this one is for stephen…

I got to class today 15 minutes late, it’s not my fault, I woke up on time, and hit snooze on my alarm clock, little did I know that the snooze is set for 30 minutes here in England, not the normal 10 I remember from the states. So I sat in the back row of the auditorium (the doors are at the back) sans handouts and with the wide eyed, bushy hair mad scientist who just got up and is waiting for the coffee pot to finish brewing that all important first cup of life, which I did not get till after one since my class goes from ten to one!

Anyway, as I sat there in the neither realms of sleep deprivation and caffeine detox, I realized that I had just rushed out of bed, skipped my morning fuel stop to rush in late to a class that I know everything in (as it is basically a review of the algorithms and data structures I did in cs211 and cs310.) The first slide my eyes focused on began with the words ‘Binary Tree’

“Whoo! I know what that is!”

Oh, shit did I say that out loud? Half the back of the room was looking at me. Se la vie, thats what happens when you are not really concious due to lack of caffeinoglobin (a little known blood element, which the body cannot manufacture itself but needs in order for cells to fully function. Common signs of a deficiency include, droopy eyes, sudden unexpected overreactions to quite normal situations, temporary narcolepsy, and possible shaking)

While I pondered my situation class continued and I noticed how much like a muppet my teacher is. He jumps up and down on the balls of his feet and waves his hands in the air as he talked in a very soothing fatherly british accent. Not too loud, not too soft. He dresses like a puppet too; dockers khakis and plaid button downs everyday. And when he raises his hands, framed in the harsh light of the overhead projector, you can clearly see the perfect dark circles formed by perspiration at the junction of his upper arm and shoulder. The only thing that would make it even more hilarious was if he suddenly started saying things like “we love this stuff” and “oh… I don’t know!”

About this time the slide on the over head changed to a bunch of little circles connected by little lines. Inside the circles there where numbers. At the top was a 1 and it was connected to a 2 and a 3 in a kind upside down ‘v’ shape, and the 2 and 3 where connected to 4 and 5, and, 6 and 7 in the same fashion. At the bottom of the page where there line of numbers, each preceded with a word; PreOrder, InOrder and PostOrder.

“I can do that! Oh, I can do that too!”

“You said that with way too much enthusiasm.” the guy next to me whispered.

“It like seeing an old friend again…”