Flurries of activity

[torquill]

So I took the GRE yesterday afternoon. It was an experience, but overall not bad.

It was in Fremont, a moderate drive in the rain. They pointed me to a locker when I got there and asked me to divest myself of all personal belongings. (At least airline security doesn't require that you remove your watch.) Then they handed me a legal agreement to sign. It included a paragraph that I was supposed to copy by hand.

Oh, wait -- I was supposed to copy it in cursive. In very large, bold letters it said "DO NOT PRINT". Um.

It took me over ten minutes to copy a medium-sized paragraph. I haven't done cursive since the late eighties, you see, when I gave it up as a bad job and switched to my current, fairly unique print handwriting. I think I did an okay job (it was legible), but my hand was cramping by the time I was done, and it screwed up my handwriting for a while afterward.

They took my picture, checked my ID, had me sign in, and gave me scratch paper and pencils and such. The test itself was about as I expected, having taken the SAT... the analytical writing section went okay, and I took the ten-minute break afterward. When the counter ticked down to 0:00, I was ready -- but the computer didn't come back. It just sat there. I tried pressing a few keys, clicking the mouse, and finally brought an assistant in. She tapped exactly the same keys I had (I thought) and it came back to life. Fine.

The first regular section I got (quantitative) scared me half to death, given that I know I'm weak on arithmetic without a calculator; I hacked away at it, guessed a lot, and breathed a little easier when we progressed to the Verbal section. After that... was another quantitative section. Not again, I groaned. I started on it, and it was easy. Refreshingly so. After that I was done.

The explanation is that they always throw three sections at you: a quantitative, a verbal, and a section full of new questions they're evaluating, which doesn't affect your score. They don't tell you which one that is.... but I think I could guess.

Three hours (to the minute) later, I signed out. The computer told me I got a 710 Verbal, 700 Quantitative, with the Writing score pending... as both are out of 800, I did better on this one than I did on the SAT. As the SAT had calculus questions, and I hadn't yet taken calc, I guess that's to be expected.

So I drove back home, took care of a few things, and drove out to collect eastbaygreg from work. We went out to Richmond to be part of a small potluck with a handful of people, none of whom I knew well... We had a good, balanced dinner and a lively discussion afterward, and I have a few more people I enjoy spending time with now. Then we came home.

This morning I drove eastbaygreg back to work, then trekked up to Davis. To my dismay I had only one quarter to feed the meters with, which netted me 10 minutes... a kind lady in the Registrar's office gave me another quarter, which was enough to cover me as I submitted a transcript request and paid the fee. Then I went to Woodland, just a short hop up 113.

The Woodland Health Care complex is well-appointed, smallish, and easy to get to and from. Much better than downtown Sac... I saw the ENT doc, who told me that I sounded like I was talking around a couple of large grapes (trust an ear-nose-throat guy to hear my swollen tonsils). He walked me through the possible consequences of having them removed, then signed a slip and said that I have my choice of when to get it done, so long as it's on a Friday. :)

So I'm currently scheduled for a tonsillectomy on February 1. It's right about the time I'd expect midterms, but it's fairly easy to take such things a few days before or after the scheduled date as long as I know in advance. I don't anticipate missing more than that Friday and perhaps the following Monday, if I don't recover as fast as I expect. I'm actually more worried about the anesthetic and any sedatives etc. than I am about the pain and swelling; from the sound of things, I've already had a worse sore throat just from the chronic throat infections I've been wrestling with for months. I haven't had a general anesthetic since before I became chemically sensitive, though.

So now I'm done for a while... TV with knaveofhearts tonight, then nothing concrete. Oh, a possible party, or flexible engagements with friends... but no appointments as such. I can relax at last.

Comments

[amanda-nye.livejournal.com]

I had my tonsils out last year between Christmas and New Year. I, too, thought I would have a minimal time of recovery.

I was so wrong. I was out flat for two days straight, not getting up for more than the bathroom and only waking up long enough to drink cold things and take more vicodin.

I missed work for a week. I was on a pudding, jello, and liquid diet for that time. I went through 2 1/2 bottles of vicodin with acetomenaphin. I start with a dose every 3 hours (religious for the first two days. It stayed at 5-6 hours for the next several days and about twice a day for the remaining time and once I went back to work. Vicodin apparently puts me the hell to sleep. It was about 3 weeks before I could eat normally.

I had no idea I would be knocked out like that.

The first two days were pain. After that it was sore... and in an awkward way that sucked... and I was so tired.

But I'm damn glad I did it. Mine got swollen all the time and infected all the time. No troubles at all since.