anyway. And if not, well I guess I'll just have to fall back on that guessing adeptness again. C. Always C.
  •  It appears that the word ennui is not only a favorite among poets and songwriters, but also the ETS question scribes. I'd put further thought into the reasons for this (easy to rhyme? everything sounds better in French?) but frankly, between the start of this bullet and now, I've completely lost interest. As I imagine you have too.

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