Once a bookworm, always a bookworm...

When I was 5, I sat at the crayon-marked crafts table in my room, my little brother playing with cars on the floor, with some notebook paper in front of me. To my left was a stack of books about sharks. And I was writing... yes folks, I voluntarily wrote a book report about sharks just because I felt like it. And then, my parents came into the room and caught me red-handed. I guess that launched my reputation as a bookworm...

19 years later (just 3 weeks ago)I sat at the kitchen table in my parents' home with a book open in front of me. I was making vocabulary flash cards to study in preparation for the GRE exam. Since elementary school, I always sat at my place at the table, doing homework, writing reports, solving puzzles, etc. It was the logical choice to get my work done. And it must have been familiar to my dad as well, because as I concentrated on the work in front of me, my dad passed through the kitchen, chuckled and said, "I guess some things never change, my little student." I abruptly stopped writing to respond and we shared a laugh as yet again, I was being studious in my free time.

Today my dad's words rang true as I sat in a local coffee shop for over 4 hours with my iPod and GRE book. This week has been Get-Down-to-Business Week and I've spent time everyday with my lovely purple GRE prep book. But today, for some strange reason, I actually had to force myself to stop studying. Between learning strategies for tackling the verbal section and doing practice problems, I was enthralled. I stopped for the day inspired to keep studying and finally get this test out of the way. Kind of odd, huh?

I'm chalking it up to feeling confident that I can do well on the test, if I keep practicing, and that committing to spend a significant amount of time studying gives me something productive to do during the day (in addition to my job search, of course :-) ) and something to work towards. After a brief hiatus from both of these things, it feels pretty darn good.

I guess some things never change - I'll always be thelittle kid sitting at the table, writing a report on sharks :-)