I'd be mid-sentence -- ``Yeah, I miss you too.I'd be mid-sentence -- ``Yeah, I miss you too...'' -- and I'd lose my ability to speak coherently. ``Grrr, grrr, CS 502.'' Jennifer would smile, kiss my forehead, get dressed and leave. My last non-missing-link thought was always, ``She gud woman.'' And I fulfilled the first of Hercules' impossible seven labors -- the first programming assignment. But I'd passed my tokens as an array, rather than retrieving them individually. It cost me ten points. I received a ninety, one of the highest grades in the class, but still I found myself on the balcony of my dorm growling and howling at the moon for a good two hours. Once my soul was sufficiently cleansed, Jennifer would come out and say, ``It won't change your grade dear. Come. It's time for bed.'' She'd take me by the hand and lead me to her warmth. And the sun and moon exchanged positions in the sky several times before the first exam. It was open notes and open book. I was ready, I was psyched and I was wired from the combined sugar and caffeine of two liters of Coke. The only way I could have been more pscyhed would be if I'd taken the Coke intravenously rather than ingesting it orally and don't think I didn't ponder an I.V. drip. It was Jennifer who talked me out of it. ``Bad boy! Don't contemplate foolish things! Service me.'' Gud woman. The blue books were handed out. My two mechanical pencils were filled to the brim with HP hardness lead and my eraser, what else, a Staedler. With my notes, homework solutions and text surrounding me, I was ready. The combined sugar and caffeine did the trick. I wrote furiously. I'd skim a question, consult my notes or the text and immediately synthesize an answer. I stood before the walls of Jericho, blew my horn and down came walls of the first exam. |