First Day of School (Again)

The doctor has cleared me to return to school, good friends are able to give me ride in the morning, and I'm mobile enough that I can get around campus. Its time to get back to work!  Now what was I doing again?

I return to find that the printer is out of toner. In fact, its out of both yellow and black.  I'm betting his means the color printer was effectively a black-and-white printer until the black toner ran out, at which point it became effectively broken.  Last time we ran out of black I was the one that ordered the new toner and the first thing I did when I got in was order a complete set of cartridges.  When later installing them one of my lab-mates commented, "That thing has been broken since December."

My desk is like an archaeological site, with artifacts of the former occupant's life covered in a fine layer of dust. That former occupant is me and though this is all my stuff is mine, I hardly remember it at all.  I see a complex colored diagram I did of some of the system power flows and I remember thinking how useful it was but I look at it now and it puzzles me.  What was so important about this?  I see other scraps of paper with notes on them; are any of these worth saving? What's the number for the phone at my desk again?

I'm recounting the story of being hit by a car with my lab-mates and one of them mentions a class that he is taking this semester.  Its highly related to my research and I think it would be a great class to take.  Is it too late to enroll?  Do I want to officially enroll or just sit in to learn what I can?  I'm not very interested in doing homework and taking tests again and I'm really trying to get done with this degree but how can you pass on a class that is over half of your dissertation? For this week, I'm going to be sitting it in and see how it looks. How do I enroll in a class as an audit?

The clock in the lab isn't working.  Battery ran out?  Actually broken? Its high on the wall over a doorway so getting to it to diagnose the problem could be tricky.

Somebody unplugged/turned off the fridge over the weekend and everybody's food rotted. It stank in the lab until we were able to drag it out into the hallway and let everything air out. Now the microwave, which was on top of the fridge, is living in a chair in a semi-level fashion.

Really, we are all working on graduate degrees here.  I promise.