Last week was one of the most exhausting, stressful weeks of my life, to be honest. Maybe I brought it upon myself, because I chose to take the GMAT the same week I chose to head home (well, the weekend chose me, as I do live in the most remote corner of the universe, it seems, sometimes), but, man, it kind of sucked. I was pretty exhausted. I had accidental couch sleep Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. I had an hour-long catnap turn into a five-hour, 7:45 to 1:00 a.m. marathon on Wednesday (and then I spent three hours cleaning and packing and studying, more), and I was completely exhausted when I finally got back to the 'burbs Thursday night, when I arrived at roughly 9:30 and excused myself to crash by 10:15.

Point is, it really was worth it.

I had a fantastic weekend. I kicked ass on the GMAT. I was elated to the point that I immediately called The Boy (whose ass I kicked, not really, though), and Nemo, who was depressed for me when I anticipated my struggles, and a friend from the Ring Fingernail who dealt with me whining about how stressed I was last week. I got to spend quality time with Deedz and Jenny. I got to see Sumo, quite a bit. I got to take what I assume to be fantastic photos in front of E2's back door. I got to see Gurs and Bullshot and the appropriate ancillaries (no offense to the ancillaries). I got to eat a cheesy brat and a cheeseburger and drink Old Style light for breakfast. I got to see a fantastic Wildcats win. (They're all fantastic wins.) I got to eat chocolate chip pancakes at Clarke's. I did this while Sumo ate his own mini-plate of pancakes. I got to see The Boy. I got to drink lots and lots of beer with The Boy. I managed to fall asleep before midnight, despite lots and lots of beer. I got to eat four kinds of meat at lunch with my parents during the Bears game. I made it home elated and exhausted and full of four kinds of meat with a carful of meat.

It was awesome.

To be honest, though, there's not much more worth covering.

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I'm really excited, because I've got a chance to get into Kellogg. I'm giving myself the week off from this crap - I've not even checked the site to look at Kellogg's application yet - but I've gone from "Oh, crap, I don't even know if I can get into any program worth anything and, even if I do, I don't know if I want to enter one," to "Holy crap, I might be good enough for Kellogg. And because it's about the greatest place in the world, all I want to do is get back to NU."

But, man, that's just another layer of stress.

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I don't want to write so much more here. But I thought like I should write. I know that people hang on my every word.

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Let's keep to the week-by-week trend and give you Big Ten power rankings. I'm watching the game at a friend's this week, because he has ESPNU. I'm hopeful it's an uninteresting game. I don't know that it will be. I've not gotten Nemo's take either.

Rankings:

1) Ohio State (Ranked 1 last week, Tier 1)

2) Michigan (5 - 3)
3) Penn State (6 - 3)

4) Illinois (3 - 2)
5) Purdue (2 - 2)
6) Wisconsin (4 - 2)
7) Michigan State (8 - 3)
8) Indiana (7 - 3)
9) Iowa (9 - 4)

10) Northwestern (10 - 4)
11) Minnesota (11 - 4)

The Big Ten's kind of terrible. There's one good team.