Alexanders, not-bad, semiproductive, extended day.

This morning, I took the Graduate Record Examination, or GRE.
This is a necessary step in the application process for applying to most graduate schools, even though my personal GRE will probably mean very little in my application to architecture grad schools, as they tend to look much more heavily at portfolio work. In terms of preparation for the GRE, I read two books of tricks, techniques, and practice sets and did a few parts of the test online. In terms of total time studying, I spent about an hour every other day of the week for the past two weeks in preparation. I wouldn't say I felt extremely prepared, but I felt confident enough in the strategies I'd learned.
The night before, I had a hard time falling asleep, although I slept well through the night. This morning, I got up at 6:30, got dressed and drove over to ASU where the test was administered. I was early, so I got a breakfast burger and a small cup of coffee. Little performance enhancing drugs called sugar, protein, and caffeine. The testing rooms were hidden at the end of the corridor on the third floor of a mostly locked building. Absolutely no signage of any kind. There were only six of us who signed up today to take the test. After a few forms to fill out, they took my photo, checked my ID, and assigned me to a computer to take the test. The GRE is a computer based test which adapts itself to the tester, asking harder questions when the tester gets a right answer, and easier questions when the tester gets a wrong answer. It was kind of funny going through the tutorial of "how to use a computer," obviously geared to people who have never used one. How these people will manage in graduate school, I don't know. The parts about how to use a mouse was the best, as it demonstrated what to do if your mouse is stuck at the edge of the desk, and the importance of making sure the cord comes out the top of the mouse (away from you), not to the side.
Anyway, the test was long, started with two essays taking up an hour and a half. It was nice, I admit, writing essays with a keyboard instead of by hand. I think I did really well on those. Then came math, verbal, and in my case, another math. The entire test ran just shy of four hours long. Math was really depressing. I didn't feel very good about it, I used up most of my time at the front, and rushed through the last questions, barely finishing the session in time. For both sections of the math.
At the end of the test, I elected to keep my scores (hey, I paid $140 for this!) Out of a possible 800 points, I found I scored 620 verbal and 620 math. I was shocked my scores were the same, and I was disappointed that my verbal was so low. However, when you look at my scores in terms of percentiles of the test takers from last year, 620 verbal is a higher score than 89% of the test takers, although 620 math is only higher than 51% of the takers, so after all, a good verbal score and an average math score.
After the test, I walked over and picked Tay up from his dorm. It was about noon, so he was mostly awake. I took him to MacAlpines with Saori for a milkshake and a burger, and it was pretty good although we really stuffed ourselves. Afterwards, we did a little shopping, hitting up best buy and then Red Modern Furniture. Red Modern Furniture sells new and original mid-century modern furniture. Really cool, funky pieces, great quality, beautiful cabinetry and woodwork, and unbelievably expensive. As I put it to Taylor, if you were to find this piece of furniture at Goodwill, it would cost literally 50 times more at Red. A red, single molded fiberglass chair was sitting outside which had apparently been sold. Taylor ventured $20. The real price: $1100. Needless to say, we don't actually buy things there, although the furniture is great and the staff are really cool people.
We took Tay back to our place, and we played cards for a few hours before finally dropping tay back off at his dorm. All in all, its been a long day.