Well, a happy ending. You should still get the car to your mechanic as soon as you can so he can test the charging circuit -- the car will run on a fully charged battery for awhile even if the alternator is not working.

OR

Since you are learning about the car, you could spend $20 on a DVOM (Digital Volt Ohm Meter) at the closest Pep Boys, Autozone, whatever. Once you've read the little booklet that comes with it and are familiar with it you can check the charging circuit yourself.

Car off. Set the DVOM to read DC volts. Put the red test lead on the positive terminal and the black one the negative terminal of the battery. You should see some voltage just over 12V indicated on the meter. Now start the car and put the leads on the battery again. You should see some voltage a bit higher than the original voltage but NOT higher than 14.2 VDC.
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Mr. Shannon DeWolfe -- (I've taken to using Mr. because my name tends to mislead folks on the WWW. I am a 51 year old fat man ;-) -- KD5QBL