Ode to a Slimy Worm-Like Creature

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In the spirit of Finals Week, the following is brought to you by Kurt Eiselt, who is the CS2360 professor and Dean of Students for the College of Computing, and who posted this poem to git.cc.class.2360, dedicated to Brother Patrick McNeill (course grade currently unknown)

Around the time of the first midterm, one of your peers
chose to dance with death by posting the following poetic 
hors d'oeuvre:
 
        Eiselt's going bald
        Looking like Homer Simpson
        One, two, three hairs left.
 
In response I offer the following epic to inspire you as
you gird yourself for tomorrow's encounter with destiny.  
I call this:
 
    "The One True King of Evil"
 
As fear of failure filled their heads
The students pondered fate:
"Stay with this nightmare 'til the end? 
Or drop before it's too late?"
 
But one stood tall among the rest,
He was bloodied but unbowed.
He said "I'll show that LISP geek how brave I am"
To himself, and not real loud.
 
He said "I've survived Jim Greenlee,
I am too tough to scare."
And with twelve small words and not much thought
He made fun of Eiselt's hair.
 
The others shouted in unison
"The poet will lead the way!
We'll not let parentheses break us!"
Mistakenly, they chose to stay.
 
"I'll crush that worm!" cried Eiselt
When he read that weak haiku.
"He thinks he's funny?  He thinks he's cute?
Well I can be clever too."
 
"That C-dweeb dares to laugh at me,
Now the class mocks my shiny dome.
I'll make every one of them suffer
For that worm boy's putrid poem!"
 
"I'll make homework five even harder
Than I ever have before.
At first it will look real easy
But it will lower the average score."
 
"Homeworks six and seven
Will focus on a game
That's so complex and so obscure
It'll put Deep Blue to shame."
 
"And if they last 'til homework eight
Barely conscious but writing code,
I'll turn what used to be a piece of cake
Into one real rocky road."
 
"Not to mention the second midterm
More deadly than the first.
Then that big three-hour final,
That's going to be the worst!"
 
"The exams will bring them misery,
The homeworks -- weekly sorrow.
The labs will confuse them with odd phrases
Like 'joe 12 midnight tomorrow'."
 
"To make things worse I'll hide their grades.
They'll think their aim is true.
But I'll wait until next summer
To post their scores for homework two."
 
And sure enough as weeks went by
The homeworks took their toll.
Five brought students to their knees,
The next two made heads roll.
 
Homework eight nearly killed them,
Midterm two was much the same.
And when they all choked on that final,
They were looking to place the blame.
 
"What happened to us?" they asked.
"Why does he hurt us so?
You're a wise 2430 TA, dear poet,
Surely you must know!"
 
"You fools!" the worm boy shouted,
"Can't you get it through your head?
You laughed with me so he hosed us all!
We teased him and now we're dead."
 
"We still don't understand," they said as one,
"Only Greenlee could be this mean."
"Eiselt's the one true king of evil," came the reply,
"Greenlee's not even the queen."
 
"I stand before you humbled," the TA sobbed.
"You should never have taken my side.
On the outside you see a poet,
But I'm just a worm boy deep inside."
 
Decades in the future,
When 2360 was no more,
And Y2K was just a memory,
Of bad programmers who'd gone before,
 
Eiselt was living on the street,
A pathetic, drooling joke.
He wore a sign about his neck
That said "Will write LISP code for a Coke."
 
An old Tech grad saw him
And stopped to say 'hello'.
Eiselt blathered incoherently,
So the student turned to go.
 
But then the student asked him,
"Who hurt the students most?
Who was the biggest all-time shaft?
Who turned 'em into toast?"
 
Recognition lit up Eiselt's eyes
And he smiled a toothless smile.
"I remember who the biggest shaft was,
Although it's been awhile."
 
"It wasn't Russell Shackelford,
And it wasn't Jim Greenlee,
It wasn't any theory prof,
And it really wasn't me."
 
"The all-time worst was a student,
Not much of one at that.
But he pissed me off with just twelve words,
So I stomped the whole class flat."
 
"The biggest shaft in history
Was a slimy worm-like eel.
All he did was write some poetry
And his name was Patrick McNeill."
 
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Sleep well my LISPlings.  I look forward to your 
demonstrations of mastery of your chosen profession.

Kurt Eiselt
Assistant Dean, College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/aimosaic/faculty/eiselt.html