Lethe and other fleeting memories

Around the end of every semester, I reach a point where my only desire in the world is to have time in the evenings and on weekends when I don't have to worry about studying. Now, on Long Island, I have everything I thought I wanted... so what am I doing with my free time? Studying.

I bought a GRE study guide the last time I was in a bookstore, thinking that I should get the general GREs out of the way before school starts. Since buying it, I've been trying to go through the vocabulary list. This is a surprisingly frustrating pursuit. As I look at the words on each page I can remember having them as vocab words in fourth grade. I can remember which books they were vocab words for. I can almost remember the sentences they were in. What I can totally not remember is what the hell they mean. Apparently, reading exclusively physics literature and Terry Pratchett novels has a deleterious effect on one's vocabulary.

Then I started trying to prepare for the analytical essay section by reading the topics. About half of them involve the importance of studying/funding art... considering the effort I put into Art Hum I hope I won't have to write about any of those. The other topics are a bit more interesting. There's one about tradition versus innovation. Great! A use for the Core! I can remember this one passage from CC that would be a great example for the importance of tradition. I can remember that it was in the bottom paragraph of a left-hand page. I can remember that the book was about half an inch thick and had a glossy cover. I can almost visualize the layout of the chapter headings and the fonts and the position of the page numbers. But, to save my life, I cannot remember the title or who the author is. Apparently, a nearly photographic memory just doesn't cut it.