Retook the Literature in English GRE Subject Test
Refrained fr. going out with Levon, et al. last night because I had to report to the GRE test ctr. at KSB by 8:30 this morning for a Lit. in English Subj. Test retake to support my application for admission to IUB's MA program in Comparative Literature (also, for any future PhD in English readmission applications). Since the test format was the traditional paper type (sealed booklet and score sheet with fill-in ovals as opposed to computer), I won't receive my score till 2-3 weeks fr. today. Fingers crossed for a 600+ score this time.
I was totally psyched to see that the 230 test Q's included one re. the first 6 lines of Ginsberg's Howl pt. 1. However...! Which of these words in these lines is used as a pun in this poem?? I had NO idea, and I'm still puzzling about it now. Thus I'd make it my million-dollar question. (Oh yeah, test-takers are not supposed to disclose test contents, but the hell with it. Like the ETS police are going to come after me for posting this.)
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...
("angelheaded hipsters...night" is all one single line)
I was also glad to see Q's re. excerpts fr. Joyce's Ulysses, Shakespeare's Sonnet 60 ("Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore..."), Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," and Austen's Pride and Prejudice (i.e. re. Elizabeth's visit to Pemberly), as well as Q's re. literary theory (e.g. Derrida, Lacan, Althusser, Said). Unfortunately, such Q's with which I'm totally familiar constituted only approx. 30% of the entire test--so the rest was done via intelligent guesswork. I figured I should just have fun with this, since it's an expensive test with nonrefundable fee, and who knows if recent GRE scores could be useful for admissions and scholarship applications. Can't wait till I'm done with school forever and I'm actually working at a real live job like a real live person. It's SO about time, and the antsiness hits me with every spring as IU approaches commencement after Lil' 5.
P.S. I just remembered... I was really attracted to this one test-taker guy who came into the test rm. super late. He kind of looked like Jon but with a longer narrower torso. He looked like he just rolled out of bed--i.e. had this huge shock of ultra-curly dark brown hair, all riotously disheveled. I don't know why I'm always attracted to those types of guys. Maybe they embody my cross-dressed dionysian underside or something--the version of me that survived the storm with Dennis. The wildly lyrical Hiromi (directly opposed to the anal grad student achiever). The Sylvia Plath wannabe without the suicidal ending. But at any rate, it's totally impossible to fall for a GRE test-taker. Like how do you communicate with him without getting into shit fr. test administrators?? Silly academic romanticism, I know, this Sat. night.
I was totally psyched to see that the 230 test Q's included one re. the first 6 lines of Ginsberg's Howl pt. 1. However...! Which of these words in these lines is used as a pun in this poem?? I had NO idea, and I'm still puzzling about it now. Thus I'd make it my million-dollar question. (Oh yeah, test-takers are not supposed to disclose test contents, but the hell with it. Like the ETS police are going to come after me for posting this.)
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night...
("angelheaded hipsters...night" is all one single line)
I was also glad to see Q's re. excerpts fr. Joyce's Ulysses, Shakespeare's Sonnet 60 ("Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore..."), Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," and Austen's Pride and Prejudice (i.e. re. Elizabeth's visit to Pemberly), as well as Q's re. literary theory (e.g. Derrida, Lacan, Althusser, Said). Unfortunately, such Q's with which I'm totally familiar constituted only approx. 30% of the entire test--so the rest was done via intelligent guesswork. I figured I should just have fun with this, since it's an expensive test with nonrefundable fee, and who knows if recent GRE scores could be useful for admissions and scholarship applications. Can't wait till I'm done with school forever and I'm actually working at a real live job like a real live person. It's SO about time, and the antsiness hits me with every spring as IU approaches commencement after Lil' 5.
P.S. I just remembered... I was really attracted to this one test-taker guy who came into the test rm. super late. He kind of looked like Jon but with a longer narrower torso. He looked like he just rolled out of bed--i.e. had this huge shock of ultra-curly dark brown hair, all riotously disheveled. I don't know why I'm always attracted to those types of guys. Maybe they embody my cross-dressed dionysian underside or something--the version of me that survived the storm with Dennis. The wildly lyrical Hiromi (directly opposed to the anal grad student achiever). The Sylvia Plath wannabe without the suicidal ending. But at any rate, it's totally impossible to fall for a GRE test-taker. Like how do you communicate with him without getting into shit fr. test administrators?? Silly academic romanticism, I know, this Sat. night.