The good news: a former student (from over a year ago) just stopped by my office to tell me again how much he enjoyed the course, and to give me a feather for my hat. So. Very. Cool.
The bad news: my drive from Ontario to my house yesterday was a rather tense one because my car kept telling me things. Unhelpful things, like “Problem” with red alert-lights on the dashboard and icons indicating the main battery. The pattern seemed to be that the alert would spring up, last for about five seconds or so while I did some small quiet panicking and easing off of the gas, and then it would announce “Problem solved” and be back to normal. Repeat about a minute or so later, and then again… except the third time the light would stay on. I couldn’t tell any difference from the engine sound, but when your car is telling you “Warning: problem” then you don’t want to push it too much.
On these occasions, I’d pull over to the shoulder, stop the car, and turn off the engine for about half a minute. Upon restarting, the car would act as though nothing was wrong or had ever been wrong… for about an hour, at which point the whole cycle would repeat itself. This happened about three times in total, with me getting more and more wound up about it (as you might expect).
I’m supposed to drive to Kentucky today. Needless to say, the car’s currently in the shop getting looked at. Since I’m two payments away from owning the car outright, I really hope there’s nothing too seriously wrong.