woohoo!

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So, the test is over. And let me just say thank you for all of the prayers and well wishes.

The process of taking a standardized test is quite phenomenal. Did you know that they electronically scan your fingertip and take your picture in addition to requesting picture ID? Fascinating. I can’t imagine needing such drastic measures, but I am also incredibly guilt prone, which makes it difficult for me to imagine just how conniving and dishonest some people can be.

Anyway, the test went well. I did have a minor hiccup after taking finishing the written section. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t take my break at my station and so the proctor came in and asked me what I was doing. Talk about stressful. For a moment I wondered if I was going to be allowed to finish. She was actually quite nice (and I’m sure amused by my prolific) and told me it was fine, but that if I was going to take a break, I had to leave the room.

When I finished the quantitative section I was seriously stressed out because I kept thinking about my answers and wondering if they had been right, which made it hard to focus on the passages I had to read for the verbal section. Thankfully, I have not had any timing issues with the verbal in practice, so I knew I could take things a bit slower, which I did. There were things on the quantitative that I had never seen before. One of the last questions was about the area between four tangential circles inscribed within a square. None of my books ever covered those questions. The bad news: I was so flustered that, even though I could figure it out logically, it took me a minute or so to even begin to think. The good news: seeing something you’ve never seen before on the GMAT is a good indication that you are doing well.

Another hard thing about this stupid test is that they have “trial questions”, and these questions are just on there to see if they are good test questions. Talk about lame. So you could get a really hard question and have no idea how to do it (well, not no idea) even if you are doing poorly, or you could get a really easy question towards the end and think that you totally bombed the test because if you are doing well (for your level), no questions (no matter what level you are at) should be easy at the end. My question is where do they find people who are this cruel? I feel like the test writers are practiced in the art of torture. The verbal section went well, but once again, I wasn’t totally sure how I had done. I knew I had done okay, but I wasn’t confident that I had done as well as I had during the practice tests.

Another great part about this test is that once you finish the test, you have to decide whether to record your test score (make it official) before you see your score. Hitting that stupid button to record my score at the end of the test almost felt like I was deciding whether to jump out of a plane without a sure knowledge that I had a parachute in my pack. Absolutely terrifying. But I hit it and my score popped up and relief flooded through me. I got a 710. For those of you who have no idea what that means, it’s good. I feel very blessed and I am so glad that I will not being doing that again…ever. Now onto the applications.

P.S. I hesitated to put my score up because it feels a bit inappropriate…kind of like putting up how much money I make. I decided to put it up because I know some of you will want to know and rather than have you die of curiosity or make you ask, I thought I’d just tell you and be done with it.

advice from an older sister…

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I emailed my fabulous sister this morning, seriously stressed out because the practice test I took last night didn’t go so well. I kept hoping she’d email me back, but when I hadn’t heard from her, I finally called her on my lunch. We had a great conversation (she’s fantastic for boosting the ego) and I felt much better. And then, when I got back from work, this is what I found. She gives some pretty good excellent advice (is that better, Erika?), I must say. And per her advice, I’m done “studying”, which is why I’m blogging.

What do you know…you did send me an e-mail. Huh.

Here’s some more advice from your big sister extraordinaire about what you should do for the next 20 or so hours.

1. 3pm: Stop studying.

2. 5pm: (when you get off work): Go buy a small, exceedingly small notebook (like what you see reporters using in TV shows)

3. 5:15pm to 10pm: Relax; spend time with J, C, and T, keeping in mind the entire time that life is about people, not test scores. This will help you keep your perspective. Seriously; during the AZ bar exam, for which I was not nearly prepared, I spent most of my off time at Brad and Shelley’s. Hanging out with their kids worked wonders. I still remember hearing Brittany pray that I would do well on my “spelling” test.

3a. At those times when you think, “I really need to review such-and-such subject,” simply write it down in the little notebook. That’s what it’s for. DO NOT ACTUALLY
REVIEW THE SUBJECT AT THIS TIME.

4. 9:55pm: Make sure that Dad has agreed to be your back-up alarm clock.

5. 10pm: Go to bed; if it helps, set your music system to play peaceful music (Jon Schmidt’s “Morning Light”?) for 30 minutes.

5a. Your little notebook should be on the night stand. When you wake up in the middle of the night, completely panicked about such-and-such subject, write it down then go back to sleep.

6. 6:00am: Wake up; get ready.

7. 6:30am: One hour to eat breakfast, which should be a combination of healthy carbs (fruit, for quick pick-me-up) and protein (for endurance). SIZE: not so small that you’ll run out of steam; not so big that it will drag you down.

7a. As you’re eating breakfast, do a quick review:
FIRST 15 minutes: Review the subjects you wrote down, which will probably number between 10 and 15. DON’T actually open the books; instead, just review the rules in your head. You will have memorized the rules for the vast majority of thesubjects; this is your chance to convince yourself that you do indeed know the subjects down cold.
SECOND 15 minutes: For the three to five subjects that you do not know cold, openthe books and look up the rule/formula. Come up with a quick tricks to help you remember. You won’t know these cold, but the quick review will help your confidence.Remember though: NO MORE THAN 15 MINUTES, so here’s the math for how much
time you can spend on each:
3 subjects: 5:00 minutes each
4 subjects: 3:45 minutes each
5 subjects: 3:00 minutes each
THIRD 15 minutes: Do some EASY practice questions from the Princeton Review book. This is just to warm you up, SO DON’T LOOK TO SEE IF YOU GOT THEM RIGHT; however, because I know you are going to look, I re-emphasize that you should only do the easy questions.
FOURTH 15 minutes: If he’s up, play with T; otherwise talk to Dad, or go out on the kitchen balcony and gaze north at the Mt. Timp Temple (the focus here is on the whole perspective thing again).

8. 7:30am: Drive to the testing center. Listen to music that you can sing to. Actually, not just sing, but belt. Recommendation: the “Hairspray” soundtrack, especially anything sung by Tracy Turnblad; best song “You Can’t Stop the Beat”

9. 7:45am: Chill, mediate, pray, whatever. But at this point, you’ll probably be feeling so pumped up, you’ll be bouncing around.

10: 8:00: Knock ’em dead.

I hope you all are as lucky as I am to have such fabulous siblings.

i’m still alive…

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So, I was taking a quick break before heading out for a run (which, I realize, is a break, as well) and saw this post on my sis-in-law’s blog that made me smile, so I wanted to share. Check it out!

The best part is that I get to babysit “mini-me” on Saturday night…at which point I’ll either be celebrating or sobbing. Either way, the test will be over. Hopefully, the first practice test wasn’t a fluke…although the second one that I took makes me think it was. I’m probably stressing over nothing, but this test will go a long way in the determination on where I will spend the two entire years of my life…oh, and my entire future, so I think my stress level is appropriate.

Okay, break’s over. I’m off to run before hitting the books for the third time today. Damn permutations!!!

time out

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17

I interrupt what would have been a post about the half-marathon I ran this morning (excellent!), to tell you that I am taking a blog break. In exactly one week from today, I will be taking the GMAT. This is the entrance exam for business school (think SAT on steroids). I finished my prep class on Wednesday, and now it’s time to make sure that I have the formulas, mnemonic devices and strategies I will need to blow this test out of the water fully integrated into my brain…no, my being. I need to eat, sleep, and breathe GMAT for the next week. And since, as most of you know, I am the queen of productive procrastination (yes, I do think bogging productive), I am announcing the break so that you all know that I am not supposed to be blogging. This includes commenting. So, if you “catch” me doing it, feel free to call me on it.

In the meantime…wish me luck. And don’t worry, the Weight Watchers and training updates will still happen, you’ll just have to wait until Saturday or Sunday.

weight watchers weekly – week 12

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*This is a long one. So, for those of you (including my little brother) who wish to “cut to the chase”, the weight total is at the bottom of this post.

Sanity has returned.

It’s amazing how quickly life (or part of it) can spin completely out of control. For me, as you all know from last week, it was my weight…well, not my weight, per se, but my obsession with my weight.

When I started Weight Watchers it was because I was finally ready to do this, lose weight, the right way, the healthy way. I didn’t want to ever end up in that yucky, ugly place again. You know, the Land of Eating Disorders, the Land of the Emotionally Screwed Up, the Land of Starvation. Take your pick…it’s all the same place. In that land, you weigh yourself every day, least twice a day. Sometimes three times. In that land, any time you “slip up” you have to beat yourself, internally or otherwise, over and over and over again. Sometimes the beating involves popping laxatives, sometimes throwing up, sometimes just thinking mean and ugly things about yourself. This a land where you are never happy. Not ever. You may appear happy. You may have moments of laughter and smiles. But the joy of a true life, a life ruled by honesty and integrity, never comes.

You would think the steady decline of the numbers on the scale would do it. And yes, there is this kind of euphoric feeling when you get on the scale and the number is lower, or when you go shopping and fit into a smaller size, but this feeling is ephemeral. I imagine it is a feeling akin to that experienced from a hit of some illicit drug. The problem is, like the high experienced from a drug, without another hit on the horizon, you are left in a state of withdrawal.

Well, no matter what you are doing to your body, it can only lose so much weight. Even starving it will only result in weight loss for so long. And like the addict who requires higher doses to experience the high, the more weight you lose, the more you need to lose to regain euphoria. Eventually, either one will kill you if they are left unchecked.

While I have no desire (in my lucid moments) to return to the Land of Starvation, somehow I found myself on the journey in that direction last week. You all know that I managed to stop in my tracks…but it was enough to really scare me.

Over the last week, I have though often about what it was that put me on that path. If I am going to stay away from that land, I need to figure these things out. I have had all of these little ideas, but I think I might have nailed down one sure thing that sends me into a tailspin. It’s my scale. When I started having “bad “days (days when I wasn’t tracking and knew I’d gone over my points), I started getting on the scale in the morning to make sure that I hadn’t gained weight. If I had, those feelings of inadequacy, of lacking control, of, well really, self-loathing (remember when I was so excited because self-loathing didn’t come when I gained .8 lbs that one week?) would immediately follow. If I hadn’t, I would think that I could get away with what I was doing.

But weight is a funny and fickle beast. It doesn’t react immediately. At least not chez moi. I could eat a whole pizza one day and not “feel” it for four. There’s a reason that Weight Watchers tells you outright that when you are trying to lose weight, you should only weigh yourself once a week. I really think, after much reflection, that the lack of weighing myself in the early weeks of my journey was a big part of my success…and my sanity.

Tonight’s lesson (yes, I weighed in and went to the meeting) was about the journey…patience and perseverance. Those of you who know me know that patience is a virtue that I do not possess. When I want something to happen, I want it to happen yesterday. Well, that’s just not the way it works with weight loss, or anything worth doing, for that matter.

I wish I could explain to you how helpful the meetings really are. There’s a certain camaraderie that exists when you have this group of people who come together for a common goal. It’s funny, working in a counseling center, I often admire the people in group therapy while simultaneously thinking, “I could never do that.” And I’m not going to say that WW is group therapy, but it is definitely a support group, and I love it. I love sharing. I love people sharing with me. Maybe I could do group therapy.

Our meeting leader asked us tonight to think of one thing, just one, that we were going to do to feel successful this week. Since I had already committed to meticulous tracking this week (which I did), I decided that I was going to give up my scale. Put it away…where it can’t tempt me or call to me. (Have you noticed how many inanimate objects speak to me?) That’s it. I have weighed myself twice a day every day this last week. Thankfully, I managed to get myself in the mind frame that, no matter what the scale said, I was going to just stick to my points and follow the program.

While that worked this week, I sat there today asking myself why it was that I felt being a masochist was necessary; why I felt that I deserved the kind of torture involved with daily (bi-daily, for that matter) weigh-ins. If I’m going to follow the program, regardless of what the scale says from day to day, why do I need to know what the scale says?

So, I am standing up right now to go bury the scale in the depths of my closet. While the room under the roof where I live is pretty small, the closet is not…but it is awkward, with a slanted ceiling, which means to get to the depths I have to crawl. I think that should do the trick.

…

Wow…that was hard. I feel like an alcoholic who just dumped out the last of my stash. Except that I didn’t. I still have the stash. It’s just stashed better. Okay…I’m feeling like I need to do more. My heart is racing. That is sad. A woman tonight, after I said that I was going to give up my scale, said that she started to feel anxious just at the thought of it. That’s how I’m feeling now. It’s one thing to put my scale in the closet, but to get rid of it entirely. I don’t know if I can do it. I’m thinking that’s what I need to do. If I am really going to learn how to eat and kill this demon (or at least domesticate him), that’s what I need to do.

This is how things happen in my life. To get a little spiritual on you (something I don’t do very often via the internet), this is exactly how the Lord works in my life. Unfortunately, because the good things are often the hard things and the hard things are often the scary things…these epiphanies (aka “promptings”) often involve varying levels of nausea and anxiety. Excuse me while I put my scale in the trunk of my car (and vomit). And then tomorrow, Madame Scale is heading into the storage unit where she will remain until I’m ready to maintain.

…

I’m scared and excited all at the same time. I think this is another step on the path to freedom from the crazies that live in my head.

Oh…and I lost .6 lbs, for a total of 23.6 lbs. I have nothing negative to say about it. I’m not disappointed. I’m not super excited. I just feel good. And healthy. And happy. It’s been a good week.