Nacho Christmas

This story almost doesn't qualify as a holiday story, but it is linked to the holidays in my mind since it happened in the week leading up to Winter Break a couple of years ago, so it gets to go first.

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Once upon a time, I was a Computer Science undergrad. And one of my required classes was Operating Systems, a very boring place where you learned about things like semaphores and buffers and memory. It was a pretty straightforward class, though, in that there were only 3 grades for the entire semester: A midterm, an end-of-session test, and a project.

I bombed the first test (something in the low C range if I recall), as I so often do, so I really needed to do well on the last two parts if I wanted to get anything resembling a good grade. The project was a huge program that was mostly already completed. All we had to do was add some functionality to a framework that someone had created a long time ago. We had over a month to work on this thing.

Now I am a horrible procrastinator but I knew that I needed a good grade on this thing, for serious, so I got most of it done well before the due date. To get into a little bit of the boring details, we basically had to modify an instructional operating system, named the NACHOS Operating System for some acronymical reason (that will be important later, so remember it), so that it could do a couple of things besides sit there and blink at the user.

I had most of the things implemented in the program by the time finals rolled around. I just hadn't run the completed version all the way through, figuring I had the whole last week after my finals to get it up and running correctly, since my finals schedule had worked out so nicely. I took the end-of-session test in Operating Systems right before finals, so we got our grades back that same week. I had done strangely awesome, despite my complete belief that I had failed, so I was actually on track to get an excellent grade, provided there were no issues with the project.

So I had 8 days to get this program finished. Days 1, 2, and 3 are sort of a blur, but there was no rush and there was a lot of video games and movies going on. Days 4 and 5 were more focused, but still I couldn't get the final details to work. Day 6, suddenly my program stops working all together. Nothing compiles, the program no longer even blinks at the user. Very worried, I start working on this thing non-stop. I get maybe a couple of hours of sleep and suddenly it's Day 7. Still no working.

I seriously spend the entire day, skipping most meals and surviving only on my programming diet (Dr Pepper and Pixi Sticks), asking everyone who might know what is up with the program.
No one can figure out what the deal is. I can't revert back to the older version, because I would have to reload the entire program in, wiping out everything I've done so far (thanks, UNIX) so I keep plugging away at this thing. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep at all, as you will see from the events in Day 8.

Day 8. I have had 2 hours of sleep in roughly the past 65 or so. I can get nothing to work at all. I try loading in the old program into a magical new directory and plugging some of the things that I know work into it. I get nothing. I am completely freaking out, the project is due in 8 hours and I've got nothing. I run the math, I need a 50% to stay passing in this class. The professor has said that she will grade this strictly by the book, so if there is no executable program, the best I can make is a 40%.

With about two hours left, I abandon all hope of getting anything to run. I now focus on technicalities. In the instructions, it says the final 10% of your grade is meeting the submission requirements: basically turning in all 4 parts - source code, executable, your explanation, and the results file. In my sleep deprived mind I decide that it is now possible to get that 50% that I need, if she gives me full credit on the source code and I turn in all 4 parts to get that extra 10%.

My Addled Brain: Now where can I get an executable program to turn in...I know! I'll make one up. But what to make up? Perhaps something to lighten the mood! Yes! Brilliant!

Thus I began the stupidest adventure of my collegiate career. In the course of 7 minutes, I wrote a program that did the following:

[Begin Program]

[Pop up]
What do you call cheese that isn't yours?

[Press Any Key]
NACHO Cheese!
.
.
.
Please don't fail me.

[End Program]

So, with Devon and all my suitemates watching me, I paced the room, ran up and down the hallway writing strange things on everyone's message boards, and then I ran into the room, clicked send on the submit form to turn in the program, screamed "Dear God what have I done!" and then ran into my bedroom and curled up into a little ball on my bed for several minutes rocking back and forth and muttering to myself.

I then proceeded to get hammered that same night, convinced that I would fail the class completely (my professor was not know for levity of any kind). Thus I went home for break the next morning, hung over in time for my parents' Christmas party, dreading my grades and cursing the world in general, UNIX in specific.

On the second day back home, I got an email from the professor:

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Subject: Re: Op Sys Final Project

Notes: Your changes were good, although the executable did not seem to relate to the project.... I was available through the month of November, if you were having problems.

Your final grade for the project: 63

Have a merry Christmas.
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And with that grade, I managed a B+, with curve.

A true Christmas miracle if I've ever seen one.

But I will always remember the time that I turned in a nacho cheese joke in place of a program that counted 30% of my final grade.

And a final note: That same professor became my advisor the next semester and stayed until I graduated. It was a good 5 months before I could convince myself to go see her, because I was so embarrassed. She always looked at me funny, but she was pretty cool about everything, overall.