I woke up early on Friday, around 5 AM, and started studying. I reviewed the materials until I started freaking out every time I missed a verbal question. For sustenance, I stopped at Panera on my way to the test center and had half a turkey bacon sandwich and a bowl of their French onion soup. It would have tasted better if I wasn't so nervous. Renee the Amazing LMT told me Thursday to sniff something mint-scented, so I inhaled some of this "Sensory Therapy" stuff from Origins. (I originally bought it to help de-stress at work - hey, at least it's not illegal Xanax, right?) At the test center, I had to hand write out a solemn vow not to reveal the contents of the test to anyone. They used a web cam to take a picture of me - why I gave such a cheesy grin, I have no idea. The test started with the two writing portions. Then came the dreaded quantitative (AKA math). Whoo boy. I was guessing for the vast majority of the questions. Then verbal. Whoo boy, now thems was some tough questions! After that, the test offered me a chance at $250 if I took an experimental math section. Yeah, right, like I could help them. No chance at money was worth the stress of even guessing on 28 more math problems. Pass.

The big moment of truth had arrived - did I want to cancel the results of the test, or get a score? I didn't feel like losing the $110 test fee, so I took my chance and requested the score. I had no idea how this moment would alter my sense of self...

I got a 650 verbal and a 530 quantitative!

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!!!??????????

Let me explain: throughout my young life, every time I've been subjected to a test that required me to fill in the bubble with a #2 pencil, I scored very high on wordy-verbally-English-filled goodness, and craptacular on the numbers portion of the program. So the score on this test, especially when taking into account that I was guessing on the math, makes absolutely no sense. I was astounded that I did that well on the math, and kind of upset that I did what appeared to be not so well on the verbal. But, after a bit of research, it turns out that the verbal score is actually pretty good. And the total score should be all right for my purposes. Most schools don't publish a desired score, but UF does say that they like their grad scool students to earn at least a combined 1000. So, yay me!

What I learned from this experience - the GRE is just a stupid hoop they expect you to jump through on your way to more education. Here's to surviving The Man's first hoop. I just hope the next one isn't on fire.