If you’ve been following along then you’re familiar with the fact that I’ve been working hard here in Buenos Aires, not only at my job but studying for the Graduate Record Examination, or GRE. This is the entrance exam similar to the SAT, but for grad school. Months of painful studying and sacrifice have gone by, using my lunch breaks every day for extra studying. Last Saturday was finally the day. I woke up earlier than early to get to the test center, joining just three other people. Only one of them was taking the GRE.
For some reason, I imagined a packed classroom with students chattering nervously about wanting to study in the United States. Maybe I just caught them on an off day, or it could be that there are so many test dates offered in Buenos Aires that there’s no need for packed rooms, even in a city of this size. What needs to be said about the exam is simple enough: it sucked and I’m glad it’s over. So now that the awful monkey on my back has finally jumped to a new branch, I can focus on other things. I’m looking to get into more writing, and just recently a co-worker asked me to help with English lessons. I’m actually surprised it took this long for someone to ask.
Though I really wasn’t keen on teaching again, I actually look forward to giving some lessons in my spare time, if for nothing else than to chat it up with a co-worker some more. These lessons would obviously be pro bono, which is volunteering in some form or another. So just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. But the sky is blue and it’s nearly summer. I’ll smile and short of a karate chop to the GRE prep book I used, this day couldn’t get much better.
Latest posts by jgbrandt8
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