I'm not even thinking about the accounting exam anymore. I'm way, way passed that. I was in the lounge reviewing today and Garrett came in, loudly, I might add, and he' was talking about being excited about the cohort dinner tomorrow night. And non-Southern girl I am (not to mention, the arranger of the little shindig), I said, "Garrett, no, no, it's lunch, don't show up for dinner. We'll all be at the happy hour." Garrett said he knew that dinner was at 1, and so we got into this thing, where I insisted it was lunch, and he said it was dinner; finally Andrew said, it's dinner. Okay, so dinner, lunch - same thing in down South vocabulary, but confusing to me. But back to Garrett - he's already moved past the little issue of 8 to 1. He's already moved past depreciation, discounted cash flows, net present value, COGs, and PE ratios - he's already at the good stuff. I like the way the kid thinks.

Anyway, the bill for next semester just showed up in my inbox. So, time to go on the Ramen noodle diet for a while I scrounge up the cash. Though the last time I mentioned Ramen noodles, my RL fellow grad friends were aghast and Katie, who has been doing this longer than I have, was simply horrified by the *idea* of eating Ramen. But you know, at 24 packages for a $1, you can't really get a better deal.

I wrote the nonlinear curve fitting professor today to tell him I wasn't an idiot, and yes, I did pay attention in class, and no, there isn't a really good reason why I missed the easiest problem on the exam other than I didn't like the numbers I came up doing it the correctly, so I made up something else. I then told him that was yet another thing I learned from him: trusting your gut under pressure. He laughed, thought it was funny, and told me I was a pleasure to have in class. I think all teachers say that. I mean, would they really come out and say, "You were really annoying because you asked stupid questions all the time or you looked zoned or you never did your homework?" Maybe to your parents, but not at this level, not at all. So, I think teachers just say that - it's the equivalent of ending FB with "Thanks for sharing." A polite way to end the conversation, a nice signal to say, "I'm moving on, maybe you should too."

I really can't wait for dinner tomorrow at 1.