T’was the night before Capstone, when all through Marty’s house,
The only creature stirring was a clicking computer mouse.
The business plans were printed and bound with care,
In hopes that St. Tarallo would soon be aware:
Of the breakeven analysis and market research he drilled into the heads,
Of his dedicated students, who at this point are just dangling by threads.
In just 24 hours we will all be calling this a wrap,
But before that happens, let us take a second to recap:
The semester began with hours worth of concept chatter,
Time poorly spent, because in the end, only Tarallo’s opinion would matter.
Over to Blackboard we flew like a flash,
With the knowledge of Tarallo’s difficult, pop-quiz stash.
Morning of the midterm, unprepared for what we’d undergo,
The only thing we expected was the sight of Tarallo.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
Was a woman, dressed in black, the look in her eyes sincere.
With exams and blue books in hand, a lightbulb was lit:
I knew in a moment it must be bpsubmit.
More rapid than eagles the judges’ submission came
Tarallo whistled, and shouted, and called each team by name:
Now SmokeVex! Now, Gametime! Now, Petronics and Change the World!
On, Harmony! On Mist! On, RecipEat and Rebuild!
“To the front of the class! Let us commence the brawl:
“Your presentations are rough, dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
After hostile fire not a single eye was dry,
But when Tarallo’s teams meet an obstacle, they mount to the sky.
To Marty’s second floor team rooms the groups they flew,
With laptops and flashdrives, coffee and Adderall too:
We perfected our presentations and removed each goof,
To prove to the judges why Tarallo is aloof.
We tucked in our chins and turned things around,
When into the room, Tarallo came with a bound.
He was all dressed in Gametime gear, from head to his foot,
But after cooking biochar all day, he was covered in soot,
Forty dollars worth of change he had in his pack,
Clearly in need of the Change Card, but still talking smack.
His eyes – how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!
But the thought of leaving his dog home alone was just scary.
His eyes were narrowed and smirky little mouth drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The short stump of a tobacco pipe he held tight in his teeth,
Without the SmokeLamp, smoke encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a kind and broad face and a little round belly,
Thanks to RecipEat it shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
Without Rebuild and creotine he had clearly lost sight of himself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Mist would never allow ARDS to cause him to be dead.
He spoke many words and put us to work,
But rewarded us with A’s, because he’s not a jerk.
And just because it’s the way the tradition goes:
Once presentations were over he beckoned us into the Syracuse snows,
And herded us to Chucks, to his teams gave a whistle,
And away the shots flew, the long-awaited dismissal.
And I heard him exclaim, as we all stumbled out of sight,
“Happy Capstone to all, and to all a good-night.”
