Because my future prospects appear to me as an asteroid and satellite filled void of purpleness, I decided to spend a portion of my summer studying for the GRE. The Graduate Record Examination is the spiked and salted shackle that every undergrad with hopes for a Masters looks forward to. We relive the dread of memorizing “Plug n Chug” and “Answer Pick” techniques during our high school sophomore/junior years when the Ministry of Love that was College Board opened up the floodgates for the SAT. I admit that I do not remember if I legitimately studied for the SAT my first go around as my High School Junior Year recollections amount mostly to flashbacks of my putting on a fat suit and knickerbockers to sing as Augustus Gloop about the wonders of overeating and watching "Puella Magi Madoka Magica," an anime about magical girls getting their souls removed by emotionless cat-aliens.

So with the newfound determination following a rather stressful and lovesick junior year of college, I have made it a routine to study the Princeton Review GRE book at my local library with Mocha in my venti cup and Lil B on my playlist. As of the publication of this article I have taken the liberty to avoid paying for a GRE class as I find the prospect of listening to someone lecture about techniques ordained by the test makers about as appealing as Donald Trump supporters reading above the fourth grade level.

Here are a few revelations noted during this adventure.

1. Words nobody uses

As with the SAT, the GRE test makers expect us to memorize a disproportionate amount of synonyms such as bilk (cheat) abrogate (cancel) ensconce (establish firmly in position) and obfuscate (deliberately make something difficult to understand). Now perhaps I may sound like a troglodyte for not previously knowing the aforementioned words but it is rather annoying to get a question that asks “which of the following words are best indicative of the bolded statement?” and get a word like “crepuscular," which means to be active at dawn or dusk, as a choice. Many of those words I had never before even considered to have existed, and looking at them transported me to a time where men with wispy mustaches wore striped tights and squatted in holes in the dirt. To think I could have paid $922 for that prep course to teach me what 'salubrious' means ("health giving" for some reason).

2. Arithmetic is my ecstasy

I have studied around five or so chapters of my prep book so I may come across a math problem that will make me regret my fantasies about riding a centaur with the body of Kate Winslet instead of paying attention to the Pythagorean Theorem in Pre-Calculus. I have encountered many a math question that goes “Pear flavored gum costs 14 cents whilst Watermelon scented toffee costs 16. Morpheus the Angry Clown buys $15 worth of gum and toffee. What portion of that money was for Pear Flavored gum?” In a question like that, I am expected to plug in a number, usually between 1-10, and then do a little arithmetic magic, and if that fails, plug in another number. A third number plugged? I say to myself "you probably fucked it up you moronic math deficient slug of human pus." Those are the thoughts usually going through my head when I’m out of Venti Mocha and still have 30 minutes of studying to go.

3.The Bureaucracy

The most recent section I finished off was a chapter on Critical Reasoning. Nothing too complicated, simply find the “conclusion” (see: opinion) of the author, the “premises” (see: evidence for said opinion) develop an “assumption” (see: linkage of factors between “premises” and “conclusion”) and then find elements that either strengthen or weaken said “conclusion.” Very basic stuff, surprising to see at a Graduate School Entrance Exam. Except one practice question had to with an automated computer system improving employee efficiency via the usage of online instead of print paper, and another was an analysis on tax breaks pertaining to which state a company decides to migrate to. Needless to say, given how every other one of these Critical Reasoning questions ended up having something to do with computer paper and company efficiency in addition to an entire test-half devoted to mathematics, it may become obvious to see what kind of mindset the test makers have in mind when giving answers like “company tax breaks may increase zoning opportunities though it could mean less stipends for overtime work.” Though granted if my 9-to-5 job was spent filing bone feeling papers into different computer systems to be used for the 2019 examinations in Akron, Ohio while at the same time writing questions about Figgis figuring out which brand of Laundry Detergent he prefers at his expensive New York Laundromat, like any good writer I would probably want to incorporate bits of my own life into the process.

I am to continue this strange bit of academic endeavor, as I hope my future studying will be filled with even more Venti Coffee’s, Arithmetic and Pseudo-Reggae. When facing down such frustrating prospects as taking a three hour and 45 minute comprehensive exam on a Saturday morning, such simple pleasures is all one needs to keep from descending into all-day "American Horror Story" bingeing. At that point, I might as well join a drug cartel with what little opportunity I have for civilian life.