A Hard Lesson

Part 8

Oh, what a thrill it was, working together with professor Urie!

That was me... Being sarcastic. Actually I haven't seen him for almost two weeks now...

He did attend funeral with our course, and we did spend approximately 10 minutes together afterwards. He was once again trying to make sure if I was fine, but I didn't really buy that. I mean, I felt miserable, and I had a reason for that--- my best friend had just died! Was it so hard to understand that I didn't need someone, who would constantly try to make sure if I felt okay? No. All I was asking form those, who knew me, as to simply understand that how I felt, and respect me, without asking me stupid questions.

Yes, Mr. Urie, I am refering to you!

There was one other thing, which actually I did not expect from him and which made me irritated, no matter how I tried to understand that... no, whom I was kidding, those were two things---

Firstly, when Mr. Urie told me that he would take care of Ella, I thought that he will ask her nicely to move and give her place to me. I was wrong. Instead he made us partners. No, don't get me wrong, I don't not hate her (yet... I think), but she was exactly what I had expected- an achiever and very punctilious; plus-- she had this irritating feature... how do I explain it... oh yeah - she tried to be friendly with everyone, but it seemed so fake that you would notice it while standing on Mars, without even squinting your eyes.

Secondly, shortly after I got home from the funeral, I received a letter from Mr. Urie himself. The letter contained a ton of hyperlinks, which would take me to all the materials and few short sentences:

"Dear, Ruby,
You will find all the necessary information and tasks ar those links, which are added to the letter. I already informed Ella that she has a partner in crime, and I hope that you both will get along. Unfortunately, I need to leave for two weeks, it's a business trip and I cannot decline it. You may contact me trough e-mail if you need anything, but please do that only if it's urgent.
Take care of yourself
Mr. Urie"

I mean, how should I even react to that? Semester will end in one and a half month, I needed to finish my final paper, work on the project, which contains tons of information, and... he didn't even write his first name at the end of the letter... just Mr. Urie.

It was trivia, I know, but I couldn't stop thinking that it actually meant something.

Well... at least the project was interesting. We had to explain the development of small religions in the last century. Practically, we were looking trough the information about cults... the main source of information was Mr. Urie's dissertation on the topic, but we also had to add new facts from other sources. It was my thing... I explored the development of Christianity in my final paper, so I did know the main principles, and I understood why Mr. Urie wanted to work with me on this presentation. I did not know that he was interested in this kind of things, though. I mean, he did teach the history of culture, and it was closely intertwined with the religion, but still... Cults? Cults were usually linked with conspiracy theories, and those were not popular in academic field. So, why was he even interested?

......

I returned back to my apartment after another exhausting afternoon, which I had spent with Ella. I must admit that this cooperation actually started ti have it's advantages, the girl was willing to make the presentation, and I just had to give her the material for it. She even rewrote it and made it more or less clear for those, who did not speak in academic language, but, I think, that it was mostly because she had no idea what the main story was about. The girl was studying for grades and the perfect Diploma, but she did not have a capacity to actually understand and analyze that what people were trying to teach her.... However, she did have a brilliant memory. I mean, she just had to hear something and she would memorize it instantly. I have never seen anything like that.