I'm back from my overnight GRE adventure in Tucson and I'm damn glad it's over. I don't mind taking tests. Sitting in front of the computer, writing essays and answering questions is no big deal. I feel like I've been doing this sort of thing for years. The stressful part is at the end of the end of the exam, when you get to choose whether you're going to keep your score or cancel it. When you choose to keep it, your score pops up on the screen immediately.

660 Verbal
700 Quantitative

That's it.

Before the score comes up there's a sense of foreboding doom. So many of the questions on the exam are so vague using words that will never appear in a newspaper or rarely, if at all, in literture with math questions that have no bearing on reality and are mostly worthless to comprehend. So even though I feel like I have a solid grounding in these subjects from what I think is a superb educational background, there is still a feeling of uncertainty before the scores hit the screen. When they do, I just scratch my chin, say ok and walk away. Despite the instant gratification of knowing I earned a decent score, it's very unsatisfying in some respects.

What I really want is to see the test and have a look at the questions I got wrong, though, sadly, I will never experience this. What's the point of taking a test like this and not learning from your mistakes? I don't really see the point of a test like this at all, unless it is to keep people who can't afford the outrageous fees (115 bucks) away from higher education.

One thing I did learn during this experience is that I never want to live in Tucson. It's horrible in the winter and I can only imagine what a hell hole it is in the summertime. I really need to get my tuchus out of Arizona and back to California where it belongs. Adios.