Things That Are Much Worse Than the GRE That I Have Already Weathered And Survived: A Pep Talk

It's tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. At 11:30, I will walk out of there, with the pressure of the last four months off of my shoulders, one way or another. It's just a damn exam. I'm so excited to be done.

And, as I go to sleep here tonight, I want to give my brain something fun to think about, as mentioned in the title. So, below are some harrowing experiences I have had that were both a) more painful than the GRE Math Subject Test will be tomorrow and b) lasted longer than the aforementioned test will. I don't know if it's for me or for you, but it's here.

1. Surviving through the morning after the day that I hiked Half Dome with my family in Yosemite - when I thought none of my bodyparts belonged to me anymore.
2. Getting my wisdom teeth out.
3. Sitting through graduation practice at high school and college in stuffy rooms with not enough air.
4. Bowing incorrectly to a monk in Thailand and sitting through the rest of a silent, 2-hour service in the temple when people kept intermittently turning around to stare at me.
5. That one time I was on a plane from Frankfurt to San Francisco, and 12 hours into the flight we circled and circled and circled around San Francisco, then had to land in Oklahoma City, they barely had enough fuel for such a big plane, then we had to fly back and circle and circle and circle around Denver before landing and I had to fly to SFO from there.
6. Having strep throat a few weeks ago.
7.The day of crew practice when I almost fell out of the boat due to incorrect form and was thoroughly embarrassed/shamed and also very sore from all of the rowing.
8. Studying for this damn test for the past several months.

I was on the exercise bike today with my GRE book and I was listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack - and as I turned to the page about the integration of complex functions, the music swelled with the first appearance of the main theme in that film, and I all of a sudden was out of myself and observing the situation, realized the dramatic music and me, sitting on a STATIONARY BIKE with a book about MATH, so worried about one damn test. And I started laughing so hard I had to stop pedaling. Life cracks me up sometimes.

So, my plan. Go to sleep. Wake up. Have some breakfast. May or may not involve bacon. And treat myself as awesome. That's what I did all through my undergrad - it worked for me there. No reason for it not to now.