Just signed up for the big one...
The GRE, A.K.A. Graduate Record Examination. This will largely determine what grad schools I can get into. I'm also amongst the first to take the computer adaptive test, as opposed to the pen and paper test. This test is harder, because every time you get a question right, it gets harder, every time you get one wrong, it gets easier. Also, you cant go back and look at the instructions. You can't go back and change an answer, and you can't skip an answer to come back to it. Once a question is answered, it is locked in and cannot be changed.
Ohh what fun...
Honestly I fear it. The worst case senario is that I do another year in Tucson (ugh) and take the test again and get a better score. But I have resources at my disposal for practice. All the math and verbal lessons for the course I'm taking are available online, and are at my disposal for another two months. So I can practice like hell, to my hearts content.
On the spiritual front... Reconnected with a couple of good friends this week. Tim and Brian. Both are doing well. Tim is, as always, in communication with a Synod of Milan priest in Austin, TX by the name of Fr. Aiden. Both of them, more or less simultaneously, had the idea that it was high time to put a really traditional church in Tucson. Apparently Synod of Milan would only be able to send a priest through every couple of months, so it would be a priestless mission at first. However, the Synod of Milan, with the blessing of the Archbishop Hilarion (now of Australia, late of New Jersey) has already trained a number of ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) priests in the Orthodox Western Rite.
So here's the deal. If we can find a ROCOR priest who would be willing to move to Tucson, SoM will train him Western Rite. The problem is that ROCOR already has its own assessment of Tucson as not having enough people to justify a serious (and costly) effort. And I, to my regret, must agree at least at the moment. There are only around ten people in this town who would be interested. It is not a guarantee that all of them would join the church. Although at least half of them already trying to do so.
Alas... Nobody is sure what to do. Tucson needs an Orthodox church that hasn't got pews, an organ, or a patriarch who is in communion with heretics. That means either Jerusalem Patriarchate, Moscow Patriarchate, ROCOR, or Synod of Milan. The Greeks could do it, but they are not. Perhaps when a new Patriarch of Alexandria is chosen, he will re-impose the anathamata lifted by one of his predecessors, and not renewed under his immediate predecessor. If so then Alexandria will be back in the game for real.
Pray, wait, and see.
God the Merciful be with us always, now and forever. Amen.
Ohh what fun...
Honestly I fear it. The worst case senario is that I do another year in Tucson (ugh) and take the test again and get a better score. But I have resources at my disposal for practice. All the math and verbal lessons for the course I'm taking are available online, and are at my disposal for another two months. So I can practice like hell, to my hearts content.
On the spiritual front... Reconnected with a couple of good friends this week. Tim and Brian. Both are doing well. Tim is, as always, in communication with a Synod of Milan priest in Austin, TX by the name of Fr. Aiden. Both of them, more or less simultaneously, had the idea that it was high time to put a really traditional church in Tucson. Apparently Synod of Milan would only be able to send a priest through every couple of months, so it would be a priestless mission at first. However, the Synod of Milan, with the blessing of the Archbishop Hilarion (now of Australia, late of New Jersey) has already trained a number of ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) priests in the Orthodox Western Rite.
So here's the deal. If we can find a ROCOR priest who would be willing to move to Tucson, SoM will train him Western Rite. The problem is that ROCOR already has its own assessment of Tucson as not having enough people to justify a serious (and costly) effort. And I, to my regret, must agree at least at the moment. There are only around ten people in this town who would be interested. It is not a guarantee that all of them would join the church. Although at least half of them already trying to do so.
Alas... Nobody is sure what to do. Tucson needs an Orthodox church that hasn't got pews, an organ, or a patriarch who is in communion with heretics. That means either Jerusalem Patriarchate, Moscow Patriarchate, ROCOR, or Synod of Milan. The Greeks could do it, but they are not. Perhaps when a new Patriarch of Alexandria is chosen, he will re-impose the anathamata lifted by one of his predecessors, and not renewed under his immediate predecessor. If so then Alexandria will be back in the game for real.
Pray, wait, and see.
God the Merciful be with us always, now and forever. Amen.
posted by Alexios at 10:20 PM
1 Comments:
I totally spiked the GRE when I took it a few (well, actually, more than a few) years ago. As I recall, I got a 740 or 760 out of 800 on the Verbal; and a math score in the ultra-high 600's.
It didn't hurt that I had a fever of about 101 when I took the test...
God be with you and help you!
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