off the job training

I did not know this morning that tomorrow I would be a student again, but today I found myself registering for UC Berkeley's Extension course down the street from where I work at A.C.T. in the heart of San Francisco. Tomorrow at 6:30 p.m., I will be sitting in a computer room learning the finer points of copyediting. And, yes, I am excited.

I have actually really been wanting to learn Spanish so I don't have to read Hispanic / Latino / Mexican / etc. plays in translation. I searched Craigslist for a used Rosetta Stone (Tangent: This was before Mr. Phelps started promoting Rosetta Stone with that stupid "I like to do everything fast" commercial. If the pool at the 1972 Olympic games had been as deep as the pool in China's Cube, and if the swimmers wore the same Speedo LZR Racer suit that they wore this summer, Mark Spitz would still not have been able to win eight medals because there weren't eight medals to be won), but all of the deals sounded sketchy--the kind of sketchy that means that either a) the program wouldn't work properly or b) I would be caught up in some FBI sting operation targeting this guy named Sam:

I have been in the business of selling these for 3 years now. I am aware
that others on craigslist is selling stuff for cheaper but in all
honesty, I can bet those are not authentic. I can sell burned stuff for
even $50 and make more then what I make on authentic stuff but I care
for my customers and don't want them to get in trouble!

You have to be very carefull with
non authentic rosetta products as there is a license as a copied one
will work anywhere from 3 days to 6 months as rosetta will then see a
duplicate of the license being used and will blur it as the disk will
then read as disk error and there is a good chance rosetta will issue
you a $1000US fine as I can give you contacts of people who have got
these fines.. the sellers of copied rosetta don't care for the buyers
as they are trying to make a quick buck! If you have any problems with
my rosetta products I promise to give even 10 times your money back!

Please let me know
thanks kindly
Sam

So I didn't buy from Sam. I learned that you can access some verion of Rosetta Stone through the library here, but it won't work on my computer yet. All this is to say that I am in no way opposed to becoming a student again, even a student of Chicago Manuel editing rules.