Percentage

Happy New Year, everyone!

Earlier in the week, I finally received my official GRE scores. Despite knowing the totals for Verbal and Quantitative, I was most anxious about the Analytical portion of the exam. The scores (with the exception of the Quantitative (much higher than I thought)) fell in the range I thought I would have. Therefore, I’m not retaking it. I don’t think the amount of Kaplan classes and additional books and time will improve my score to the number I need it to be. Luckily, if I don’t get into any of the schools I want, I can always find more graduate programs that don’t require the GRE.

Now, my problem lies with the schools. I have tried to call them to see if they have received all the required materials before the deadline. Some will post what they have on a Web site, but few bother to update them. For most of them, I have included self-addressed stamped postcards for them to send for notification, but they don’t send them back. That scares me, especially since they will also have to send back my slides. Three out of the four have application deadlines for this month with one being today. Yet, they seem not to be able to give me a clear answer as to if they have everything.

This really makes me upset.

permalink | Comment | | 01/01/2006

Slide

Today was the end of a difficult problem I have had all month. It has not only numbed my mind of all feeling, but I can’t even feel my fingertips. So, today I finally collected, edited, labeled and loaded my slides for all my art applications.

It has been a trying process because I have had to work with two companies outside of a 30-mile radius and with faith to get all of this done. Can you believe that no one really has a working film projection in my town? Or is there a good film/photography store? It’s hard enough to live in a place without an Olive Garden, but the one shop that was here closed down last January.

What makes this process even harder is that I work mostly in digital, so slides are hard to get. I have had my initial batch processed through Canterbury Media in California. This company did a fantastic job with the batch of 30 slides I had from my files.

Getting duplicates was a different story. I had to travel about 40 miles to the nearest photography shop that did duplicates. I got the commercial grade (in between low-grade and museum-quality), and I expected that I would get a copy of what I ordered. The first try yielded only eight good duplicates out of 50. Most of the duplicates were either cropped in half or placed unevenly inside the mount. That meant waiting another week and traveling 80 miles round-trip to see if they get it right. The second try was much better. Only four were wrong, but I had the duplicates from the previous week that helped with that.

Now, the three schools that don’t require the GRE can be sent off. However, I still have Dec. 21 before I can send the other.

permalink | Comment | | 11/27/2005