Beam Me Up, Scotty!

FINALS ARE TAKING OVER MY LIFE!!!!

I'm sorry I didn't post yesterday, but I'll make it better by telling you the second Charles story in honor of my last final with him.  (It was an emotional class for all of us)

Episode Two:
The Fall of a Great Empire

But now we backtrack. Back way long ago to last Wednesday.  Last Wednesday marked a very special occasion for Charles, and it came up as we were waiting to get into the room.

So we are all standing in the hallway, Charles by the doorframe, me across the hall (which is very narrow) and some of our other classmates scattered about. And we began our usual banter of what are we going to do in class today.  When suddenly we hear a soft sign from Charles.

"What's going on, Charles?"

"Nothing, i just realized that this is my last class as an undergraduate."

[Immediate applause] And all of us began enthusiastically discussing how special we were going to make this class because Charles had to celebrate his last class as an undergrad.  So we asked him if there was anything special that he wanted to do (you know, besides a recitation of his paper on pomegranates) and someone mentioned (I'm not sure if I should take credit for this or not) that we could sing to him. And he said that we should sing to him the entire Odyssey.  Done.

Girl one: "Well damn, I just don't know all of the verses to that one."
Me: "That's ok, we'll work through it."
Girl one: "Alright, let's do it!"

At this point Charles was chuckling at our seemingly uneducated banter about ancient epic poetry, but that's ok. I'm much better at banter about epic poetry than singing it (though I've admittedly never really tried to sing epic poetry....) and this gave a prime opportunity to learn some things about this mysterious character.  Here is what I've gathered.

1) JCU is the largest school he has attended and he will graduate this spring
      (How is this possible? The graduating class is typically around 50)
2) For elementary and middle school he attended a small private school
3) In high school he was home schooled
     (NOW things are beginning to be explained)
4) He is working on his thesis in the spring.

Excellent. The pieces begin to come together.

So we go through class, and it was something about Alexander the Great (I finished this exam, it's all gone now) and then we had to fill out a class evaluation form (no, there wasn't a box for aliens present in class... I looked).  Well, by the time I had finished my thought on the paper, only Charles and I were left in the room.

Me: So Charles, now that you've survived your last class of your undergrad work, are you going to have a party in celebration?
Charles: Well, I don't know.
Me: Oh come on!  You've earned it!
Charles: I might have a party after I finish my thesis in the spring.
Me: See here's what you do. You have just a one night party for finishing your classes, then when you finish your thesis, you can have a whole week of parties.
Charles: [laughs] I don't know about that.
Me: Well, you don't have to have a big party, you can just find someone who cooks really well, and have them come cook for you. That works too.
Charles: Well, I don't need anyone to come cook for me. Actually, cooking is one of my greatest passions.
Me: That's perfect then! You can make yourself something special, and eat all of it yourself!  That'd be a blast!
Charles: Maybe I will.
Me: I've got to run, but congratulations again for surviving.  *high five*

And I left.

Immediate reactions: I-JUST-HIGH-FIVED-AN-ALIEN. Shortly followed by, of-course-he-cooks. And I-bet-he's-a-good-cook. And that-was-weird-but-sort-of-hilarious. And I-JUST-HIGH-FIVED-AN-ALIEN.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I miss Charles already.