GRE experience

It's an exam I hope to never take again ever. Hopefully the score I got today was enough to apply and get into the uni i wanna go to. So here it goes.

In the morning I even read of what to eat/not to eat before the exam. They said no simple sugar cuz that will not supply you enough energy to last for hours of the exam. They suggest complex carbs (and so do I) like rice and proteins.

Once I followed the direction written in the email to the exam location, I ended up in Maneeya center (near Chidlom bts) on the 6th floor. Exam room looked pretty much just like a normal computer room with walls separating each examiner apart. Rules are strictly enforced. No personal belonging whatsoever into the exam room. I was forced to put in my bag, wallet, phone into the locker, and yea my fuji green tea that i just bought as well. Going in and out of the exam room needed to be signed in and out before and afterward. Above each and every computer is a cctv camera watched by another guy in the room in front. Mission is simply impossible.

The proctor led me into the exam room and showed me my seat. They provided me with 2 pieces of scratch paper and 2 pencils. Staring at the screen, I was kinda nervous. But i realized I had to start the exam sooner or later before the caffeine from the fuji tea I just drank is all burned up and drowsiness starts to kick in. So the exam started with teaching how to use the mouse, keyboard and stuff which I just kept pressing exit until the writing exam.

Honestly, I never thought I could write a good 600 words in 45 minutes. Well, at least I never did it before. Obviously, i did it. The second writing assignment was relatively easy.

Next section the quantitative part, what I aim is a full score which was 800. Theoretically, I can miss maybe 3-4 questions from 28 and still get the score, depending on luck. (Getting the hard question right gives more score than the easy ones) I was never a perfectionist to begin with, making it even harder. But again, practice makes perfect.

Last section, the verbal part. I can fully feel that the caffeine was half past gone already. Reading comprehension was harder than ever, with the time limit pressing me. I had to guess few of the passage questions just to move on to do it in time.

After finishing the last question, it asked me if I want to report the score. Choices were to cancel everything I've done today, and see the score and report it to the uni. (cancelled score can be resend for $60 o_O) Then the long awaited time .... the result (this is the best damn thing about a computerized test --- result immediately after !)

Verbal 600

Quant 800

Yay! I think this score will be fine hopefully. Current target uni: Cornell U.

Italy !!

One week in Italy with 3 of my best friends.

Rome Florence Pisa Venice Milan

General impression: Rome is a tourist city (at least around the center of the city in the summer)

Tourists just rule the town jing jing. Much like how London's tube is infested by people who doesnt look least bit like Londoner. But the city itself is historic. Best time to come: probably around April as June was way too hot for us to stroll through the town without a bottle of water handy all the time. The ancient city was, just like in the vid you saw, ancient, dusty, bricky, much like what you'd see in Ayuddhaya except the structure is Roman, not Pagoda.

Street Italian food's taste didnt really meet my expectation. Originality is unquestionable as I dont think you can find any more original Italian food outside Italy. But I have to admit that Italian food in Thailand is more or less fusioned/adjusted so that it tastes somehow 'better' for Thais. They eat 4 courses (appetizer, first main course like pastas, second main course like steaks, and dessert). Of all the restaurants I went to, which according to a tour book was good, only 2-3 actually tasted good.

Forward to Florence. Beautiful city. No wonder whatsoever why renaissance originated here. Perfect atmosphere for inspiration. Pisa, on the other hand, disappointed me, particularly the leaning tower. I thought it was taller than that ! Yup, I did the tourists' pose at the leaning tower of Pisa to signify I was there once upon a time when it hasnt collapsed yet. Honestly, you can cut Pisa from the trip if you're planning to go to Italy and your time is not enough.

Venice is another city where Italians work to accommodate tourists. Besides making glasses and masks, I don't see how this city can live without millions of tourists visiting this city each year. Again, April is the best time to come around. Strolling around Venice under the sun doesnt feel that good.

Milan was a metropolitan city which I happened to see just a tiny bit before leaving back to bangkok. Nothing much to sightsee except that second biggest cathedral in Europe.

Overall it was a balanced good trip. Bit of shopping. Much of sightseeing. Eating was fab. The only part that sux was the train system.

GRE on the way

after what seems to be a few hundreds flash cards with 2 words & meaning per cards wasted

hours everyday trying to ace the verbal part

even more hours playing game after such a tiresome brain usage

finally i managed to get the score up from the first time i did the practice test

the score was 30% or so (5 choices each question, not really a good guesser was i?)

now i'm doing 60-70% in the verbal part :D:D

recommending the barron book 800 essential vocabs for those who wanna improve the score so it doesnt look that bad if you're going into a quantitative program

for a 700+ score i believe u'd have to memorize all the 3500 words in the barron prep book

quantitative part wasnt that bad to begin with

the worst i did was 2-3 questions wrong with 11 from 45 minutes to spare with

havnt started reviewing the writing part tho

i'm taking the exam this 10th sep just before going back to UK on the 16th

any1 planning to take gre will b more than welcomed to ask me for the ebookS

i've got like so much u can spend months reading every1 of those now

Stansted Airport

Besides Heathrow, London has 3 more airports (luton, gatwick, stansted) that accommodate low cost flight like this one I took. I never expected sleeping over at the airport to be comfy. I didnt expect there were going to be this few chairs as well ahaha. First I thought there would be some couches and chairs but this was like none. People sleeping over night on the floor everywhere. It wasnt until after check-in when there were more seats available. The saddest part is that we already settled in Burger King and thought the place was open 24 hours. That was until we got kicked out around 2:30 ><"

It still worths the cheap price anyhow. The plane was OK considering it's only 2.5 hours flight which I slept the whole way.

ITALY, here we go !!

I'M BACK

After such a long break from this blog, I certainly decided it's time for a come-back !

Be expecting a few more vids to come ^___^

Here's a few update about myself:

I .....

just finished my third undergrad year (First year in UK!) One more year to go!

went to Italy right after that for a week of vacation

am currently in bkk til September 16th, when i'll b flying back to UK again

am currently pretty much stressed out about my post-grad study~~ Cant decide whether to go for the US or stay in UK .... I'll probably be doing something like financial engineering

am studying for the GRE (think of SAT but to enter postgrad level) needed for US postgrad

was elected the vice president of Thai soc in Uni of Nott ^^

just finished playing Final Fantasy XIII (total playing hours: 42:53) (storyline: quite disappointing)(graphics: magnificent)

still cant believe I'm a รุ่นพี่ปี 4 already !!! -_-"

The New Year countdown

Damn -_-" It's already half month past the new year. I feel like I didnt do anything at all besides reading for the exam.

And then I realized I just did these vids and it's fun ^__^

London Tour

Fresh start of 2010 in London. Right now it's 2 more days til my first exam. Been forcing myself to wake up at 5 just to start reading for a few days already. It proves to be really healthy and my mind was extremely clear after all the blurry sleepy moment passed away. The tea I bought from York worked like charm. Nothing's better than a cup of tea in the morning. Reason not to read in the evening? Annoying facebook email just keeps popping up distracting me from reading and I helplessly have to check what my friend wrote even if it's just a simple 'lol' -_-" So yea, from now on, my reading will take place at 6 in the morning with a cup of tea ^_^

Weather right now starts to get extremely cold. Snow outside is like a few inches thick already. I just bought a heater fan to cope with that.

Talking about boxing day. It was heck of a chaos like people queuing up to get free food in those undeveloped countries just to pay for half price stuff.

Here's vid of the places we went to in london