Return of the Writer

I can't believe how long it's been since I've written.  It's been . . . wow -- it was May when last I posted!  Who knew?!  So much has changed since then, and funnily enough, so much is the same.  I still live in the same place, and am still in limbo -- no grad school yet.  But, well, I'm 30 now, which was tough for me.  (I cried the morning of my birthday -- I didn't think I would cry over something so silly, but I really did, and I cried for reasons that have more to do with the fact that my life is now NOTHING like I thought it would be than the fact that I've hit another decade.)  My 30th birthday was incredibly fun, though.  I celebrated with a few friends and family by going to Little Tokyo in LA and hitting a few bars/sushi restaurants/karaoke places.  It was great fun -- we started off at the famous Daikokuya for some kick-ass ramen, then wandered down to a little crack-in-the-wall (literally, this bar is in an alley) called Far Bar, got happily drunk, then stumbled to ZenCu for some rockin' sushi, and finally, drunk and very full, ended up at Max Karaoke Studio for some totally blitzed karaoke.  All in all, an excellent way to start a new year.  And so far, my 30th year hasn't been entirely awful.

For the last month, I've spent the greater part of my time studying for the GREs.  Plural, you say?  Yes!  I'm taking TWO Graduate Record Examinations this year!  One is the standard, General GRE that ALL grad schools require, and the other (the one I'm currently avoiding study-time for) is the Subject GRE, and in particular, the GRE Literature in English Subject Test.  Now, I'm not usually a person who has a terror of tests, but I will admit that this particular test is DAUNTING.  I spent the first part of September studying for the General, and did fairly well on that (top 2% overall, thank you!), and have spent my time since then studying for the Subject.  I'm taking it Saturday, and still feel nowhere NEAR like I will ace this test.  It's a behemoth!  It is -- I kid you not -- a test which will potentially cover all English, American, and world literature from approximately 400 AD to the present.  Of course, with only 230 questions (YES, 230 questions in 170 minutes!!! (Do the math, that's less than a minute per question!)), they can only cover a finite amount of material, and since, as the wonderful people at the Princeton Review assure me, there is no such thing as a "standard English curriculum", their choices are limited as to what they can realistically expect people to know.  Still, there's much more material on this test than that with which I have an intimate and comfortable relationship, and so I am spending my time becoming intimate and familiar -- at least, in a cocktail-party sense -- with some of it.  It is, as I said, daunting.  And I'm terrified. 

Which is why good sense is suddenly prevailing, and I'm going to leave this post half-finished, and return to the studies. . . .