Any advice is welcome. GMAT was devastation.

First of all, 550 is not "devastation". It's above average. And congratulations on your 49 in quant - that's an awesome score!!! So don't despair... you're off to a good baseline start.

On verbal, you're competing with people who speak English as their first language, so you have to allow for that to an extent; the schools consider it when they evaluate your application. They won't expect you to get a top score on the verbal section if your first language is not English. They're used to international applicants. In fact, you can partially compensate for a low verbal score with a high TOEFL score. Have you written the TOEFL yet? How did you score?

However, you will probably want to raise your score somewhat on the next attempt, just to convince the schools you apply to that you can handle studying in an English environment. With a score of 19, they may question your ability to understand readings, write papers and presentations, and otherwise follow the course material in English.

It sounds to me like you have the skills and capabilities to raise your verbal score. If you were scoring in the 30s on your practice tests, clearly your verbal skills are fairly high. I guess you just simply had a bad day when writing the verbal section of your test.

For SC, it may be helpful to obtain a standard book of English grammar and review some of the basic rules. For CR and RC, try practicing some newer material (e.g. more of the boldface-type questions) and also try this strategy, which worked fairly well for me: Make a grid (ABCDE) for all questions, and cross out wrong answers as you go along... but when doing so, write down next to it why you're crossing out an answer. For example, "too extreme" or "out of scope" or "180". Then, you'll be able to catch faults in your logic before making your final decision.

One other question: do you find you run out of time on the verbal section? If so, you might want to take a course in speed-reading. It can really help you speed up your timing.