I'm pretty tired, so excuse the pedestrian nature of the post.

I'm quite close the being finished for the semester. I finished my stats final on Tuesday, and my thought final last night.  That thought final was pretty hard core, though.  Four questions, which took me two full blue books (front AND back) to answer.  That's a total of 32 written pages.  In two hours.  My mind had never been so exhausted from a single short exercise like that in my life.  I am confident in my thought grade -- I should get an A.  Stats could be anywhere from an B to an A, including the relevant pluses and minuses.  Either way, it doesn't look like I will be kicked out after this semester.  Anything below a 3.0 is grounds for immediate dismissal, and it looks like I'll surpass that.

The Global Economy class is the one final remaining, and it will probably be the hardest of the lot.  It's tomorrow morning, and it will also be essay.  I've always liked essay exams better, but for once I would love the ease of a multiple choice.  So goes a doctoral program.  Honestly, this material has been harder for me because I started to lose interest in the class toward the end.  It seemed like the most interesting authors were at the beginning, and the ones at the end added nothing to the discussion.

All I have to do is make it (and make it well) through this exam, and I get a month off.  If I don't do well, of course... I get a lot more than a month off.  It's only over two books and three chapters.  Cramming in grad school never works, I've found.  There's simply too much to take in to actually cram worth a shit.

I fixed the distributor problem with Pedro last night, only to have a nice little trickle of oil start from the oil cooler.  It's not a very fast drip, but in a couple trips to Kent and back, I've lost half a quart.  Half of a quart out of 2.6 total is a lot of oil.  I think his oil cooler is bad, which is not an expensive part (100 bucks or so) but the labor is intensive.  It would involve pulling the engine (I think) so it's something I could not complete on my own.  I called up to Euclid Foreign Motors, the place that I finally got an alternator during that debacle and got a recommendation for a place to take him.  If nothing else, I can get an estimate and punt. 

I've told everyone that typically buys me random shit for Christmas that the only thing I want this year is for Pedro to really really work.  Don't go buy me underwear or shirts or whatever.... make Pedro run, and that'll be the best Christmas ever.  My parents, though, typically ignore what I ask for and buy me something 5,000 times more expensive and complex... then get offended if I take it back and get money.  They mean well, but why do they bother to ask what I want?

With an estimate in hand, maybe they'll help and make my Christmas merry in the material sense?  It'd be great not to have to commute an hour and a half each morning by carpooling with Amy.

Now if I could just get up the guts to pick up the phone and call this mechanic...