It’s not 2009 yet, but I’d like to take a moment here and highlight the roller coaster of a year I’ve been through, so that in a future entry, I can highlight the steady ground I’m hoping to be on. I thought about the best way of writing all of it down, and although I’d love to write a long-winded and perhaps boring to some essay on my 2008 adventures, I think a list is in order.

This year I…

-Spent the early hours of New Year’s Day at Disneyland, despite tickets being sold out. We managed to get in to the park because of the good graces of a stranger with extra tickets. That day will never be forgotten.

- Was hired as a full-time editor for a social media company

-Began doing freelance work as a journalist, which led me to write about some incredible and some not so incredible films, interview Ben Kingsley and a bunch of others and meet a lot of other great writers.

-Accidentally deleted this blog, which caused me to lose almost two years worth of entries

- Went to Montreal with my boyfriend, had great food, did great shopping and met Charles Aznavour

-Co-hosted an edible gardening internet radio show

- Saw Adele perform at The Roxy

-Took sessions with a personal trainer and enrolled at a new gym

-Watched my sister graduate high school and enroll at my alma mater

-Went through a luxating patella surgery with Henry and nursed him back to health for about five months

-Witnessed the incredible and miraculous election of 2008 and cried when Obama won

- Became a member of the Society of Professional Journalists

-Revisited the Magic Castle after my initial outing there to interview a magician

-Dyed my full head a single color for the first time ever

-Started to regularly attend the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market

-Wasted so many hours of my life sitting in the horrendous traffic of Los Angeles

-Made some amazing online friends through this blog

-Broke my camera, fixed it only to have it break again

-Tried to resist the phenomenon that is “Twilight,” but fell victim to the dazzling story of Edward and Bella, which marked my regression into adolescence.

-Worked my first red carpet, where I met Stan Lee, Frank Miller, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Julie Benz

-Took my obsession with Bollywood to a whole other level by managing to watch at least one film almost every weekend for the better part of the year

-Went to work on developing a new online publication gear towards the Armenian community (still working)

-Found amazing online tools such as Twitter and StumbleUpon, which I now use daily

-Became progressively more obsessed with Anthropologie

-Prayed for snow that never came

-Didn’t spend enough time in bookstores

-Took the GRE, a rather painful experience that I will most likely repeat again sometime in the future

-Did a lot of baking and found some recipes I really loved

There’s a topic I’ve been avoiding here for weeks. Partly because I didn’t want to think about it, but mostly because…yea it was totally because I did not want to think about it, at all. I suppose now that a couple weeks have passed, I am ready to discuss the Dreaded Test of Higher Education, otherwise known as the GRE. My experience with it was very manic. On the one hand, I panicked about it to the point that I was physically manifesting my anxieties. On the other hand, I went in to take it with a very nonchalant attitude about the whole thing. My results from the test? Very manic.

I woke up extremely early on that day, made my way down to the test center and waited. I waited and waited until the doors opened, we were all let in and handed forms to fill out. There weren’t many people there, although many of them were already irritating me, like this one woman named Maria, who had brought in her Starbucks mochafrappabullshit drink (her name was scribbled on her drink) and was taking her sweet time to not only sip it, but sip it very loudly. I filled out my form quickly, stuffed my belongings into the provided locker and went to answer a couple questions as fast as I could to get away from Maria Full of Sips.

The entire process was very clinical and frightening at the same time. After about three and a half hours, I had finally finished the test, and as a parting gift, the GRE decided it was going to give me a headache that would last all afternoon. I walked out of there a bit dazed and confused and a bit like I had been through academia hell.

While I was paying for parking, the man at the booth inquired about my test. I told him I didn’t think I had done very well.

“That’s ok! You always have another chance. You can come back and take it again and you’ll do great next time!” he said encouragingly.

I left the test site knowing I hadn’t done so well. I don’t know why I expected to do great, seeing as to I hadn’t really studied.

I pushed the test to the back of mind more or less, until I came home last Thursday and received the results by mail. Impatiently, I tore open the envelope and saw what I already knew.

I had done “OK” on the verbal and horrible on the math portion. But what I haven’t been able to stop thinking about, and what has got me to really hate and question the mere idea of a test to get into graduate school, is the fact that I scored near PERFECT on the analytical writing section. The analytical writing section is the portion of the test where you choose two questions and write essays explaining your stance with supporting evidence, complete sentences, deep thought and great grammar and writing skills.

Yes, that’s right. I scored half a point away from a perfect store. Regardless of that half of a point, I was in the top tier section of the scale and had done better than 90 percent of others who completed that section.

I had just taken a $140 test that had made it clear to me (at least academically) that I was a good writer. Perhaps a great writer.

I wasn’t confident enough in my scores as a whole to send it to any school and was pretty depressed about the fact that I didn’t do my best, the sheer realization that a test for graduate school had determined that my analytical writing capabilities were incredibly high was enough for me.

I’m still feeling very disillusioned about this whole graduate school business. The GRE to me, was completely unnecessary and discouraging and in my opinion, it should have absolutely NO bearing on the acceptance of a student to continue their education. NONE whatsoever. It’s a pointless exam with pointless results and does not showcase a student’s talent, just their test taking skills ( at least the multiple choice sections anyway).

I was lucky enough to discover after the test that one of the schools on the top of my list that I wanted to attend doesn’t even require the GRE. But now, the problem isn’t the GRE anymore, it’s money. I don’t know how I can even begin to pay for one year of education that will grant me a Master’s degree, but will cost the same as a luxury vehicle. Sure, there’s scholarships and financial aides and loans, but none of those are a guarantee, and with the way the financial atmosphere is, getting a loan might be near impossible.

I imagine there are so many people all over this country and the world, wondering the same thing I am: how in the world are they going to pay for their education?

The short answer is: I don’t know.

And I really don’t know, but I’m not stopping. I’ll find a way. If worse comes to worst, my choice of school might have to change. But like I said before, the school doesn’t make you, YOU make you. The end.

I would like to write about how there was a fire on the 405 freeway that prevented me from getting to work in a timely manner, or how my boots gave me horrible blisters today, or how Henry is doing or how much I love Paula Deen. I have a lot I want to write about. In fact, I have 16 drafts of posts that I haven’t gotten you yet. But I can’t write any of it, not right now anyway, because not only am I dead tired from eight hours of work, tomorrow morning, I am going to take a test that’s slightly more hellish than the SAT. The test that might or might not determine the direction of my life for the next couple of years, the test I am dreading, the test that I believe has absolutely no measure on my abilities as a writer or journalist whatsoever. Yes, I will be taking that test, that three letter word of a test, tomorrow for four hours. I’d like to be writing, but instead, I am stressing. I have silently told myself that this is just the test of the test. In other words, this is me getting my feet wet. This is not do or die. This is do, and if you fail, do again. Don’t stress. Stay calm. You will live. I hope.

If I survive, you’ll hear from me soon.

Friday cannot come any sooner. I feel as if I have already done enough with my hours and now I want to allow the week some time off. Thursday and Friday, can you please disappear? Don’t bring me more work, more traffic and less sleep. Why don’t you join Saturday and Sunday and give me a a nice, long weekend to look forward to?

My day started at 5:30 a.m. yesterday and ended at 10:30 p.m. By the time I got home, I more or less collapsed in my bed. I was so tired. I was the kind of restless tired. The kind of tired when you can feel your eyeballs in their sockets, where if you stay up just a bit longer, the loopy, crazy, insane behavior might start and you wont be able to stop it.

As per usual, Los Angeles traffic was relentless. It still boggles my mind on how people can come to this city and survive its strange behavior and customs. If the Iranian Revolution hadn’t taken place and I had lived my life in Tehran, was forced to wear a head scarf and then one day my parents decided to take a trip to Los Angeles, I think I would have lost my mind. How does one come here from Minnesota and manage to drive to and from work and home on a gridlocked 405 freeway. I am from here and I barely survive it. I’ve learned to tune it out a bit I guess and I am sure that this is what most people do, newcomers and locals alike and that’s how we all survive together, but I can imagine how shocking the idea of spending that long of a time in your car before you get to work can seem.

After work, I had to run over across town to see a press screening of “Ghost Town,” the new film starring Ricky Gervais, or as I like to perpetually call him David Brent. No matter how good you think it is, the American version of the The Office has absolutely NOTHING on the U.K. Office. David Brent rules the world and me and you just live in it. Stapler in jelly, redundancies, Keith, Sergio Georgini, can it get any better than this? I think not.

But I digress. The movie was quite funny, just your typical comedy, with a few twists and turns, but nothing absolutely spectacular, except for Ricky Gervais’ shark tooth. I couldn’t help but think about David Brent throughout the whole film, albeit a grouchy, loner David Brent. I hate when I go to press screenings, and they’ve combined the press with a gazillion other normal movie-goers who just happened to get invited to an early screening. I can’t stand it. It takes away from the professionalism of it all. I guess it’s a good way to judge how the film is perceived by others as you watch it, but I still get annoyed.

Earlier this year, when I attended the press screening for “The Wackness” at Sony Studios, it was so…professional. I hate to use that word again, but it’s the way it felt. I was going where normal people didn’t get to go, to a private movie studio lot, where I was handed an identification card to put on my car and had to maneuver my way through the buildings, check in with the publicist from the public relations firm, and sit in the theater, with other journalists. It was so fulfilling. I felt like a real writer, with other writers, in a special place just for us, so that we can watch this film, and either love it or hate it. I don’t mean to romanticize the whole thing, but I love being a member of the press.

I love it. It’s what I live for. The power we have just overwhelms me at times. Granted, it’s not something many would think of as ‘power’ but it is influence nonetheless.

After the screening, I got on the road with a bladder so full that if I had some how made a sharp turn, I would have burst. As you can imagine, I went straight for the toilet when I arrived home. And then after that, I went straight to my bed, and the lines of vision between the real world and sleep world became blurry and I eventually and quickly dozed off.

I dreamt about writing and typewriters and Jack Kerouac and Anderson Cooper and the New York Times. I saw myself talking to the homeless of Los Angeles, trying to tell their stories. I thought about my byline appearing in a national magazine. My visits to the Educational Testing Service website the day before to find out more about the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) danced around in my head and made me just as nervous thinking about exams and scores and no.2 pencils as I had been in high school.

Today, I got up the nerve to register for the test. I will face my doom in a month’s time. Needless to say, I am frightened. Very frightened. Standardized tests don’t sit well with me, but then again, who do they sit well with? This is the first step I must take to continue my education. A first, very scary step. A step that will lead me to a Master of Arts in Journalism or English. It’s now or never. I am ready to take the plunge. I am not, however, ready to take a rigid test that has no bearing on my skills as a writer, reporter, editor or decision maker at all. That’s the harsh reality of it, I hope it isn’t taken too much into consideration by my prospective institutions of higher learning. On the other hand, there are a couple of Universities I’m looking into at the moment in London. Fortunately, these schools do not require silly tests like the GRE. Thank God for the British. There are many decisions to be made in the coming months, many late nights, many stressful situations, many doubts and hopes and fears and dreams all rolled into one, about education, life and love. I’m ready to face it. I’m quite ready. Being a journalist, making a difference somehow, someway in someone’s life means more to me now, than it ever did before. I’m hungry for it and I don’t think I will ever get full.

Rose Bowl Flea Market, Pasadena, April 2007, by Keeg