Tuesday, February 18, 2003

If I were playing the alphabet game, I would say M is for Monday Misadventures, and T for Tuesday Technology Tie-ups.

Yesterday I drew the angel card "expectancy." I joked, saying, "well, I expect I’ll have a physics exam this afternoon." But little did I know what the day would bring. The short (everything is relative) version of my day is as follows:
- Left the apartment half an hour early so I could walk to the post office and finally mail back that silly differential equations book that got mailed to me twice. Arrived at the P.O. only to read the sign that says "Closed Sundays and Holidays," and remembered it was a holiday. Decided it wasn’t fair that, not only did I have class on a federal holiday, I had an exam. Walked back to the apartment and did some more work before catching my normal bus.
- Transferred buses downtown, boarding the only bus going to PCC (the 44) from that direction (there are only two buses going to campus – how silly is that?). Thought it was odd that a) it was not the usual bus driver and b) there were only three other people on the bus, when normally it is half full of students and picking up more at every stop.
- Wrote a letter to Quena sitting on the side of a highway in the pouring rain next to a broken down bus, half an hour before my physics test.
- Boarded the next 44 bus and hoped it would arrive on time. We were very close to campus, and I was convinced we would make it on time, when, at the last stop before PCC, the bus driver stopped, disembarked, and went into 7-11!
- Finally arrived at PCC just in time for the test, which had numerous errors, including one multiple choice question that didn’t actually have the correct answer as one of the choices.
- Decided that my angel card for the day and one of my favorite quotes from The Phantom Tollbooth went hand in hand to describe my day: "Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens!"

As for T for Tuesday... We’ve been having some significant technology problems at work for the last few days, with everybody’s computers running really really slowly and freezing up and work going at about a quarter of the normal pace. We’ve also been having issues with our newest monitor having orange lines all over the place. Somehow it became my job to deal with that particular issue, so I spent over an hour on the phone today with PowerMax and LaCie trying to figure out warranty information, how to send it back, etc. The stupid thing was that most of that time was spent trying to convince the guy on the other end that the monitor didn’t have a serial number on it. He kept asking if there was maybe possibly another little sticker on it with this sort of number, and I kept telling him, no, what I’ve told you is exactly what is on the monitor. There is no other sticker. The only good part about all this was the nice classical hold music, which I got to listen to for a good long time. I put it on speaker phone and Alan and I pretended we were listening to the radio, except without commercials. :}

And now it’s homework time. Two diff eq problem sets, a physics problem set, and a physics lab writeup due tomorrow. Oh, and a diff eq presentation to finish and test to study for on Monday. Phew! I’ll be glad when this quarter is over! I’m looking forward to only taking one class next quarter. It’s the other physics class I have to take, thermo and optics or something, and it’s taught by the same guy, which I’m not sure I’m too happy with. I don’t really feel like I’ve worked very hard in this class or learned very much that I'll remember. On the other hand, I’ll know what to expect. Anyway, back to work!

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