6 GRE Study Tips

For those of us hoping to go to grad school, the GRE is a necessary evil.  It is like the SAT on speed.  I just took it last week.  Not that I aced it or anything, but here are some tips that I used (or wish I had used) to help my score:

Image Courtesy

1. Begin studying at least a month in advance, preferably 2 months or earlier!  (But if you're like me, the longer you have to complete a task the more you procrastinate).  Try to set aside an hour a day or every other day to study, and take one or two practice tests a week.  That way you will know what you need to study, and you can track your progress by your weekly test performance.
2. Buy a study guide!  The major ones are by Princeton Review and Kaplan, but there are many, many more.  I used the Kaplan book.  Most of the test prep books you find in the book store will be very helpful as long as they include lots of practice questions and practice tests.  These books are great because they familiarize you with the types of questions on the test and how it will be scored.  I recommend buying a book with an online component because it often includes extra practice tests that are administered the same way as the real GRE.
3. Keep an ongoing vocabulary list.  As you study, you will encounter lots of words you don't know.  Write these down and define them, and continue studying them as you go.  My list was 4 pages long front and back.  Maybe I think too highly of myself, but I didn't realize there were this many words floating around the English language I had never heard of before.  I don't know where the GRE finds them!  These are not your high school SAT words.
4. As for math: practice, practice, practice.  The way the GRE asks math questions is not straightforward...they give you an equation of some kind and two quantities (A and B) and then ask you if one quantity is greater than the other, equal to each other, or cannot be determined.  Unfortunately, this requires that all solutions must be parsed out before you can make your answer.  For a person as slow in math as me, it required tons of practice to get used to this type of question and to re-familiarize myself with long-forgotten rules and principles.  The only way to do this is to grab a test prep book and get to work, and then take as many practice tests as you can tolerate.
5. Utilize ETS.org.  ETS is the organization that administers the GRE, and they have lots of useful test prep tools on their website.  There are free practice tests, essay prompts, and test tips.  I recommend checking them out and using all the resources they have to offer!
6. Don't freak out on test day!  I know it's hard not to, but the GRE can always be taken again!  (Even though it costs you out the wazoo).  As my psych professor used to say, your exam performance does not determine your worth as a person!

Good luck!!!

~Ashley

Comic is from the great website PhD Comics

30 Days of Yoga with Adriene

I have mixed feelings about yoga.  For the most part I love it.  Every time I've done it in the past I've left the studio feeling more relaxed, more energized, and more positive.  A couple times I even felt like I got an intense workout - like I exercised muscles I had never exercised before.  On the other hand, if I'm going to allocate time to fitness, I'd often rather cram as much physical exertion into the hour as I can, and yoga sometimes doesn't cut it.  Also, I still feel a little hokey when the class chants "om...." in unison.  It makes me feel like more of a suburban white girl than just about anything else.

Despite my hesitations, I still really want to do yoga.  It is very alluring for its graceful instructors, its promise of serenity and strength, and its mysterious roots in eastern religion.  Not to mention my doctor recommended I do yoga to rehabilitate my back after a nasty injury.  So, to ease into it and hopefully learn a thing or two, I decided to try 30 Days of Yoga with Adriene on YouTube.  

I started yesterday with Day 1.  Adriene makes things easy enough for beginners.  She speaks in a soothing,  encouraging tone and has a playful edge.  I appreciated her gentle reminders to stay present instead of allowing your mind to race ahead to the next posture.  The session is thirty minutes long, and while I thought I would be bored initially, I slid into an almost meditative state in which I felt very calm and time passed quickly.  By the end, I felt relaxed and loose and positive.

Over the next 30 days I will give a weekly update with my observations of any changes or effects I notice from the program.



Namaste!



~Ashley 

Happy Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day 2015 I thought I'd share some pictures of the flowers I potted a couple days ago!

 Out of the little pot and into the big pot!

 My mom always tells me to break up the roots before planting to encourage them to grow into the new planter.

Two double impatiens and two verbena!

Snipping the beautiful flowers off the newly potted gardenias.  Seems so sad but it helps the plant allocate nutrients more efficiently to grow big and strong.

Happy Earth Day!

~Ashley

A Birthday Cake Experiment: 8 Layer Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cake

Last year for his 25th birthday I baked my brother this delicious chocolate and peanut butter cake from Smitten Kitchen.  It was quite well-received and touted "the best cake ever" (thanks Deb!) so when his 26th birthday rolled around last week I knew I had to deliver.  I didn't want to bake the same cake again, but I knew it would be hard to top last year's.  After some brainstorming I settled apprehensively on an 8-layer chocolate and peanut butter cake with chocolate ganache filling and peanut butter buttercream (if you haven't noticed, peanut butter and chocolate is the flavor du jour).  This is definitely the tallest and most complicated cake I have ever made, but taking it step by step made it not too hard, even for me.  Here's how it went down:



First things first I made the ganache recipe from this cake with Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate.  I left it in the fridge to set up while I did the rest of my baking.

Next, I baked this recipe of chocolate cake which is actually the same recipe from the back of the Hershey's cocoa box.  It is a kind of odd recipe involving boiling water and a super-thin batter but the cake comes out beautifully moist (sorry if you hate that word) and rich-but-not-too-rich.  It's also not too sweet.  Perfect! 

I turned them out onto a rack to cool while I baked the peanut butter cake.

This peanut butter cake.  I found the recipe on The Daring Gourmet and boy am I glad I did.  It tastes like a giant peanut butter cookie!

Next step.  I used my Wilton cake leveler to trim the domed tops of the cake layers and slice the layers in half.  I must say it works really well, but only when the pre-determined height settings fit your needs.  When they didn't, I had to use a large bread knife.  No big deal though.  I began with a chocolate layer on a swiveling cake plate with strips of parchment tucked under the edges.  The ganache set up a bit too hard in the fridge to be spreadable so I portioned off enough for the layer in a bowl and microwaved it for 5 seconds.  This got it to a perfectly spreadable consistency so I used my small offset spatula to cover the layer in ganache.  

    

Up it goes!  This took awhile, not gonna lie.  I tried to get the layers as flat and as uniform as possible.  Experience has taught me that sloping and uneven cake layers just don't look as pretty.

And the cake is built!  Now bed time.

The next morning and the cake is ready to be iced.

There's my peanut butter buttercream looking a bit like cement but tasting delicious.  I used Wilton's recipe and I loved it!

This might've been the hardest part of making this cake - trying not to catch many crumbs in the icing and making sure it went on evenly.  

Ta da!  The icing had a light, whipped texture so the finished look was a bit...rustic, but I loved how it looked nonetheless!

Party time!  Here's the birthday boy and lovely Cindi with his cake.  (Excuse the candles...never buy sparklers from Target).

The first slice!

We did a number on it.

And we even got to take a few slices home!  

This birthday cake experiment was a success!

~Ashley

Noisy Neighbors

I know this video has been making the rounds (I first saw it on A Cup of Jo), but it made me laugh so much I had to share it here.  Everyone who has had noisy neighbors will understand!

"Be well"



~Ashley

A Good Day

Yesterday was one of those days that made me happy to be alive.  The trees were budding, the air was warm, the sky was blue, and I felt happier and springier than I have in a while!  I decided to brave the dog park with my Jack Russell Terrier- a feared feat by the owners of this feisty little breed-but I am glad I did!  There was nobody else there so my two little dogs ran like crazy chasing birds, tennis balls, and me until we were all dirty and worn out.

So much dirt!

Then we took an excursion to Kabob Je Rotisserie and Grille for a feast of falafel, hummus, fattoush, mujaddara, tabouleh, and pita.  Without exaggerating, it was the best Lebanese/Mediterranean food I'd ever had!  I stuffed myself and very happily carried home a plate full of leftovers.  The staff was nice enough to allow the dogs on the patio and even brought them a dish of water!  They were stunningly well-behaved and drew lots of compliments.  I felt so proud.

The day continued with a trip to the garden store with my mom (the expert gardener) where I picked up some salmon-colored double impatiens and white verbena, which will be potted as soon as the threat of frost goes away.  These flower names are too technical for me...I prefer to call them pink and white flowers.

I ended my day with a slice of lemon cake and a mug of earl gray tea.

Sometimes it's nice to forget about your big deadlines and demands and just focus on the little things.  It really is the little things like a spring morning in the park, a good meal, pretty flowers, and a cup of tea which make it all worthwhile.

~Ashley

Quote and Thoughts

Thoughts on a quote by our bro, the good man Teddy R. :

Teddy Roosevelt at Glacier Point, Yosemite Ntl. Park (Image Courtesy)

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

There is so much in this speech to be appreciated, but I wanted to focus on the last few lines. I think there are many quotes to be considered on the merit of trying and putting forth effort, but this one in particular spoke to me! 

I really appreciate that Teddy recognized that there is something to be said about a person who endeavors for great things, even in the face of failure. I know that personally I am impressed when someone achieves something great, but I am not impressed when someone gives something a shot and doesn't make it. For some reason, I had looked at that failure as a negative thing. However, this speech shows great wisdom by illustrating the value of effort. 

These words demonstrate a counter intuitive concept--failure itself can be a great thing. And although that may be hard to wrap my head around, this is a practical thing in many ways! Trying for something great sets you apart from the many people that never gave it a shot. And when I talked about this quote with Ashley, she also pointed out that trying is useful because there is so much you learn when you try!

So the moral of this post is that trying for something and failing is not bad. Repeat: trying for something and failing is not bad. Because if you get it, you have achieved. And if you don't, you were one of the people brave enough to try and that is an achievement in itself, and you have also learned! Thanks Teddy for your wisdom <3

Tiffany