10 is the new 11

As you well know, D and me are working hard on our exams. This led me to coin the phrase at the title. If 11 was the right hour to get to sleep when we weren't working so hard, now 10 is the right hour. Unfortunately, just as before, we are unable to get sleep at the right time. Nonetheless, 10 is the new 11!

Hackintosh

Just a quick reminder to one of my previous posts. I said that I can't see a reason why a Mac OS can't ran on a PC.
It seems that some Israeli guy tried it on his old PC, and voila the man runs a legitimate copy of Leopard on his Intel based PC. You can see the demonstration in this link [Note: Hebrew explanations] and if you follow the talk-backs you can read how he did it. I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you know what you are doing and willing to destroy a potentially good PC.

Time is running out

The last week disappeared without notice. I feel that time is running out without me having the chance of catching up with the staff I need to do. First there is work, which takes the usual amount of time, but which I don't do as rigorously as I used to. In addition, there is the GRE, which consumes about two hours a day. I have to improve my vocabulary (vo-cab is the term used in class) immensely. It is unbelievable how many ridiculous, unneeded, and unused words there are in the English language. I have hundreds of words to tackle in the coming few weeks. I also started the GRE course, which has the benefit of sitting me down to study, but requires a lot of home work.

If that wasn't enough, I have to decide a go/no-go on the Calgary option. In order to do so I need to meet the prospective professor. I read a few papers about the subject, but I feel that I lack the grasp of many things. The principals are clear, but the details are not. I doubt if this is a good idea to enter a new field, in which I know so little, just because of my interest in it.

Last week I spent three evening with friends and family. This is a rarity. I met my college friends for dinner in a pub on Sunday, my dad for a movie on Tuesday and my friends from Calgary on Thursday. I doubt if this rare sequence of events will ever repeat itself.

Did I hear someone whisper something about going to the gym? Well, I guess my ears are beginning to trick me in my old age. Or is it just the fat that covers them.

TOEFL is dead, Long live the GRE

I finished my TOEFL today at 12:05. I'm still not sure how well I did in the test, but hopefully it will be enough for me to be accepted to the school of engineering in Cincinnati (i.e. better than 92). I'm optimistic about it and expect to receive around 100, with 5 points sigma and a normal distribution. This means that I have over 90% of chance to exceed 92.
Now that TOEFL is out of my way, GRE is next. Long live the GRE.

TOEFL Here I come

Tomorrow is the date of my TOEFL . I must admit that I didn't study as hard as I should have. I guess that it is just too boring to prepare for this test. Nevertheless, I took a few trials and have a few conclusions. One, my reading and listening comprehension is quite good. I guess that of the 30 points that each of these parts worth I will receive at least 90%, or 54 points in total. The writing part is also quite simple, but I haven't had the chance to assess my writing skills, as they require the evaluation of a human examiner. I would expect to receive around 25 from this part. In total this will bring me to at least 79-80 points out of the 90 points in these three parts.
Unfortunately, the last part is the speaking section. I'm afraid that my speech is not as fluent and as good as my other skills. On the other hand, I am required to achieve 92 in total, so out of the 30 remaining points I will need less than a half. Hopefully, this is something that I can do. Wish me luck!!!!!


By the way, I scheduled my GRE test to March 10. After taking one computer adaptable test (CAT) version and one paper version (for the course) I can say that my quantitative score will probably be high, while my verbal reasoning score will be much worse. I have a problem with the vocabulary part of the GRE. I am not sure how the other people are coping with this part. Let's hope that my Princeton Review course will help me get better at this part.

Sick or exhausted?

Since I got back from the 3rd world I have been feeling sick and exhausted. The feeling varies from sheer exhaustion, lack of concentration to stomach aches and sore throat. It has been 10 days now and still I don't think it is getting better. If anything, it gets worse. Today I decided to take another day off, to regain my strengths. If it doesn't get better tomorrow I will go to the doc.