Three-Oh-One

That's 301, which is how many words have managed to make me feel like a fool. Stupid actually. Years of reading, graduating with honors and a college degree left me with a vocabulary deficit. Strange. So why learn these words?

I decided to take the GRE to further prolong my pursuit of growing up. Or to enhance my talents and extend my career goals. Personally I think it's a bit of both. And will possibly come to a crashing halt in two weeks. I've tentatively told myself that I would take this blasted test before July.

But some days I think that my July 4th should be hopeful, not tarnished with the reality that I failed to learn 301 words in a week. And relearn 17 years worth of math. Ok, ok, it will be more like five years of math; the hard years between 8th and 12th grade. I'm hoping for plenty of stats questions, a subject I could never explain but aced like a Mathlete. We didn't have those at my school.

In preparation for the assault to my pride I decided to make flash cards of words to master complete with a pronunciation guide and a use-of-the-word sentence. Now I'm just hoping for a slight recognition, you know knowledge that the word is real and not the fabrication of some modern day aspiring Shakespeare. Seriously I double-checked each word on the list in the dictionary and a few of them were unrecognized derivatives.

Not only that but nowhere on the list was my favorite word, splanchnic, which I have been pronouncing incorrectly since the St. George Fourth of July. Boulder Dash is not the best way to improve your vocabulary.

The casualties of this test so far: two permanent markers, three hundred index cards, ten hours of my life and 1/16 of my belief in a happier world. Was it worth it? I'll let you know when I start school in August.