Week 1 of studying for the GRE has proved successful. My vocabulary has expanded by 50 words in a matter of only two days, and I now find myself slipping stuff like “truculent” and “excoriate” into normal, everyday conversation, resulting in pissy glares from most people, as they have no idea what I’m saying. In addition to even more vocabulary (almost 400 new words to learn in 7 weeks!), I will next tackle the all-important “Quantitative Review,” which basically means that I will re-learn all of the math that I was supposed to have learned in the first 18 years of my education. Joy.

Visited with Radha last Monday, and she was very helpful in regards to where to go, what to study, etc. She put me in touch with a professor at Indiana University, in hopes that he will take me under his wing and get me a teaching assistantship within my first year of study. The plan is to attend Indiana’s Summer Language Workshop next June to brush up on my Russian, then continue in the Master’s program in Slavic Linguistics that fall, and to eventually get my Ph.D. and become a professor. That equals roughly 5-6 more years of school. After discussing it with Radha, I am far less worried, as she has allayed some of the fears that I had regarding not being able to finish and/or making the wrong choice. According to her, it is far better to wait a few years post-Bachelor’s degree to go to grad school, as you are usually far more motivated to study and less likely to dick around.

Speaking of dicking around, Abby and I went to the Hole last night to watch the football game on Pay-Per-View and relax with some drinks and wings. It ended up being one super-crazy night, as we were selected to help judge a Dance-Off between a Food Science major with one hell of a Texas accent and her amusingly clueless professor who just deboarded a plane from Germany. Most entertaining, to say the least. The Texan had more rythym, but the German used props - and I totally give props for using props. In the end we decided it was a tie, but not before we also decided to meet up next weekend for Round 2 of the Global Dance-Off 2006.

Three days of work this week, then a four-day weekend. Word.