6:47am FAIL

But Sort of not too bummed out about it because it wasn’t a faile of sleeping through 18 alarm clocks… rather I left my alarm clock at home, and then Kathy turned hers off.
So yeah.
But it felt strange not having “enough time” when just last week I’d roll out of bed a little past 7 and barely eek it to school.

At the airport with the wifi that doesn’t work. (hence typing on micro-word to copy paste over later)

You know you’re Junia at the airport if you…
- Have a passport/boarding pass + bathroom mishap.
EVERY TIME. Seriously. And it’s by God’s grace that I remember and come back. Today I didn’t even have to come back, I went to the bathroom to change into some comfy pants feeling very pleased with myself that I have this whole flight-thing down…. And I decided to take a picture and realized I didn’t have my camera because it was in the STALL (that was unfortunately quickly occupied by a number two-er). I waited patiently and went in afterwards(holding my breath) and retrieved it. I thought I was smart about it too this time because I had secured my passport and boarding pass with my camera! Because LAST time the mishap wasn’t forgetting it but my boarding pass FALLING INTO THE TOILET (passport narrowly missed). Gross.

And I realized the boarding pass is made out of like plasticky paper – because it was easy to just wipe off the water and then good as new.
TMI I know.

- If you THINK you’re somewhere and then get an “oh” moment…
Let me explain; I thought I had arrived at the gate and I’m waiting and waiting and waiting and THEN I see people going through the “gate” door down the stairs to what I would presume is the actual boarding area. Then I go “oh!” and hurry on after.
This happened twice today, but I don’t remember the first “oh!” moment except for the fact that it happened.

Some advice: taking a taxi to Taipei Main Station takes JUST as long as taking the MRT and costs 7 times as much. It’s REALLY sad. Especially since my smart card is loaded with money waiting for the MRT to take…. And my wallet was only semi loaded with money meant to be changed into Bahts. Boo.

ALSO another thing: Taipei Mainstation --> Taoyuan Airport changed stations! So I was SO confused. Like “didn’t that used to say Taoyuan?” how come it says DaSI? Because it CHANGED! And so I walked over and it was fine. ^_^



*****

GRE:
Confession, I'm not very prepared. Kaplan suggests the day before not to do anything; a racehorse always rests 24 hours before a race (I was amused at that example). But I don't think I will. I think I might take a practice test tonight.

I felt very empty last night. You know how WHILE you're on a course, everything makes sense, and right when you finish you realize ALL the things you could have done and how you miscalculated and misjudged and misprioritized?

Yeah. and I felt .

Anyway, today I'm feeling cheerier because I finally looked up THREE things that i ALWAYS miss on my practice GREs

Permutations/Combinations
Writing the Essays
Exponent/Radicals

And I learned (or relearned I guess) a trick!

permutations: when order matters. N! / (N!-R!)
while combos: when order DOESN't matter (hence a larger denominator since we don't count the order so ABC = CBA) = N! / R!(N-R!) and you can CANCEL CROSS.. or CROSS CANCEL?

OOH talking about that here are some tricks

multiples of 2 = even numbers (knew this)
multiples of 3 = digits add up to a multiple of 3 (knew this)
multiple of 5 ends in 5 or 0 (knew this)
multiple of 10 ends in 0. (knew this)

NOw.
HERE comes the COOL part

Multiple of 4: last 2 digits end in a multiple of 4
multiple of 6: digits add up to a multiple of 3 and is even
multiple of 9 : all digits add up to a multiple of 9
multiple of 12: digits add up to a multiple of 3 and last 2 digits is a multiple of 4.

COOOLLLLLLL

ANDDDD

if they ask you for the average of a sequence of consecutive numbers, you just add the smallest and largest number and DIVIDE BY TWO

if they ask you for the SUM you multiply the average by the number of numbers in the sequence... i think, actually I don't know if that makes sense... it should.


ALSO finding common factors between 2 numbers: find the common prime factors of each number. And THEN multiply all possible combinations.


to find common MULTIPLEs... I forget; I'll go review.


Anyway number tricks are cool.

I will talk about my gRE testing techniques some more later.


Or now, because we're late...


Basically in the beginning I'd finish all my practices with 5-7 minutes to spare.
Now, I don't finish the math.

My score got a LEETLE better or worse.

So I don't know.

but I'm thinking knowing the permutations and multiples will be helpful. unless i get confused.


and i'll stop identifying every little thing wrong with me after the test is over. I'm so glad I can count on that about myself. Once it's over it's OVER. no matter how crappy it was! (unless it's a race where i came in second .. and then cried.. and random nights it creeps back and i think about how I could have been in the olympics if only I hadn't stopped after that... makes me think of that lady that Benjamin Button had an affair with... She in the end ended up swimming thru the channel after all!!!! )




seriously... this is mind vomit.