"I don't go to school Ma, I work at a university!"

I had my first day of "work" today, mostly meetings and such.  Applied for my keys, figured out where my desk/office/lab was, booked a sweet-ass board room with a $70,000 table for an hour-and-a-half every Thursday from now until April, explained what standard deviation is to a humanities professor, pulled out my HP in a room full of humanities professors, got my lesson plan, killed about 80 trees in the process....you know the usual stuff. 

Either way, it sure as Hell didn't feel like work.  When I was making supper tonight, I had a scene from "The Big Bang Theory" go through my mind.  You know, the one where Penny calls Howard creepy and pathetic so he locks himself in his room.  The scene where Leonard calls Howard's house:

Howard’s Mother: Howard, the phone is ringing!
Howard: Here’s a crazy idea, Ma, answer it!
Howard’s Mother: Hello? All right, hold on. It’s your friend, Leonard! He wants to know why you’re not at school today!
Howard: I don’t go to school, Ma. I work at a university.
Howard’s Mother: That’s a school! Now pick up the phone!
Howard: I don’t want to talk to anybody.
Howard’s Mother: Should I ask Leonard to bring over your homework?!
Howard: I don’t have homework. I’m a grown man with a master’s degree in engineering!

....and they go on to shout about fancy pants and popsicles.  In the end Penny apologizes and ends up punching Howard in the nose because he misinterpreted her apology as a pass at him.  Yeah, ran that scene in my head, I had to tell myself that I don't go to school, I work at a university. 

I got my class list today and about 40 pounds of teaching materials that I hope to unload into 20 impressionable minds and backpacks on Thursday.  Not many first-year grad students get to teach a class of their very own right off the bat.  Hell, some of them have to wait years until they can even start to TA.  I got lucky and once again Forrest Gumped my way into teaching an entire class on my own.  Right now it's all perfume and roses.  My mind may change after I get the first assignment and I find out that they all have no competence in using the English language.  Either way, I'm teaching a humanities class and I have the liberty to tell students if they're dumb-asses or not, so it should all work out in the end.  I look forward to being a hard-ass.  On the flip side, I seem to fit right in with the department and they seem to have a lot of trust in me, so that's cool. 

I had a few more random ideas milling around the ol' cranium today, but they've faded like last night's glo-sticks, so they must not have been that important for now.