Done at Last

Great new look for the blog.

I turned in my dissertation to the Stanford registrar today. Then I tried to drive home, but my car overheated. Since we are planning to buy a new car this weekend, I seriously considered renting a car and abandoning mine if the repairs were going to be expensive. Luckily, I was only half a mile away from the Barron Park Shell in Palo Alto, where I had taken the car before, and they were nice enough to look at it immediately. Thirty minutes later, they told me that my coolant was low, that they had topped it off, and that it was running fine now. They also tested the system, but there were no leaks. When I asked if it was low because I suck at maintaining my car, the mechanic just gave me a look that said "You know it, baby."

In the meantime, I missed my office hours.

Then I drove to my old roommate's house to sit on her porch and check my email, only to find a pile of emails from my students who can't get the book to do the homework that's due tomorrow. I call the bookstore and find out that they are out of the 70 copies they ordered, but will order more right away. 70? There are 170 students in the class. Ok. I have 100 students without a book and there is homework due tomorrow. No problemo.

So I called my assistant and had him make copies of the chapter they are supposed to read for the next two class periods and I sent out an email to the class telling them they can get it from him. Five seconds later, the email comes bouncing back, telling me that I don't have permission to post to that email list. HELLO. I'M THE PROFESSOR.

I'm sure I will get the hang of Berkeley bureaucracy soon enough. In the meantime, I'm just glad I got my car fixed and got home. And I'm glad my office doesn't face the field where the marching band practices every afternoon, so that I can only hear them faintly instead of full blast.