Thursday, January 22, 2009

GRE-Angst

Okay, this is probably going to be a short post, but I figure I should update-- mostly because I keep telling other people to post. So yes, as you might have guessed from the title to this post, I'm studying for the GREs. Thank you, Ana, for telling me I should start! I feel productive, and while I figure I'll never use half these words (like "adumbrate"), I figure like these are words I should be familiar with. You know, as an English major. It's also nice, I guess, since there are plenty of words I know that I can't really define. But if you were to ask me right now what "ameliorate" meant, I would let you know that it means "to make better or more tolerable." I'm a walking dictionary at the moment, provided you only want to know the definition for words beginning with the letter "A". My poor family members-- my books suggests that I try to fit these words into daily conversation. I try, but when I can't, I just tell my mother or father the definitions for various words whenever there's a lull in the conversation. 

So other than that, I've been trying to work a little on college apps. I've contacted a few professors and asked them to write recommendations for me. One already agreed, so that's one down. I need to get one or two more to agree to help me out. It's not really an onerous task-- only one page they need to fill out, so I don't think they'll mind. I hate the fact that I have to fill out college apps again, but what can you do? Emerson wants me to write a short essay with the following prompt: if my life were a story, what would I title it and why? I want to say "Great Expectations," but I think that's been taken already. If I come up with a good explanation, I wonder if they'd care. However, since I want to study creative writing, they might want me to be, you know, creative.

Speaking of creative writing, I've had a bit of writer's block recently. I mean, I've been writing - I force myself to - but I've been writing crap. I need to find some good poetry to read, a new author. Which means I need to buy books, but I am also poor. Not that 4 dollars is a lot or anything, but it adds up. 

I may have mentioned in my previous posts that I was reading a German novel. I'm putting that on hold for a while, since I don't want to confuse myself - I mean, I'm studying all these English words for the GRE, so why throw German into the mix? Besides, I'm in the middle of reading Proust at the moment, which is wonderful, so I'd prefer to just focus on that.

Apotheosis - deification, glorification to godliness, the perfect example. (Just thought I'd practice a little. Or give you a taste of what it's like to be around me at the moment. If you missed me before, I'm guessing you don't now. :)

My gmail account is convinced I love spam. As in, the food, not junk email (though it thinks I like that too, I guess.) It keeps sending me recipes such as "spam and french fry casserole." Would anyone eat that? Seriously.

Well, that's it for this post. Not like I have to go off and do something else, I just don't have that much going on for me to report.

-Kenny B.

2 comments:

Hilary said...

spam, eh? I don't know but meat in a can just always seemed so wrong to me... Haha, well good luck on the GREs, though to be honest i'm not sure what they are... Still GOOD LUCK!

Nomad Turtle said...

Studying by yourself is a very difficult task that takes a special mind. I respect that a lot, and don't know if I could do that on my own in your situation.