In Summary...

Sorry to take such a long blog vacation, loyal followers (all 20 of you)! Let me re-cap what I have been up to in the past few months:

• Studied and completed GRE (I did well enough)
• Applied to graduate school
• Picked out a pattern for a dress I am going to sew (my first!!)
• Started walking in the mornings 3 times a week
• Took a vacation to DC
• Watched 5 seasons on Bones
• Worked
• Paid down loans
• Got a smartphone

Overall, these past few months have been pretty productive! of course it could have been more productive, but let's not forget that this girl loves naps, watching the same movies over and over, and being lazy. Also, I have the feeling that I will not be able to be lazy like this forever, so I might as well enjoy it while I can!

On a completely un-related note, I just have to say that lately I have (once again) realized what awesome people my friends are. Sorry to brag, but these folks are not afraid to follow their passions no matter what. They inspire me to strive to be the woman I want to be professionally, socially, and intellectually. It's surreal how much we have all grown in the past year. I am so proud to call my friends just that!

On Studying

It's been a while since I've studied for anything, so I've been trying out different ways of studying to see what works best for me. I have been focusing on vocab lately, and these are some of the ways I have been studying...

Flashcards - I found a few lists of common words that pop up on the GRE and have started memorizing them. Out of 50 words or so I probably have 20 memorized so far.

Reading more - I haven't been reading as much since I took up sewing. Well, I don't think reading books about sewing really counts. So I have started to read novels again. Any recommendations are welcome!

News-ing it up - NPR uses a lot of GRE-worthy words in their interviews, news stories, and featured shows... so when I hear a word I don't know I'll either ask the husband what it means or look it up. Of course, this comes with its downsides in the fact that you are more aware of how clueless some political officials are (here's to you, Mitch).

FreeRice.com - This website quizzes you on vocab, and for every answer you get correct they donate 10 grains of rice to a third world country!

Googling words - This has been a great way to learn words I don't know! I usually look up the definition and how it is used in a sentence. I have found the website Wordnik to be helpful at this; they even have tweets and FB status updates with the word in question in it.

Thinking of pop-culture references that relate to the words - For example, the word enervate (which means tho weaken ones strength) appears as a spell in th Harry Potter book series. The word garrulous, which means tiresomely talkative, reminds me of John Goodman's character in O Brother Where Art Thou.

Music - I've also decided to look up every word I don't know that appears in any Andrew Bird song...

Of course I've been studying Latin root words and that good stuff, but that's boring to talk about... well, I guess all of this is a bit boring, but this is my life folks! I do not lead an adventurous life at this moment. If you read this far you must really care about how I study! Or you are procrastinating. Regardless, thanks!

Math Shmath

I started studying for the GRE yesterday. I played some free rice vocab during the day and at night the husband helped me with some math practice questions. Thank goodness he is a patient guy because I had a lot of questions!

The math questions I practiced brought me back to high school and I started remembering a lot of things... not about math per se, but about how much I disliked high school and especially math. Obviously that did not help me solve the math questions at hand. I tend to make math way harder than it should be. Since I learn best by visualizing it helps to draw pictures. However, the GRE is timed so it would be most beneficial to me if I learned how to properly solve equations rather than spend 90% of my time drawing out how many combinations of toppings can be on a pizza.

I now realize that it might have not been very beneficial for me to have my friends do my math homework... oh well. better late than never!

ps... If you folks that took the GRE have any advice for me I will gladly accept it! I am taking it this summer.