The path to graduate school: Entry 1 - studying for the GRE

Having decided recently that I need to go to graduate school, I have begun studying for the GRE. Studying has been in spurts thus far as I acclimate myself to studying habits again, but I've been getting better at doing it regularly. Progress has been noticeable in the verbal section; I started out getting 15/20 on Barron's analogies and sentence completion exercises. Now I'm up to a pretty consistent 18/20. As I keep soldiering through the master vocabulary list, I feel like my verbal skills will continue to improve. Reading comprehension was a strong suit to begin with, though there have been slight improvements there, too.

It also turns out that I'm terrible at math.

I've just started the math section of the Barron's GRE book, and I do not like it. It makes some presumptions about my math ability and teaches tricks to do problems faster. What I need is a refresher. The REA book does a better job of that, so I'm glad I bought it before, even though it's demo test isn't Mac compatible.

I am absolutely floored by my total lack of math knowledge. I mean, there had to be a time where I knew basic geometry, right? I never realized until today that I hate circles. They always seemed so pleasant and benign. Who'd have thought they'd been plotting along with surface area to ruin my life?

I'm also concerned with the analytical writing section. This worry is completely unfounded. I've read about two dozen sample answers and I'm pretty sure I can write comparable essays with a hangover in a 104 degree room, but my inability to get a concrete result on my own samples is causing a mild panic in me that manifests itself almost exclusively at 3 A.M. (Note: I am not usually awake at 3 A.M.)

I am also trying to read books by professors at schools I'm interested in so I can get a feel for people I might work with. This has actually been a great exercise. It's interesting and surprising to see really great research get lost in complex writing, subjects I find uninteresting getting a polish by particularly skilled prose, and some really stand out work coming from less than top-rung schools. I've been particularly impressed with some folks at a certain Catholic college in town, and am becoming more interested in going there.

Just to pile on, I'm trying very hard to get a jump on my language requirements. Most history PhD programs require two languages other than English, and for many of them, the first test is the first year. I've decided on French as my language of choice, which simultaneously covers a requirement and satisfies the Francophile in me. I'd like to add German and Italian to my resume as well, as I'm primarily interested in WWII-era American history, and the German and Italian immigrant communities are quite a bit larger on the east coast than the French, but being able to communicate on vacations is a big plus, too.

After trying a number of cheap or free language programs (Rosetta Stone is just too damn expensive!), I've just come across a pretty basic program through Carnegie Mellon that is free and really interactive. Add France 2 news streaming on the internet, and it's a pretty good regiment.

The stress and worry are becoming more palpable now that I'm all in, but I feel good about this. I imagine I will continue to until the week before I take the GRE, at which point I will convince myself that I can't score over 1100. Then, when that (hopefully) doesn't happen, I can get my writing sample panic on!