Jesus has foiled my plans once again...

So aside from waking up early everyday for the past two weeks to study, review last semester's classes, keep up with homework this semester, pine for my lost cube, and generally wander about campus looking for a good study place (harder than you think as a grad student), life has been pretty care free. The weather is good, the squirrels are well fed and have become less aggressive, the cats once again stalk the nights of the campus. Yup, summer has returned from the ... uh... "winter"... we had. Those chilling temperatures of 44 F, and that sorta-kinda-not-really wintry mix that stuck to the sidewalks and roads causing accident after accident (those of course were not caused by Texas drivers thinking they could 65 MPH just as easily over an overpass during winter as in summer... no no no... godforbid we hold them responsible for negligent -see stupid- driving). Yes... the long hard winter of Texas is over.

In other news, room 126 has been recarpetted, and my desk has been re-built. I grabbed a chair from the "storage room" (the half of 126 that all the SMU maintenance folks decided to stack everything up on) and replaced a few of my books. My cube has been returned! Huzzah! Three cheers! Arriba! ... all that. Life has returned to normalcy, and I don't have to go into Fondren to study to the pithy soundtrack of undergraduates "cramming". ("Hey Marco, is Sancho Panza a Mexican?" "I dunno man, but that chick over there is hot." "We have our next test tomorrow... want to get drunk tonight and take it hung over?" "Hm... *ponders*... yes... yes I do."
... sheer...
... unadulterated...
... brilliance... nice to know that some things are just universal in university. Although I do appreciate and love many undergraduates who are cool).

So with my cube back in business, and a better grasp on the things that I just didn't understand last semester (Chapter 3 Mas-Colel is suddenly less of a nightmare), I woke up this Friday morning ready to take on the day and take some micro homework in to ask my prof. about, then finish up as much of the metrics and macro as I could to reserve Saturday for last semester studying. This was about 7:40 this morning. I then stood up, and immediately decided to hit snooze. Somewhere along the way, I managed to hit "alarm off" instead. At about 9:40 I wake up again (well rested, and still feeling good), take a quick shower, then dress in whatever clothes are closest (and don't smell funny), and head out to the Lee Center.
Huh... no cars to wait for while crossing Daniel. I must've lucked out.
... huh... campus sure seemed empty.
... huh... the econ library door was locked, and no one was out in the lobby.
... huh... the computer lab was locked.
... huh... there was uh... nobody in their offices either.
Did I just sleep through Friday? I went outside and did some homework by the fountain (mostly retouching a few already worked problems and re-copying) and enjoyed the weather. A few families were out riding their bikes along campus, and the weather was just perfect.
I must have slept through Friday. How the heck did that happen? I wasn't tired yesterday, and I pretty much got to bed by midnight. Am I more stressed then I thought? Has grad school really started taking it's toll? What do I do? WHAT DO I DO???

So I go home and check my computer. Sure enough. Friday. But NOBODY is on campus. What is going on??? And then, in response to an IM, my good friend in law school (who only found out about this last week) explained to me:
"We go to a Methodist school now. It's Good Friday, there's no class."

...


...


come again???
No class for Good Friday???

I recall at KU I was usually reminded that it's Good Friday by a comment in the editorial section about the dangers of the Christian mainstream, or maybe a cultural group on campus would have an inter-faith conference on "Jesus: Prophet or Messiah" etc. etc. etc. But class cancellation? In fact it was pretty much like that at Booker T. too. Good Friday just came and went. This is... weirding me out... there are campus wide religious observances.
On top of that, now that I look back... the Christmas Party (not "Winter Break" party) the econ department held, the Easter Egg hunt all this past week... and I have not heard one person complain. In fact the most rabid seekers of the Easter Eggs in the Department were the Turks and a couple of the Indians (especially after they heard one of them had 3 dollars in it... suh-weet). But I have, so far, not heard one complaint about religious observances on campus. Not even other faiths. There were tables and signs set up during Ramadan, and many of the groups invited the students to join a "fasting pledge drive" for example. What am I getting at with this? I just find it odd that a university, considered to be a conservative Republican bastion of intellectual thought and education (or brain-washing as the democrats might say, but you know... whatever), is just as varied in its activities (although they are much smaller in attendance due to student population size) as the public university I went to. And not only that, there is a lot less bitching (about religion. Plenty of bitching about other topics). Granted, I don't read the student newspaper very often, so maybe I'm missing out. But in person to person interaction, I have not seen anyone complain about one group putting on a festival, or fund raiser, or religious observance.
But on the other side, I was going to ask my micro prof about two questions that have been bugging me since I started the assignment a week and a half ago (2/9 not done, and no clue how to do them... on top of that, I'm the only one of my classmates who's gotten that far, and nobody has those two. Can't get help from them).
DARN YOU JESUS!!!!!!!! You have foiled my plans once again! But I'll be back... oh yes... I'll be back.

... yeah... so uh... back to homework.
Quals are in 6 weeks.