Just Another Beautiful Friday Morning

So I have to admit, I am still wavering a bit on the GMAT self-study. From Clear Admit's blog today I read two blogs, one from a woman who just took her first Manhattan GMAT course and loved it and another from a fellow who was firmly pro-self-study. I received a call back from the Manhattan GMAT folks yesterday. (I had called them the previous night to discuss the advantages of their program over self study and when I didn't get a call back, I went ahead and placed my major Amazon book order.) They are great salespeople and I got off the phone with this fellow, very doubtful about the self-study route. I know I could do it, but do I want to? On the other hand, I'm not convinced that the difference between a 720 or 750 will make or break my application. On the other other hand, as I said before, academics are my stronger point, my work experience is my Achilles heal, and why not boost my app with an excellent GMAT score? Far easier than remaking the past 4.5 years of employment ...

So I decided that I'm going home after work today to take a PowerPrep test. Nice thing about starting work at 5 a.m. is that we get off by 1:00 on Fridays (on a good day) so I'll have a good 3-4 hours before my husband gets off work to take the exam. If I get better than a 650, I'll do self-study. If I do worse, I'll take the course. Stay tuned ...

The good thing about this MBA application process is that it takes my mind off the Israel-Lebanon situation which is just breaking my heart. I'm trying to refrain from throwing my political opinions into this blog but it's hard. In the first week or two I couldn't do anything but look for news updates - very hard to get work done. Of course now, I'm too busy reading MBA blogs and considering the finer points of GMAT strategy to get any work done either! Sigh. I will just say bless the Israelis and the Lebanese and the Palestinians. So much pain and suffering and I don't really feel hopeful that it will ever end unfortunately. On the other hand, the number of people killed in the Congo on a daily basis makes the entire Israel/Iraq/Afghanistan affair seem a mere bumper to bumper compared to the bloodshed that occurs there on a daily basis. So it's important to keep those things in perspective. Nonetheless, I don't want to see Israel wiped off the map, which seems to be the popular opinion of too many in that region. So that's agonizing.