Commencement @ Rodent U.

Pictures from Minnesota & graduation weekend. Yes, I attended Commencement. No, I'm not "really" done. I'll bet that quite a few students aren't either. As long as you'll be done before December - you're really sure you'll be really done - you can go through the motions now. Or wait. Why wait? I was the only current industrial hygiene student.

My brother Sean & his son Ciaran attended, as did Grandma & Grandpa. So, starting with the most important:




Pete my research adviser & me.

I simply couldn't imagine him spiffed up in the academic regalia; normally he dresses like me. Unfortunately the other two IH profs weren't there. I was/am curious what they would have worn.

Mortar boards are sooooo dorky. The "hoods" are pretty, though hood is no doubt some archaic term that no longer reflects the design of the item, which does not and cannot go over one's head. The front/over color reflects the person's degree.
Blue = not smart enough to stop (Ph.D., regardless of field of study)
Pink = public health (either MPH or Dr.PH).

The faculty was pretty colorful taken en mass, due to the vast array of fields of study & granting universities. Unfortunately, the only picture I have is much too underexposed.

The part of the hood hanging in the back is lined with colors of the school granting the degree. If for some reason I ever need to wear this sort of get up again, I'll need to find another pink/gold-maroon one; they are rented, like a tux. I think it was a $100-ish fee for losing it. Don't lie to me - it's pink. You can call it 'salmon' if it makes you feel more elegant. Public Health is a recently recognized profession. Let's face it, we got hind teat after medicine, law, or theology.



Now ... when I actually finish writing my thesis sounds so impressive, as if I've actually started and have my oral exams sounds so dental ... now then there will be serious celebratory events at the Gopher household, albeit with just the 4 of us.




Greg, one of the first people I met at Rodent U., and one of the few of us in EnHS who did the mental-health 3-year tour of duty to the MPH.







The procession went from Coffmann Union over Washington Ave. to Northrup Auditorium. Picture is from over Washington Ave. The quadrangle here is the original campus. They all date to 1911-1914. It's a beautiful area. Northrup is behind the trees.



Jr.Gohper#2 getting into practice.




The boys' younger cousin came out for graduation weekend. They got a long fantastically.




Couldn't have the family visit without stopping at May Day Cafe, my favorite hangout.






Before


















After
I'll let you know how much I get for selling my hair.














Boys & their toys




Hey, Mom, will this apple juice make Apfelschorle?

Final(ly)

I took my final for my last class today!

Laugh? Cry?

Today at the University of Minnesota Industrial Hygiene lab
we return to the on-going saga of our grad student's valiant efforts to get data.
We open on the scene of her meeting with her research adviser,
Dr.Pete:

meet with Pete - ok
missing peak in last experiment - just what we wanted
annoying peak at 0.7 still there - hmmm
check out experimental set up - looks ok
find wiggly thing that's not supposed to be wiggly - hmmm
find leak - good
correct leak
annoying peak at 0.7 gone - great
set up power source - good
turn power source on
power source "on" light lights up - yea!
power source makes the right ticking noises - good
fiddle with voltage regulator - looks right
loud pop - huh?
flash of white light at ammeter scale - wow, pretty lights
no more voltage
no more joy

Pete & I looked at each other and sighed ...


I'm now experiencing the joys of trying to get someone at the U's electronics shop to come fix my power source.

Maybe I'll go mattress shopping today. If it was an hour earlier, I might have called Mr.Gopher and suggested doing lunch.

I have nothing else to do in the lab until the power source gets fixed ...

I might as well laugh - it doesn't make my nose run afterwards.
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Where does your child play?

Go to University Ave. in St. Paul, just east of Fairview. I honestly don't recall the name of the specific street, it's the first one east of Fairview. On the north side of that intersection is a YMCA and a small school building. The school has 2 signs: Avalon School (sign says its a public 7-12 school) and Twin Cities German Immersion School (is a K-5 public charter school).

Stand on the sidewalk in front of the school. There's a fence.

Look at vast expanse of wood chips. This is my son's play ground. Is there any grass? No. The grass off to your right is the front yard of the business there.

Walk into the play ground and look around. There's no gate in the fence to keep my kindergarten son in. There's no gate to keep you or any other member of society out. Why?

Look at the sign in front of the fence where you're standing. It reads: St. Paul Park & Recreation Board.

This was brought up at the German School's Board Meeting earlier this year. "The planning is complicated by the fact that the area in front of the school is owned by the City of St. Paul and forms part of a public park. Fencing and landscaping are both seen as high priorities, but both require permission from the city."

The school isn't allowed to do anything - not even landscaping - because the City of St Paul is ... well, I have no clue what they're doing.

The following was mentioned by Mr.Gopher: The park was donated to the city in 1906 (or so), with the caveat that it be a park. Nothing has been done with it in the intervening, um ... 103 years. Yeah, not '96, but '06. And so long ago, that one needs to ask which '06.

Now, go to St Paul's website. Click on the page to find one of their lovely Parks. You can't find this one. aaaaaahhh ... I guess the park is so important that someone lost it & they don't even know they have it ...

Go back to the fence & look east. There's grass in front of the first building, and then it turns into businesses' buildings and parking lots.

Look west. The YMCA has a fenced in yard (and apparently installed the playset without city permission - a great example of forgiveness being easier to get than permission). After that, the Griggs Building has its parking lot on the "City Park Land". The corner of Fairview & University has a bus stop. The "Park Information Sign" is there, but there's no park near it, just the Griggs' parking lot.

Someone in St. Paul went through the bother of paying for the nice, colorful sign with multicultural images. For a park that doesn't exist. But they can't allow the schools to put in grass? Even if the schools pay?

Insert lots of frustrated profanity.

Insert more.

Why won't the city just let the schools make the place nice for the children? It's not as if they could actually honestly claim "we're about to do something intelligent with the property".

Can you honestly imagine any public school letting total strangers into the school's playground? I could go sit on this school's playground and they'll have to let me because it's a "public park".

Now, mind you, I'm not paranoid about sex offenders or such. But I am really annoyed that the general public is allowed to wander around where these kids play and can interrupt them. I'm really, really annoyed that my kid is stuck trying to play soccer on wood chips. And, by far, I'm *most* annoyed that there's no complete fence to keep the balls and kids from running into University Avenue. That's not an annoyance factor - this is basic bodily safety.

back to the grindstone

I can tell I'm spending more time doing school work (a.k.a. industrial hygiene), when I see something and think "that would be cool to share" - it's IH / safety / public health.

Geography lesson

What to do with your geography class. Of course, if you won't let your kids listen to the President say "Keep Your Ass In School", you probably don't want them listening to a comedian turned Senator demonstrating that it isn't so hard to learn where all 50 states are (or even that there are 50 of them). Clip is 1:21 min. The Jr. Gophers had melted down by then, so I heard it off stage left.

What do you want to wear to school ....?

Did I just say that? Aiee!!

The German tradition for the first day of school. The thing Jr.Gopher #1 is holding is a Schultute. It's filled with goodies. Apples, colored pens, candy, more apples, more candy, a "Cars" water bottle, more ... well, you get the idea.

So, Jr. #1 is now enrolled at the Twin Cities German Immersion School. There are 2 German immersion schools between LA & NYC. St. Paul and Milwaukee. Nope, not even Chicago does (which, the German Consul there says is disappointing). It only took 20 minutes to get there this morning, which is a stupendous relief. I'm still not sure how we're going to manage school transportation combined with Jr.Gopher #2 and then getting me to school.

If only the Light Rail was already built out to St. Paul.
Or if only the U had cheap parking on the St. Paul campus.
Or, if only the Metro had a park & ride somewhere in St. Paul
Aaarg!

[def.] Knowledge

Additional research based knowledge of the costs imposed on people ....ref.1

I cannot imagine a chemist or physicist (or industrial hygienist) writing this sentence. How does one make any claim to anything in a scientific peer-reviewed journal if it isn't researched based? I suppose the assumption excludes personal opinions and the editorial section.

I've seen this several times in this course's readings. It's even defined somewhere in the text. It's the social science method to claim scientific validity for a subject most physical scientists don't think is science.

(ref.1) Warner, et. al. 1995. Criteria for determining an optimal cigarette tax: the economist's perspective. Tobacco Control, 4, 380-386.

Too much technology

In these days of technological wonder, one can easily get distracted by the cornucopia of electronic benefits. Until one's brain short-circuits.

I've got an on-line course this term. It involves lots of writing. It requires papers be submitted, of course, on-line. I turned in a paper last night. Out of curiosity, I wanted to check the readability/grade level scores. This requires running spell-check. uuhhhhh....

Dear. Professor Linde, uuuhhhhh... I sent you the wrong version of my paper.

I've been using this electronic buffet to back up my papers, projects, and homework on a flash drive. If the computer crashes, at least I won't loose what is often dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of work. There's two different ways to get the documents transferred. I backed up my document, and inadvertently wound up with the final document on the flash drive, but uploaded it from my hard drive. aaarrrrgggh.

This also underscores my need to have something in my hands in hard copy to do a final proof of it. I loathe editing/proofreading on my computer.

Reality Check

Reality Check from the Atlantic: I have a soft spot in my heart for Minnesota Public Radio, having spent four years living in Garrison Keillor country back in the early 1990s. If you have that much snow and sub-zero weather in your life, maybe you have to have both an enduring, and slightly wry, sense of humor about things. Or maybe you don't. But ... you betcha ... it certainly helps.

Collins (from MPR) corrected his statistics on his own page: The average student [undergrad] loan debt last year [2008] was not, in fact, $50,000, it was $21,899. The average income for graduating seniors in 2007 was $60,000 $46,000, making the total debt 36.5% 47.6% of annual salary.


The problem facing most of the people I know in the Environmental Health Sciences department here @ Rodent U. is the fact that we're returning to school. This means:

-- Losing your income while trying maintain your mortgage payment
-- totally scrapping your adult life in order to go back to school
-- missing all of the 'social' activities because you actually have other obligations which are inevitably at the wrong time
-- desperately trying to manage to get to the optional-yet-really-important events directly related to your program
-- abruptly finding yourself truly financially dependent upon someone for the first time in your adult life
-- still bearing debt from your undergrad degree
-- being a parent with other financial obligations besides school (read: daycare)

None of this sissy "I just graduated with debt pity me" will be acknowledged by me. Pity them? Balderdash. Sure, if NIOSH wasn't paying my tuition, I'd be sucking up a huge pile of debt doing this. Would I be whining about it? No. Bitching about it, yes. Whining, no.

Why? Because I chose to do this. Because I figured it was a good enough investment based upon the salary increase I expect to get afterwards. Same reason I went to college. For this degree, though? Good-bye $60k, hello $75k with no more promotion ceiling.

What the hell did these kids think was going on, when they kept signing away their souls to the Financial Aid office? What idiot is so totally disconnected from reality as to not know ahead of time that following their chosen course of action would lead to massive debt? Not the students at Hennepin County Technical College (low tuition). Not the students at Berea College (no tuition). Not the students who went for quality, rather than a brand name.

Yes, U of Mn is expensive. Grad school is stupendously expensive. Why am I here? Because Mr. Gopher is here. And, unlike the engineering or English majors at the U, the closest School of Public Health is in Madison & the closest one with an IH program is either Chicago (and next after that is Ann Arbor).

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What are they smoking?

I finally overcame my cowardice about my grades for this Spring semester. I was doing so poorly in my ventilation course in particular. I was at the "all I care is that I pass enough to not need to take it again (in 2 years the next time it's offered)". My lab course was a toss-up. If my profs decided to grade me based upon the knowledge/skills that are (I think) patently obvious I have (regardless of 1 supremely horrible lab report), I was pretty sure I'd pass. Well, I got a B and A, respectively. Mind you, for some insane reason, grad school requires an average of a B, and no grades less than a B-.

I assume Dr. Pete skewed my grade based upon my final project (which was already 30 or 40% of the grade). Fair enough, I know other professors whose philosophy is that the grade should reflect whether the student actually gets it all at the end of the semester, regardless of how poorly they did on other parts. I've no idea what Dr. Pete & Dr. Matt were smoking when they decided to give me an A in lab, but I'm just okay with that. Maybe Matt was in the glow of the Red Wings' recent wins...

just got an email from Dr. Lisa to all of the industrial hygiene students: "don't forget your passport when you go to the conference in Toronto so you can get back into the U.S."

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Do Overs

If you could do it over, would you?

While suggesting an author to interview for an MPR program, I noted: When I was 12, this is what I decided I wanted to do with my life.

... would I want a 'do over' for my life?

If I weren't married, I would have been in the middle of (or perhaps done with) my MPH. Except ... I would have enrolled in the infectious disease program. I had been looking at the other U of M and Johns Hopkins before moving here. Had that panned out, then yes I would have been back on the path I wanted 31 years ago, especially if I'd gone to Johns Hopkins.

It's odd how Life's path lead me back so close to my original goal. So close, and yet so far away.

I want to go back and try to avoid the all-too-many examples of "God, I was Young and Stupid", as well as the all-too-many examples of "God, I'm Not So Young, but I'm Still Stupid". No, I don't need to get a 2nd chance -I just want to have not done it in the first place.

Distance is Love

There is something distant about grading homework. I've been on both sides of the deal - one can dissociate from the student, and just look at her work. From the student's side, one turns in homework, waits (sometimes an awful damn long time), and then gets it back with a grade. There is no participation in the process beyond giving the prof. the work. This is even more pronounced with big classes, where you might even reasonably expect the professor doesn't even know who you are.

For my industrial ventilation course: It's not as though it's a large 300 person intro to chemistry course. There are 8 people in it. This is the 4th course I've had with Pete, and he's my research advisor. No hiding, here.


rewind 30 hours ....

My project was due at 5 p.m. I had 80% of it done and had to stop because I needed a software program to select a piece of machinery for the design. Oh, I needed sleep, too. I had everything set up, so that I could go to the lab, run the program, let it pick my machine, and then I could take the numbers and finish the calculations. Right? Because - of course - the damn software won't run on my Mac, and I can't figure out how to get VM ware to let it run on my Mac, either.

9:00
I go to the lab armed with the administrator's password for the one computer which has the program. Error. repeat. error. turn computer off. turn computer on. error.

9:30
Go to other computer in lab. Program installed. Great! Error. Repeat. Error. don't bother to reboot. Go on line. Find company. Try to download program directly from them onto the computer. After all, I have the password right? Somehow, the website thinks I down loaded it, but the computer spat in my face and tells me it wasn't actually downloaded.

10:00
Call Pete (Dr. Pete, not to be confused with my spouse Dr. Peter). Pete's not in his office. Go to the Sphere, keep writing the paper that goes with this project.

11:00
Pete's still not in his office. Keep writing paper. Keep staring at 15.51" w.g. in utter conviction that this is actually a bad number to have.

2:00
This time I walked upstairs to Pete's office. Thank god, he's there. I ask him what I should do, in the absence of the technical specs for this machine I need. I suggested that I could simply include the directions for picking the machine, then make one up, and continue. (my thought was that this should be the important points - I know how to pick the instrument, and then I know what to do with it once I have it).

Pete groans - this is of course merely the latest in an on-going saga wiht this software program and me. He says "well, why don't we just pick it now?" He has the program on his office computer.

He turns back to the computer. There is just something horrifying about the idea of standing behind your prof, looking over his shoulder, and giving him directions which prevents you from hiding the fact that you're an idiot.

After about 2 minutes, I simply cannot stop laughing. In utter mortification and embarrassment. Pete looks back over his shoulder and up at me, asking what's wrong. I answered

"It's one thing to turn in your homework and have your prof realize what an idiot you are. It's a completely different story to have to stand next to him and see him realize what an idiot you are."

4:47
Turned in project. We'll see how much of an idiot I am in a few weeks.

Kindergarten auf Deutsch

Celebrate!

Jr.Gopher#1 will be attending the Twin Cities German Immersion School for Kindergarten!

Free school, but no free burgers

Free law school?

U.C. Irvine won't be charging tuition when their new law school opens its doors in September. While the article offers the advice:
How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: In-N-Out burgers. Lots and lots of In-N-Out burgers.

They fail to mention that you'll be eating In-N-Out because you can't afford anything else in California, even without paying tuition.



U. Minnesota isn't free, in fact I've heard it's pretty pricey for a big state school, "churning out the nation’s fifth-highest average debt loads".

Although, thanks to the Fates - who kept the last Bush from gutting the Dept. Health & Human Services, and kept him from abolishing (among other occupational offices) NIOSH - I am getting a tuition-free ride ($14,432/yr).
Thank you, my fellow taxpayers.

zipity do dah

95%

I'm done. Thank God.

in perspective

so, I really blew the first part of my final last night. Totally blew it. Great, so now I've got more pressure to study for this 2nd part, which is 20% of the grade. What to do?

Sit down w/ my grade & the class syllabus. What's my grade right now? How hard do I need to drive myself this morning & afternoon? Will I be able to get home to put up the Christmas tree, now that we have a functional tree stand?

Just to put things in perspective ... If I don't even take the exam, I'll get a C. This is not a passing grade, for grad school (B- is).

Just to put things in perspetive ... All I need to get a B- is 24%

By utter random chance, otherwise known as sheer dumb luck, I should be able to exceed this

ahhhh, the sound of stress departing

here we go again ... and again ...

following Wednesday night's post, which was a break in studying for my epidemiology final exam ... life seemed to be going better.

Wednesday night: found my wallet, when emptying my bag in preparation for studying, the fairies must have returned it, because sure as hell's hot, I know I looked in that damn pocket. Studying seemed to be going well. I found new stuff to study in preparation and figured it was not hopeless.

Thursday morning: We get the kids off to their respective locales.
9:10 a.m. I blew my nose yeah, no shit, this is relevant
9:11 a.m. My ear over-pressurizes, as happens sometimes when one blows one's nose.
9:30 a.m. on the train (which everyone here calls the "light rail" -- it's a train, people), my ear starts annoying me even more
9:50 a.m. am sitting in the student lounge eating a late breakfast & reading the news, and my ear hurts, pretty badly
10:10 I ask myself, what the hell am I doing sitting in the basement of a building housing the medical school, when the student walk-in clinic is across the street?
10:15 standing in the clinic, I have tears runing down my face
10:30, after begging for someone to see me, I'm crying
keep crying through the doctor's exam, no doubt contributing to the prescription for heavy narcotics. Apparently I have an ear infection
11:10 on the phone to Mr.Gopher, have gone past crying to actually sobbing
11:15 write a note to my Epi prof informing her that I won't be taking the final, and ask for her to let me take it on Monday (I assumed this would mean getting an incomplete)
11:17 write a note to my academic advisor, letting her know that my internship term paper would not actually be arriving on her desk Friday morning, and asking for an incomplete.
12-ish - finally at home, in bed, desperately waiting for the Vicodin to kick in. Eventually stop crying and fall asleep out of sheer exahustion & good drugs

3-ish - briefly rise to consciousness. Realize that jr.Gopher#2 had at least 5 ear infections before he turned 18 mo. God help him, is this the crap he dealt with? No wonder he kept waking up in the middle of the night screaming! I'm surprised he ever stopped! He didn't get wonderful painkillers?! The things we do to our children. I'll never take pediatric ear infections as de rigeur again.

4-ish - Epi prof tells me that I will be allowed to take the exam on Monday. No incomplete. yea.
5-ish - advisor (who failed to respond to at least 3 e-mails in the semester asking what I was supposed to do for the course, tells me on Wednesday morning that I need to turn in a paper no later than Friday) ... tells me that she'll give me an incomplete. not-so-yea.

Friday (yesterday): Jr.Gopher#1 is next door with Jr.Gopher#2 as usual on Fridays. 1-1/2 hour after dropping him off (i.e., walking through the foyer), I get a call: he's still got diarrhea, he can't stay. Jesus, Mary & Joseph! Give me patience! Are you kidding? Of course, I was still pretty stoned on Vicodin & wouldn't have gotten any studying done. But, I would have gotten a whole lot of sleeping done. And, of course, Mr.Gopher works late on Fridays. Did the boys go to bed at a reasonable hour? Well, 8:30, rather than 8 seems pretty reasonable, after our now-traditional popcorn & cold veggie dinner in front of a movie. Did the boys go to sleep at a reasonable hour? uh ... no

Saturday: Study? Are you kidding? I planned on spending the day with my family, delighting in the satisfactory discharge of my academic obligations. I'll be damned if I'll pass that up.

Saturday night: Study? Yes. Package arrived in today's post for Mr.Gopher, is hastily removed from view. 5 minutes later, he comes out and says, well, the hell with surprise, I need help dealing with this. Lo, and behold, he had purchased something I really liked from my wish list. A nice little posey ring. A nice, rather squashed posey ring. I think someone put it in a punch press, based on the sheer force which would have been needed to accomplish this damage. Although, given the damage to the outer package, the inner (inadequate) packing, and the invoice, I am kind of surprised that the ring wasn't squished a lot flatter. Scathing letter demanding restitution in contrast to their retarded return policy ... Study? Well, there is tomorrow, right?

Technically Sunday (12:06 a.m.): Well, I suppose I'll go find the text I'm supposed to read as the lector at Mass tomorrow ... um this ... morning.

Limitations on freedom of press

The Faribault Daily News reported the school district shutting down the school (didn't mention which grades) paper due to the students refusing to give the superintendent prior review of an article about an investigation of a middle school teacher's potential inappropriate behavior.


No prior review? Are you kidding? What journalist for a commercial news outlet gets published/on-air without an editorial review? What if they were writing for the Star Tribune? The owners of the Strib are libel for irresponsible journalism. Who's libel for the school paper? The School a.k.a. The State. The students can’t legally claim sole responsibility for the paper. Editorial control rests with ownership. The students don't own it, the school board, and de facto the State of Minnesota does.

As with many other instances, a light touch is the best guidance. Shutting down the whole paper, rather than just one article getting pulled? That seems an unreasonable response.

If the article conforms to professional journalistic ethics/standards of practice - there is no reason it shouldn't be published. The cases cited by the Daily News are excellent examples of social bias censoring facts unpalatable to the local people.

First Amendment “rights” are not absolute. Slander/defamation is against the law - the unbridled freedom is only over that which is factually true. Pornography and profane language are protected under this amendment. Is that okay for high school students to publish? If your answer is no, you’re already limiting their freedom and possibly treading a slippery slope down to the Superintendent’s desk. There's no ethical difference between limitations. Whether it is disapproval about teenage sex or images of disembowled pigs in a slaughterhouse ... limitation is limitation.

Would the school district allow students to print content normally found in the City Pages or the Daily Minnesotan (U of M's student paper)? I'm pretty sure not - not due to the story content, per se, but rather due to the language choice and visual content. Sex might help distribution, but I wouldn't approve of my school board publishing it. God, you wouldn't believe the sex-advice column the U's paper runs.

My biggest question, in considering this: The Faribault paper didn't mention if this was a one-off problem - was this request for prior-approval unique to this story?

If the Superintendent realized there was going to be a story with potentially big ramifications (this sounds like it was) .. then I would expect him to want to review it prior to its publication, even if he didn't do so on a regular basis. Has anyone seen the article in question?

I can't get my knickers in a twist over this, without the School actually shooting down the article after seeing it.

here we go again ...

far too many of my friends will simply shake their heads and say, ‘well it sounds like her’

Yesterday: jr.Gopher #2 is diagnosed with Pink Eye. trans: no day-care. trans: mama doesn’t get to study for her impending final exam. I realize that I can’t find my wallet, last seen day before.

Today: There was an amazing biohazard clean up in the bathroom. Taking jr.Gopher #1 to pre-school/kinderstube results in his teacher telling me that diarrhea caused by potentially microbiological causes (rather than diet) means he can’t stay. So much for spending the day studying the difference between case-control and cross-sectional study design, trying to remember which one can calculate quantitative causation.

Killing time while waiting for the store to open, where I had last seen my wallet, is no longer a matter of sitting in a coffee shop, due to the limited patience of my recently acquired companion. Ah, I think, I’ll just go to the McD’s on Hiawatha, since it has a play area, and I can still have a cup of joe.

Approaching the intersection of 54th and Chicago, a monster-sized gray mechanical object zooms into my peripheral vision, with just enough sub-conscious brain processing to realize it’s a car. I screamed. Subsequently, I had a salient personal experience to demonstrate the efficacy and purpose of seat belts to jr.Gopher. I also now have a bashed-in rear quarter panel. When did I call my insurance company and down-grade my insurance? Ummm, that would be last week. So much for the $400 savings this billing period.

I got lost en route to McD’s (I didn’t realize the Minnehaha Parkway went under Hiawatha). There was no longer really any reason to kill time, but as I had told jr.Gopher he could play there, we continue on. After all, what else did I have to do?

Did I mention that I have a final tomorrow? Did I mention that I haven’t had much time to study for it?

Of course, neither store which could have had my wallet has it. After a more thorough excavation of my room, I’ve concluded it isn’t at home, either.

Sure, I can go to the DMV and get a new license - at least I can get a piece of paper stating that I have one, pending its arrival. I can call the bank & credit card company to cancel the cards. I can get Mr.Gopher to get me cash. My bus pass is only valid until the 31st anyway. But .... my student ID? I need it to get into the student lounge, where I planed to spend all day today & tomorrow studying for my epidemiology final exam. And spend tomorrow evening actually taking the 3 hour exam.

Did I mention that I have a final tomorrow?

I need the ID card to get into my laboratory to actually do the research, too. That, however, is far less important. Do I think it is remotely feasible to replace my ID card in an hour or so today? ummm ... to put it bluntly ... no.

Tomorrow: Say a prayer I do well on this jinxed final. If I do well, I’ll get an A in the class, which should do wonders to balance the crappy grade I’m getting in one of my other classes. Sigh ... time to make lunch.