I’ve been extremely busy over the past few weeks. Work, GMAT preparations and other projects. Even study time is quite less and I plan to take a break from work to concentrate on it. And I’m finding it extremely difficult to find time to blog even though I do have a couple of ideas.
One of them is a series of posts about preparing for GMAT and what mistakes I made. Well I guess it’ll have to wait until my GMAT and TOEFL are over. For now, another period of silence ensues :(
It’s past 12 and I’m still awake :(
And it’s pouring worse than cats and dogs outside! Reminds me of college days since I am once again studying and the trepidation of facing the exams once again resurfaces! Along with it, a severe lack of time worries further
Since my Toefl is coming up and when I booked it, I could not get a slot for the CBT but only for the iBT. Hence I set about finding out the differences between the two versions of the test.
The main reason why I could not locate a CBT slot was because it has been discontinued since the introduction of the iBT which will happen from the coming July. Now on to the main differences.
The single biggest difference is the introduction of the new Speaking section which will test a candidates English speaking ability and hence moot the requirement for taking the TSE. This section consists of 3 parts in which,
Besides this, the TOEFL now consists of two essays instead of the earlier one. The scoring is also now on a scale of 0 to 120. I’m not sure of the earlier, but I believe it was a maximum of 300.
For score comparisons, ETS has released a score comparison table (Warning: PDF link)
Due to the addition of the essay and the speaking section, the TOEFL iBT is now four hours longs :O
That is one hell of a long test :(
I have finally decided to book slots for GMAT and TOEFL. Actually started reading up on the tests and going through the site in my lunch break and looked for available slots in late July or early August. But that caused a mild panic to set it because no slots were available for GMAT in Bangalore for those periods except 24th July which I did not want to take. So decided to check again when I got home.
Now once I got home, I found out that I must first register on the site and registrations take upto two days to get approved. So I cannot book a GMAT slot until friday I guess :( :((
Then I went about reading up on TOEFL and it’s new scheme and decided to book a slot in it, or if like GMAT, atleast register on the site. Thankfully, there I could immediately book a slot. But, if afternoon was mild panic, the evening was “major panic”.
Why? Because I could not locate a single available slot in the months of Late June, July, August and even September, in 10-11 centers spread in 8 cities. This was for the TOEFL CBT. I then surfed back to the slot booking options and selected the TOEFL iBT. (Yeah this is conducted on a computer too, don’t ask me, I didn’t keep the name ;) ) And to my amazement and thankings, a slot was available for the 4th of August which I booked without hesitation.
Now I only need to start studying for the TOEFL ;) :D
Wish me luck :P
Update:
My account has been approved and I’ve now booked a GMAT slot for the 27th of July, but the center is in Hyderabad :(
So the temple is finally a “temple” (before all these functions, it was just a building) and all the ceremonies and functions to deem it thus are finally done with and over. I attended everyday in the evening and took half a day off today to attend the final function.
Well, I cannot honestly say I took part though because of my disinterest. But I enjoyed meeting up with friends who I had not met in over a long while. Almost 5-6 months or maybe more :( That was good fun. Plus quite a few relatives had come down especially for this so met them as well.
Now it’s done with and hopefully I can get back to my regular routine, regular schedule and get some serious studying done..
Ps. My mom has gotten me a tiny silver ring and a chain-bracelet which is supposedly “holy”. Seems I’m building up a collection of jewellery what with 3 rings and the bracelet on my left arm ;) :D
We (as in the Jain community in Bangalore) have recently constructed a new temple. Whenever a new temple is constructed, to ordain the “building” as a temple, a series of Poojas have to be performed. These take about 5-6 days and this will happen starting this weekend on the 3rd. In addition to this, there will also be some other religious preachings and cultural programs to further the knowledge of our religion.
Now, I am an atheist. I do not believe in God or the concept of God. But not having explicitly stated this to my parents who are quite religious and take active participation in the community events and occasions pulled me into the preparations for the ordaining ceremony. The entire ceremony is being managed by my uncle with a lot of other people along with my dad being delegated the smaller details. So yesterday, I was assigned something to do as well.
Though I have never told my parents outright that I am atheist, I have always shown a disinterest in it. But I have to force myself to do all this for their sake which I do not quite welcome! I plan to just grin and bear it for the next few days!
Sigh :(
I’ve been working on a redesign, a new theme for my blog for a couple of days now. It’s a nice dark and green theme based on the Foliage Mod by 5thirtyone designs. Though it’s mostly the same as the original, I’ve made a few changes and modifications, a few color changes etc.
The theme uses Ajax heavily with a shelf on top. While I’m enabling it, it is still a work in modification and changes.. So please bear with me and do tell me how it looks.
Any suggestions and critiques are always welcome :)
The Skeletor and Hordak community on Livejornal.com has to be one of the funniest nonprofessional (not to be confused with unprofessional)comics I’ve read in quite sometime. Since Skeletor is in the public domain, anyone can create a strip on him and post it there. From the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading it, there have been 3 main story-lines proceeding in parallel. And all of them are good.
The strips consist of Skeletor and his interactions with his mentor Hordak. Since it’s got multiple authors, the stories are different in humor, quality etc. But they are all fun! :D
Thus speaketh