GRE(AT NEWS!)

Quick update: I've taught my last real class of the semester. I teach again on Monday, but it's a review session. I've told the students to come prepared with questions because I'm not going to be planning anything in particular. While I do want to help those students that need the help and are willing to ask for it, I'm hoping that most of the class will be a no-show. Or at least, I hope that there's not really that many questions to be answered. I'm more than ready to be done with it all. Plus, I'm working on a free will paper for my directed readings course. It's coming along, but it has to be done by next week, which is also when I'll be grading a bunch of final papers for the class I'm teaching. Yikes.

But I might as well share some good news. A while back I heard that the format of the GRE was going to be changed after July. The GRE, or Graduate Record Examination, is a test that many graduate programs require their applicants to take, including all of the Ph.D. programs I will be applying to this fall. I took the GRE a couple of years ago and could theoretically just re-use my old score, but I took the exam without prepping for it at all. All things considered, I scored fairly well, but my goal was to actually study for it this summer and then take it before July was over, while the format would still be familiar to me. I felt fairly confident that with a little bit of effort, I could get a score worth bragging about. Of course, that was before I got into teaching and realized there would be no such thing as study time. Before I knew it, it was halfway through July and I mentally kissed my chance of retaking the GRE in the familiar format goodbye.

Well, the other day I looked into the GRE again, and I learned that they are no longer revamping the test. That means I can take the exam anytime in August or September or even later and it will basically be the same as when I took it before. Different questions, of course, but same format. That means that the study guide I bought needn't go to waste. And, even better, I can wrap up my summer teaching before I worry about studying. I can't tell you how joyous this information made me. I honestly felt completely renewed, like I'd been given a second chance at my collegiate life.

That's how I felt for a day or two, at least. Now I'm back to stressing because I have less than two weeks between grades being due and the beginning of the fall semester. Fall is going to be one of the busiest times of my life EVER, so I can't push anything off until then. During the interim between summer semester and fall semester, I am therefore hoping not only to do some GRE studying, but I am also hoping to bulk up on some logic skills so I can test out of the logic class that is required by my program. I don't know that I'll have time to adequately do the latter, but I've got to give it a shot. If I don't test out of it, I'm stuck taking the logic class in the fall, which is really not what I want to be doing. Because I'll be teaching at least two classes, I don't think I can handle taking more than one class for credit, and I don't want it to be logic. But it might have to be. I guess I'll know soon enough...