5:30 a.m.: I wake up, look at my clock, and then smile smugly, because I know that I am going to wake up for the GRE in a totally timely fashion. Clearly adrenaline is helping me out here and I will wake up at 7, have time for a shower and a complete breakfast with things like bran muffins and grapefruit and oranges and other citrus fruits, and then maybe some leftover time in order to memorize math formulas that I haven’t used since I was 16. I go back to bed, feeling assured of my inevitable success.
7:37 a.m.: I wake up 7 minutes before my housemate and I have to leave. I have time to splash water on my face and pour a bowl of cereal to eat in the car. I refuse to see this as a bad sign.
8:00 a.m.: We arrive at the testing center, which I figured would be a huge room with lines of computers and lots of people all concerned about their academic potential. Instead, it was this tiny little room with a flickering light bulb that was kind of how I had always imagined libraries were in prison.
8:30 a.m.: The test starts. I obviously can’t write about what happened in the test, otherwise, the GRE people will take away my citizenship or something, but let me just say that I don’t care about tree frogs and I don’t know how to answer questions about them, nor do I ever want to again.
9 a.m.: The test is being a jerk. It gave me an extra, unscored math section. It knows I don’t know math. I think it’s purposefully trying to trip me up. I start answering with “the answer cannot be determined” for every single question because I CAN’T determine the answer. That’s right, deal with it GRE. Honesty. Best policy. Booyah.
9:30 a.m.: I am pretty sure the woman who monitors this test thinks I am actively attempting to cheat. Pretty sure the person next to me is taking the TOEFEL which tests English-language knowledge, so I don’t really know why she thinks I need their answers, but apparently I look like I am just that stupid. She has come in at least 9 separate times to ask me not to touch the computer screen. I have yet to touch the computer screen.
10:15 a.m.: I defiantly touch my pencil eraser to the computer screen. Angry-test-woman-who-thinks-I-am-cheating doesn’t notice. I am excessively proud of myself for taking a stand.
10:16 a.m.: I realize that perhaps now is not the best time to challenge authority. Save it for that weekly seminar on how to use Excel spreadsheets, amiright?
11:15 a.m.: I finish early. The woman who definitely thinks I am a big old cheater informs me that I can wait downstairs for my friend. Since I believe in anarchy and fighting the man, I wait in the hallway, quietly.
12:15 p.m.: I spend the rest of the day celebrating by eating copious amounts of bacon and looking at graduate school requirements. I recognize that this might not be everyone’s chosen mode of celebration, but I got a certain thrill from it. Nothing like a good stint on a University’s “Admissions” page to really get the heart rate up. Pro tip: listen to DJ Khaled while perusing their requirements. You are unstoppable.
