Thanks, Gini and Ellie! And I'm looking forward to seeing whatever Orc is.

I'm glad you liked the joke, Gini. I bet that professor hauled that out for every class of first-time students. It helped demystify the university world for the 300 or so newly-minted freshies including me in that lecture hall that day!

I get the idea that line is well known in the graduate student world. I pet-sit on occasion for a grad student in mathematics here at the University of Michigan, and she has a paperback book entitled "Piled Higher and Deeper," full of grad-student cartoons.