Stress Relief

I have been feeling really stressed for the past few weeks. I finally feel like most of the stress is gone. I finally feel like I can just relax, although there are still some stressors in my life.

One of the stressors that remains is the whole grad school situation. Although I will probably get into grad school at UNF (my GPA and GRE are higher than required), Kyle and I are still figuring out how to pay for it. We are hoping to get some free aid from the Government (unlikely) or UNF. We have some money to go towards my degree, but it wasn’t exactly something we were planning on so we don’t have all of the money ahead of time.

Even though there are some stressors, there are some exciting things as well. In a couple weeks Kyle and I will be celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary (and his 23rd birthday) by taking a week-long trip to Las Vegas. Our hotel, air fare, and two Cirque Du Soleil shows are already paid for. We still have food and any other entertainment expenses (not gambling) to pay for. We are also thinking about taking a tour of the Grand Canyon while we are out there (we hear it’s something you can’t miss)!

I am also looking forward to our trip to New Jersey for Elaine’s wedding at the end of June. Kyle, me, and our moms are leaving Jacksonville on Tuesday, June 24th and driving part way up. On Wednesday we are hoping to stop in Richmond and have lunch with my friend Amber (if she is still there for the summer). Then we are going to drive into New York City. We will be staying in Midtown Wednesday night and Thursday night. That will give us Wednesday afternoon and evening, all day Thursday, and Friday morning in the City. On Friday afternoon we will drive down to New Jersey for the Rehearsal and Rehearsal dinner (I am a bridesmaid) that evening and the wedding on Saturday. We will leave early on Sunday morning and head to Washington, DC. We will probably spend Sunday afternoon and evening in DC and then start our drive home. We will finish the drive to Jacksonville on Monday, June 30th. We are all looking forward to the trip since I am the only one who has really been to NYC and the only one who has been to DC.

GRE… Done!

So, I took my GRE this morning…

As you may recall from a previous post, I registered for the GRE 10 days ago. That’s when I first decided I was going to take it. In order to get into the Master of Science in Criminal Justice (MSCJ) program at UNF, I needed a minimum combined score of 1000 (out of 1600) on the Verbal and Quantitative sections. I thought, Piece of cake, the GRE is just like the SAT and I did fine on that… yeah, the GRE is similar to the SAT, but more difficult (harder words and no calculator)!

The past week or so I have been doing a quite a few practice tests. Each time I scored higher than 1000, but not enough for me to be fully comfortable with my skills. I was nervous for today!
The great fact about the CAT (Computer Adaptive Test) version of the GRE is that you get your Verbal and Quantitative score immediately (you do have to wait for the Written Analysis score, but for a lot of schools it doesn’t count for anything anyway).

How did I do, you ask? 1270 (730 Quantitative + 540 Verbal)! Oh yeah!

One of the reasons I Love Liz

One of the reasons I Love Liz is because we talk about everything.

Back to School I Go?

I have been slacking in my blogging, but at least Kyle has made a few posts (the last couple have been his). Things have been a little crazy right now. I have been trying to figure out what to do with life, and it hasn’t been coming easy. Some things have changed within the past couple of weeks.For starters, I never heard about that position in Tallahassee. I have called about 4 times and they have not told me anything or called me back like they said they would; I have just given up. I have applied to quite a few other positions, but have not heard anything yet. They are Federal positions though so it could be a couple of months before I hear anything.

Instead of just sitting around, waiting for something to happen, I have decided to do something with my extra time. I am going to apply to the Master of Science in Criminal Justice (MSCJ) program at UNF. I am hoping to start in the summer. This was kind of a quick decision and, because of that, I only have until the middle of March to get my application in.

In order to be accepted, I have to take the GRE. Normally people study for a few months, I am taking it next Thursday. But, at least my GPA from college was high enough that my GRE score doesn’t count for anything, I just have to have a score! I still want to do as well as possible though so I did purchase some study aides that will hopefully help me out.

If all goes well, I can do the MSCJ program full-time and be done with my Master’s by the end of Summer ‘09. The one thing that intimidates me is, not writing a Thesis, but having to defend it. Public speaking is just not my thing! Either way, we’ll see what happens. Please continue to keep me in your prayers.

Cutting Corners

I read this statement in a murder mystery I was reading last night and enjoyed how it made sense visually and management wise.

If you’re going in circles, you’re probably cutting corners somewhere.

I know when I’m having trouble finding the cause of an error in my programming and I keep testing the same stuff, telling myself that everything should be working, and staring at the code, I’m probably cutting corners somewhere in how deep I’m testing and looking at the code.