A story: We decided to go talk to Diane (who's sort of the teaching coordinator for undergrad math) about the fact that ODE is probably the worst class that we've taken at the U of C. Her office is open, so we ask someone else when she'd be back. The person we asked yells out "Diane, some students are here. When will you be back?" We hear a muffled response from behind a door: "As soon as I finish making my soup."

OK, so we wait until I hear: "What are you guys doing here?" shouted down the hallway. She was apparently shocked that we weren't first years trying to drop out of 150s Calculus. We explain our problems with ODE. You know, the fact that we've gotten one homework back with no comments on it, the fact that there's no problem session or solution sets, the fact that the midterm's Tuesday, etc. She gets very, very angry and wants to know why she's only hearing about this in fifth week. We didn't have a good answer, so we let her yell at us for a while, and then she tells us she's leaving, and we should talk to Prof. Sally instead (Sally is the pirate. Also the head of undergrad math. And our former Algebra teacher). He's teaching a class right now, so we wait until he's finished and then accost him in the hall. We recite our litany of complaints, at which point he starts laughing and asks us if we have a book. "Well, yes. But he's not using it to teach out of." So he offers to give us a book. And tells us we won't get screwed by the class, because we're good, whatever that means.

Surreal count in that sequence of events: 5