25

"Didn't stick that landing, either," Brett remarks.

You came down in your parents' garage. Laughter rises and bursts from your throat. Giddy with relief, you hop out to see that your front wheels have come to rest on a pile of boxes. Then it hits you—there's no place that smells like home!

Welcoming Party

Your landing caused quite a commotion, which brings people running and staring open-mouthed at the sight of you.

But hey, you've just returned from making history (to say nothing of prehistory!), so what if you look wild-haired and rumpled? It seems like an overreaction when someone calls an ambulance, but everyone is eager to get you to a hospital. "I'm feeling almost as good as new," you protest.

Nothing doing. They insist. OK, so it takes forever and a million years more before every medical specialist in three counties is done prodding you and ordering up tests. Guess what? You really are healthy.

Some weeks later, you pull out your GoPro camera, which in itself stirs up so many memories. You haven't even looked at the footage you shot yet, what with everything happening all at once. Now you switch it on and play back the hadrosaur herd trooping along the riverbank in a major hurry. The camera stayed on, faithfully recording everything that followed. It provides a wealth of information on the lives of these creatures, both predators and prey. Some segments are blurry, and it all needs editing—that is, if you want to keep working on it.

Once you're back in your childhood home and enjoying reasonable health, your thoughts turn to your academic standing. You've taken too many risks and achieved too much to simply walk away from what was once a promising academic situation. As your dad always says, "Ask not, receive not." So you put together a case petitioning both Dean Green and the president of the university for reinstatement.

You submit a thick stack of materials supporting your petition: thorough documentation of all that you've learned about dinosaurs, time travel, and filmmaking. While not neglecting any of these areas, you place special emphasis on your primary academic interest, which is: