There And Back Again

Today's picture is also from New York; it's an amalgam of several billboards up in Times Square.

Today has been an EXTREMELY eventful day! In the midst of this terrible snowstorm that has been menacing the Midwest, but which fortunately mostly missed us here (or the snow, at least did), one of my friends and I had to drive to to a larger city about 45 minutes away to take the GRE this morning. We opted to take my SUV because it has four-wheel-drive and we were worried about the bad weather, so I got stuck driving. Lucky me.

I was already terrified about the test itself; having to worry about whether I was even going to make it there, much less back again, didn't really help. Fortunately we made it safely, took the test, I got decent (if average) scores, and we made it back. All of this despite the fact that when we left here this morning I was driving through whiteout conditions and for the first 15 or 20 minutes couldn't see 5 feet in front of my car. Fun.

And then when we had finally arrived in the city and assumed that we were home free, I somehow managed to hit the one section of ice on a fairly busy street just as I was accelerating and suddenly my car was sliding all over the road. It turned one way, then slid another, we hit and bounced off the curb fairly hard, and then suddenly I was in control again. Whew! That could have been really bad. If there had been a car in the lane next to me we would have collided, because I was definitely turned sideways and sliding down both lanes at a point early in the skid. Then we slid the other way, hit the curb, slid back the first way again, and then were finally straight. It's fortunate I was able to regain control before we hit something more vital than the curb, or or hit it harder and were forced up onto it. Those were a really scary few moments and I was definitely shaking with adrenaline for the next 20 minutes or so.

I've never come so close to having an actual accident before. I mean, I grew up in Iowa--which means that I grew up driving in bad weather and on snow-covered roads--so as a result, fishtailing is not a new experience to me. But that was in a small town with sleepy, quiet roads and it had never been that uncontrolled before. Usually I just slide a little bit and easily correct for it. Here I had absolutely no control, at least for most of it. It didn't help that I had just been accelerating so I was probably going about 40 mph and I was sliding towards an intersection and waiting red light waaaay too fast for my comfort. You know how you're not supposed to touch either of the pedals when you're sliding? Well, I had to use the brakes because we were going too fast and for a second there I had been afraid that we might tip over, so luckily tapping the brakes helped instead of making it worse. That's part of what helped me get my behemoth back under control again; otherwise we might have kept sliding.

Once that little adventure was over we made it safely to the test center. Again, we were extremely lucky because we knew we weren't going to make the 8:30 start time for the test, so we had called to tell them about the bad road conditions and ask what would happen if we didn't make it. Luckily they were nice and were willing to let us start the test late, i.e. whenever we got there, instead of just saying, "too bad, you weren't here on time, you can't take the test so your money is gone," which they could have done. If we hadn't been able to make it today then the fee we paid, a whopping $150 dollars (that neither of us can really afford) would have been gone and we would have had to pay it again to take the test some other day. It's a ridiculous policy and one that led us to risk our lives, or at least my car, by venturing out into today's nasty weather.

I was so worried about the GRE, and then it turned out be a lot easier than I expected. Not easy, certainly; but easi-ER. I did okay on the Verbal section: 660. I had hoped for something a little bit higher, say around 700, mostly to compensate for the abysmal Quantitative score I was anticipating, but I did better on that then I expected with a 370. Still far, far from good or even average, but better than I was expecting and higher than the minimum (300) required for most of the schools I'm interested in. I also beat the minimum for Verbal (600), but not by much--which does have me a little worried. Minimum just isn't good enough with all the competition out there for these spots.

Solitary Sentinel

A short time ago I made the decision to go to apply to graduate school next year. Of course, that decision has brought the requisite headaches and snafu's that are slowly driving me out of my mind. I knew that this process would be full of hassles, but I feel like I'm hitting a roadblock at every turn. Each time I feel like I've triumphed, somehow managing to overcome what felt like an insurmountable obstacle, I immediately turn around and run face-first into another one!

At first my biggest (and most basic!) problem was deciding exactly what course of study I wanted to pursue. The problem is that there are so many fields of study that I find fascinating, and also that I wasn't really sure precisely what I wanted to do with my life. I couldn't settle on a career because there were so many options and none really stood out more than the rest. Eventually, after several discussions with several former professors, I settled on journalism.

Journalism is a field that not only fascinates me, but one that has so much power and capability to do good, and it seems like that power has been misused in the past decade (i.e. the 2002-3 run-up to Iraq invasion). I've also been a bit of a news junkie for the past several years, and something that never ceases to infuriate me is the lack of coverage for serious issues while the headlines splashed all over the country usually involve Lindsay Lohan's latest stint in rehab or which celebrity is cheating with which other celebrity. How do the usually excessive and often criminal peccadilloes of celebrities trump the invasion of a country and the deaths of hundreds to thousands of innocent people, such as when Russia invaded Georgia or Israel attacked Gaza? Both times neither event was the leading headline. Things like that are what I would like to change.

The biggest challenge facing me, however, is the possibility of getting into grad school. Because right now my chances are not looking good. I spent several hours this afternoon with a friend studying for the GRE, which really means taking a practice test. Disappointingly, I didn't do as well on the Verbal section as I had hoped, but it wasn't that bad and if I study it should be fine. However, the real problem was with the Quantitative section. In other words: the bane of my existence since first grade. I hate math. My brain just isn't wired for it. When I was reading those practice questions, it was like trying to read Japanese. It made absolutely no sense. Even when my friend was trying to help me by working through the problems and explaining them as she went, I wasn't getting any of it. Some of it sounded vaguely familiar, misty remnants from long-ago classes that, like smoke, were gone as soon as I tried to grasp them.

I'm seriously worried about taking the GRE now, because I don't think I'll be able to pass the Quantitative section with a score that will allow me get into any school I like. Or any school at all. Even if I do better on the Verbal than I expect, it won't be enough to offset the abysmal Quantitative score I'm expecting, and all the programs I'm interested in require a minimum of (usually) 1000-1100 for admission.

It's really too bad, because I was just getting excited about all this research I've been doing and finding programs that I really like and daydreaming about all the possibilities. I'm still definitely going to pursue it, though, and cracking the GRE will be my first step. It's time to study, study, STUDY! At least until I actually take the test in a few weeks. Depending on my score, I'll decide then what will happen next once I have a concrete answer (how long does it take for you to get your score, anyway?) but until then I'm going to keep pressing forward with my research, reference letters, and personal statements until the very last minute.