Rainy Rainy Day

Hey everyone...

So I don't know if it's raining where any of you are, but it is pouring here. Apparently everyone here in Upstate NY is used to this weather by now. I didn't get to experience the constant rain when I was in Baltimore this summer. We always had clear skies and muggy heat. My mom told me that it rained almost every day in June up here (I live in Niskayuna, by the way). Anyway, I really hope this weather clears up for tomorrow. I'm having friends over for one last gathering before we all head back to school. *fingers crossed*

I spent last week in Cape Cod with my family. It was the first time I really got to relax all summer since I spent most of it in the lab at Hopkins. Unfortunately, I'm taking my GRE on September 1st, so I couldn't relax too too much. I'm really nervous about this one. I've heard from most graduate students that the GRE doesn't count for much. It's just another measure of one's ability to be a good student and thinker. But they say the most important things are research experience and stellar letters of recommendation. So I'm trying really hard not to sweat the GRE too much, but I'm going to be nervous regardless.

Has anyone looked at the GRE material yet? It's kind of frustrating. The verbal section is useful, but it includes words that are rarely used today. So in order to get a higher-than-average score, one has to memorize lists and lists of "antediluvian" terms. See, I'm trying to incorporate these words into my everyday language, but it just sounds silly. And the math section is also useful, I suppose, but you can't use a calculator and there are a lot of really really time-consuming problems (where you have to do long division with decimals and find percentages and proportions all at once). So it takes forever to do a problem that could have taken 1 minute. This test is definitely going to put my brain to the test. *sigh* Oh well. Wish me luck!

I am looking forward to going back to school though. I just received all of my textbooks, so I'm starting to get into school-mode. I think senior year will be a fun one.

Anywho...
I'm off to run some errands in the pouring rain. TTYL!

~Bianca

P.S. I'll put up some Hopkins pictures soon. I promise.