Coming Home Weekend

Time to catch up fall semester. After an epic summer in Ithaca, I started classes and was immediately sucked into the spinning vortex of terror ChemE. I did make a point to go to the homecoming football game, like I have for the past couple of years.

It did not rain, and it was not negative ten degrees without wind chill, so people actually showed up. I stayed until halftime to see the marching band show, then had to leave to go grocery shopping. Such is my exciting life. The marching band played a show featuring music by The Who and at one point spelled out “WHO” on the field, but it took me a good minute to figure out what they were spelling because the percussion behind them made the H look like an A.

People!  At a football game!

When I left Cornell was tied with Bucknell 7-7 in a display of offensive excellence and output*. The game, however, ended 19-14 in favor of Bucknell due to a late touchdown. The football team’s season ended 1-9, with the sole win coming in a 3-0 home game against Columbia. Yes, 3-0.

Later that weekend, my parents visited and after church and lunch (Saigon Kitchen, would recommend), we went hiking at Treman (again). Then we went to Wegmans for dinner and I went back to the hotel to work on practice GRE tests. Again, I know I have an extremely exciting life.

Gorge Trail at Treman

The next day, Monday, was GRE day. If I had actually planned well, instead of putting it off all summer, I would either have taken the GRE at the beginning of the summer when I was home or at the end of the summer when my roommate with a car kind of occasionally had time to drive me. I had been looking into bus options but in the end, since I likely wasn’t going home for fall break, my parents came to visit instead – and to drive me to Binghamton to take the GRE.

After signing in, which included copying a lengthy (okay, not really) passage in cursive, I was put through another elaborate procedure in which I was photographed, searched, given pencils and scratch paper, and finally walked to a computer in a room with surveillance cameras above every terminal. Four and a half hours later, I walked away from my computer in the room with surveillance cameras above every terminal, returned my pencils, collected my belongings that had been exiled to locked storage in the waiting room, and went outside to taste freedom fresh air.

I got my results a couple weeks later, and I’m happy with them, especially considering the amount of studying I did. I got one GRE practice book and went through the chapters and practice problems over the summer/a couple weeks before the test. The week before the test, I worked through two or three full length tests, though not all at once. That turned out to be enough for me, even with the GRE being my first real multiple choice/standardized test since high school.

With the GRE over, I could turn to the next part of the grad school application process – the applications themselves. Or I could wait until the week before the applications were due to really get working on them. You know, good life choices.

*To be fair, I guess the Cornell defense had a good game, according to the game report.