Day 10

Day 10: I am grateful for my successful day of taking the GRE.

So, the standby worked. After a harrowing drive to Missoula in a crazy snowstorm, we made it last night. I got up this morning and went to the UM campus (where I felt very odd and slightly traitorous) and went to the testing center. I had been told by ETS to get there no later than 8, so I showed up at 7:45. There was a stressful twenty minutes of confusion when the testing center struggled with the differences between the GRE and the Subject GRE and where I was supposed to go since it's a paper test. (Really? It's 2012, ETS.) They were able to make some calls and find out that I was supposed to be in a different building. By this point, it was 8:15 and I was sure it was too late and we had wasted all this time. So I sat there, with tears streaming down my face trying not to show the nice people I was crying. They figured out where I was supposed to go, gave me a map, and I ran over to the building. I found the testing people and it turns out the test started at 9, check in was at 8:30, so my extra time was quite fortunate. I made it and got to take the test.

The test itself wasn't as atrocious as I thought it would be, although, it was atrocious. It consisted of 230 questions in 170 minutes. So yeah, I didn't have time to finish. Luckily, unanswered questions don't count against you. It is clear that the test takers have not taken the Assessment class I took in Spring 2011. The questions were confusing and odd. The phrasing  was irritating. But it wasn't a constant stream of "who wrote this?" (although there was plenty of that). I was incredibly excited when Edmund's Nature speech from King Lear showed up. We spent a lot of time focusing that in my Shakespeare class last semester so I'm pretty sure I rocked that part. And there was a question about Eugene O'Neill, who I studied about 7 weeks ago. Yay! And I read an article for class the other night that mentioned Beloved. Although I have never read it, it gave me enough details and character names that I rocked that question also. My big regret - changing my answer regarding who wrote "The Purloined Letter" from Poe to Doyle. It was Poe! And I knew it! And I erased it and put Doyle. It's been nagging me all day. So irritating. I just should have trusted my gut, and knowledge. Oh well. Best move on.

There was an odd moment when I overheard another girl taking the Lit test telling the proctor that she was going to cancel the test. Then they went to another part of the room and said stuff I couldn't hear. Then I heard her say she would finish and she stomped back to her seat. It was super weird. She was not particularly nice to me when I walked up and asked if I was in the right place. So. Hmmm.

I went back to the hotel and picked up Henry and we headed to lunch at the Mustard Seed. It was delicious. We took a quick lap around the mall and headed home and arrived exactly 24 hours after we left on Friday night. I thought that was odd.

One last cool think - I opened my fortune cookie from lunch and the fortune was, "A short trip to the north will bring happiness in your near future." I can only infer this means I will get a good score. :)