DISCLAIMER: I do not own Hollywood U. This amazing game belongs to Pixelberry! :)

My responses to your reviews:

148. (29/04/17) MiraMaria: We only got to see it for a tiny little bit, but I agree that it was still nice to see :) And I personally think that formal etiquette is very interesting! :D

147. (24/04/17) CatsRtheBOSS: And now I know; thank you! :)

146. (24/04/17) Guest (CatsRtheBOSS): You are very welcome, and like Thomas' subconscious, I also believe that Marie Claire is a queen compared to Priya :D Many things in this fanfic were done on purpose, and what you mentioned is one of them! :D Nice catch! :P

145. (23/04/17) Guest: Thank you very much! I'm glad you like it! :)

144. (23/04/17) hp and stargirl: I think it makes sense too! :P And Marie Claire has been on his mind a lot these days because of all her projects and stuff :D

143. (22/04/17) Ariza Luca: Yup... he really wasn't kidding! :( If you think about it, she's the perfect "prosecutor" for the university... O.o

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Day 30b (Tuesday) – One Day More 02 (Level 16)

Excerpt from Chapter Thirty-Seven:

Taking advantage of the silence, Thomas attempted to correct Priya, because anybody who thought that Marie Claire, of all people, was a favorite anything of his had to be sorely mistaken. "Now just a moment, Professor Singh..."

"Yeah!" Marie Claire had finally found her voice, though she was still looking at Priya like she was crazy. "Professor Hunt hates me!"

Thomas felt... something... when he heard that, but he had no idea what it was.

His student continued hotly, "There's no way anyone in their right mind could claim that he's-"

"Enough!" Priya said sternly, glaring at Marie Claire. "I don't want to hear it!"

She reached for her bag and took out a stack of papers, spreading them out over the table for everybody to see.

"Do you know what these are?"

Marie Claire shook her head.

"These," declared Priya, "are your expulsion papers. They just need one thing – my signature, which I'm only too happy to give. You have only one day more to be a student here. Once I've signed these tomorrow... you're gone."

There wasn't an immediate response, which caused Thomas, who had been looking at Priya, to turn and look at Marie Claire. She was staring at the papers on the long conference desk. Not glaring, not afraid – just focusing on them as if trying to gauge the damage they could cause her future.

"Why... are you showing me all this?" asked Marie Claire slowly.

Priya replied, "Because I want you to show who you're dealing with. Professor Hunt is all bluster but no follow-through... but not me."

Well, Thomas thought peevishly, now I'm just offended.

She continued, "Be here at ten sharp tomorrow morning. We'll hear from the three industry professionals foolish enough to vouch for your character. But let's face it... that's just a formality. I recommend you say goodbye to any friends you've made here."

After that little speech, Marie Claire looked at Priya straight in the eye, and as strange a thing to think as it was, Thomas wondered who Marie Claire was seeing in front of her.

She looked like she was regarding a dangerous adversary, and as much as Thomas hated to think it, his student had already faced a couple of those, such as Anders Stone and Brian Ratzik, and, if Thomas was correct, Marie Claire was in contact with a group even she didn't truly know – an invisible, deceptive atrocity pretending to extend its hand in friendship.

Who is she seeing?

Thomas wasn't exactly sure which side he was on. Yes, Marie Claire had done all the things Priya had mentioned, and yes, after the tank incident, Thomas himself had pushed for her immediate expulsion that very day.

But she had accomplished praiseworthy things since then – she had moved on from the grounds of Hollywood University, meeting her enemies in the grounds of the Orchid Theater and the banquet hall of the Sundance Festival. This newest opponent of Marie Claire's, however, was in her very university, threatening her future in a way the others had not.

Did talent outweigh discipline? Should Marie Claire be absolved of past offenses simply because of a handful of victories earned through unusual circumstances?

Thomas didn't know.

Finally, Marie Claire said quietly, "We'll see..."

After that, Priya gave her a curt dismissal, and Marie Claire gave her professors a simple nod before calmly walking out of the room.

As the tense atmosphere in the room dissipated, Priya gathered her papers and left as well, followed by the other professors who had their own schedules to keep. A few moments later, Thomas was the only one remaining.

As a professor, he knew what his position ought to be. Marie Claire had interpersonal altercations – or at least just the one – and at least two incidents of destruction of property on her record. The fact that she hadn't checked the tank before its use was a clear display of negligence – of dangerous negligence, at that. In that light, her expulsion was not only sensible; it was practically advisable, both to show her the consequences of her actions as well as to serve as a harsh deterrent to other students who might be prone to exhibiting similar reckless behavior.

He left the conference room and returned to his office, where he found everything exactly as he left it. Now that that meeting was out of the way, perhaps he could accomplish what he needed to before his workday ended. Accessing the Good as Gold social media page once more, Thomas looked closely at each of the posts they had made. They could be divided into two categories – expository posts and promotional posts.

The expository posts were casual, showing what had occurred behind the scenes. There were many pictures of the cast and crew preparing for the production, but there were several candid photos as well, showing them goofing off; having fun; bonding. That was an important part of staging a performance, especially a live performance, because the cast and crew had to rely on each other completely for the show to be a success.

Meanwhile, the promotional posts were more in the line of typical advertising, showing summaries and posters for Good as Gold, much like the movie posters that were on the walls of Thomas' office. He only had a couple in the office – he saved most of them for his own house – but the ones he placed here made him feel more like himself and reminded him of his filmmaking days. They were arranged on his wall in an orderly fashion, unlike the papers which, Thomas just noticed, were placed on the desk in such a way that it was surprising they hadn't fallen to the ground yet.

He reached out and took the papers, repositioning them so that the side of the stack of papers was now aligned with the left side of his desk. That way, they didn't risk falling off the desk and scattering all over the floor, and this current tidiness was preferable because he still needed to look some details over to make sure that he was able to write a useful and informative post-grant report for the university. Having a disorganized office would be detrimental to his concentration.

However, something that also contributed to concentration was food, and it was just about time to have lunch anyway.

Settling into a booth at the Portside Bistro, Thomas opened his menu and scanned the restaurant's offerings. While he did have certain dishes that he preferred, it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the other dishes that were available, and the Portside Bistro had several choices.

Because he only had a small breakfast, he thought that perhaps past would be a good choice, and the description of the Pasta all'arrabbiata caught his eye, the combination of tomatoes, garlic, basil, and red chili flakes sounding particularly flavorful. Tomatoes were rich in Vitamin B and potassium, with the latter being especially important for blood pressure.

People wouldn't think that being a university professor was a stressful job, but with the kinds of situations he encountered, he could probably benefit from imbibing more potassium than he normally did, and tomatoes would help with that. The garlic in the sauce would also help – garlic had several antioxidants that contributed to improved memory. And while basil also had antioxidants, it was better known for its magnesium, which was good for the body's muscles and blood vessels because it helped them to relax.

He scanned the other items on the menu, noting that besides pasta, there were able to serve many other things as well, as evidenced by the patrons, all of whom were eating a variety of dishes. The restaurant was moderately full, and Thomas wondered how many of them were like him – people who didn't work in the area, but who made the trip because they finally decided to eat at the Portside Bistro after a lot of thought. Of course, he had no way of knowing who worked where because he couldn't read minds. For all he knew, maybe they were all from nearby places and he was the only one who made the trip to eat something he still couldn't decide on.

Frowning at the menu, he cast his eyes over the drinks section, figuring that if he couldn't decide on what to eat, he would first think about what he wanted to drink, and work from there. It was the logical way to figure out what he wanted to eat because whatever he actually wanted to eat wasn't coming to mind at the present moment. After seeing that they served freshly-squeezed grape juice, he thought that would be a good thing to order, because grapes were sweet and sometimes people just needed a little sugar to be able to concentrate, and what had a good amount of healthy sugar was the trail mix he usually bought, which had dried fruit and mixed nuts and, sometimes, even milk chocolate or white chocolate or peanut butter chips.

But they didn't serve trail mix at the Portside Bistro, which made Thomas think that it might be a better idea to just buy a bag of trail mix somewhere and eat it in his office so that he could make up for the amount of time that he had already wasted.

As he drove down a winding road in his sports car, Thomas tried to think of where he would buy the trail mix he had in mind. He could go to the grocery store, but it was in the opposite direction from the university, which meant that he would have to go past the campus buildings if he wanted to buy the food before going back to his office. He knew that the farmer's market, where he had bought the first bag from where he had fed Mischief at the harbor, was only open on certain days, so his time might be wasted if he went to the regular location of the farmer's market and found it devoid of stalls.

But even though he couldn't go to the farmer's market right now, he was still seeing a lot of nature due to the route he chose to take. He didn't normally take this route because it took slightly more time compared to the tried-and-true route through busier places, but he needed to clear his mind and seeing a lot of open space unfold before him as he drove seemed like a way to accomplish that. Normally, stoplights made it so that Thomas had to stop his car for pedestrians, but because this route was somewhat out-of-the-way, he was able to drive almost without stopping, slowing down only for sharper curves in the roads.

As he drove, he started noticing buildings that he hadn't seen in a long time. He passed a few houses, but most of the buildings he saw were commercial structures, such as restaurants, outdoor gymnasiums and small playing fields, and small boutiques for normal and vintage clothing.

He wondered how they were able to stay in business when they operated quite far from busy places where they could have gotten more customers, but he rationalized to himself that he had no way of knowing what their business plans were like. Maybe they were clothing stores that relied on online sales, and extremely exclusive restaurants that didn't rely on large colorful signs like the one that was coming up ahead.

The sign was in front of an old-looking building, and it advertised a special, one-week event that it assured people they would not want to miss because it would be only be at the museum for one day more. While Thomas did have to go back to his office – well, actually, he had to buy some food to eat and then go back to his office – he rarely traveled down this road, and he was curious. Besides, how much time could it take to view the exhibit the poster talked about?

Advertisement or not, they must not have drawn in a very large crowd, since Thomas had no problem finding available spaces outside the museum and parking without delay. After he bought a ticket for the animal museum, with the added extra charge for the one-week exhibition, he walked inside, wondering what he would see.

The special exhibition turned out to be about birds – hummingbirds, to be exact. There was a special out-of-the-way room for people who wanted to learn more about them, but Thomas wondered to himself if he was really the kind of person who chose a hummingbird exhibition over work. However, since he was already here after paying for his ticket, at this point it would have been a bigger waste to not at least go see what the exhibition offered.

Most of the section consisted of panels with large high-quality, close-up photographs of hummingbirds, along with their scientific names and explanations about why they were different from each other. A guide was in front of the exhibit, telling a few interested people what made the hummingbirds, who were sometimes referred to as garden fairies, so special.

Apparently, the small, long-beaked, fast-moving birds were vital to the ecosystems of the places in which they resided. Their main food was flower nectar, but because flowers only had a limited supply of nectar and hummingbirds needed to feed every fifteen minutes due to the energy they consumed by beating their wings at a rapid rate, they needed to move from flower to flower to eat their fill. And instead of using their long, matchstick-thin beaks as some type of straw, they actually used them to get deep into the flower they were feeding from and used their long tongues to lap up nectar from inside the flower the way cats and dogs drank from their water bowls.

But even constantly consuming nectar wasn't enough for hummingbirds, so they ate smaller insects as well. While sweet flower nectar was ideal for giving them energy, the insects with which they supplemented their diet gave them the protein that they needed to maintain their muscle structure and grow new feathers to replace the ones they lost through flight and through grooming. Those extra feathers were also necessary because at night, when hummingbirds weren't able to feed every fifteen minutes like they needed to, they went into some type of temporary hibernation that reduced their body temperature, thereby also reducing the amount of energy their bodies used up. Unfortunately, they were defenseless against predators in that state.

This temporary hibernation would be broken come morning, where the hummingbird would shiver from the prolonged lack of heat and, over the course of half an hour, come out of their temporary hibernation to wake up to another day of eating nectar. Nesting hummingbird mothers also used a similar technique when they had to stay with their eggs – even though eggs needed to be kept warm for them to eventually hatch, hummingbirds actually lowered their body temperatures while inside their nests, because to not do so would mean that they would use up too much energy and then they would need to leave their nest to get food. Because they knew how to control their bodies and to limit unnecessary movement, they were able to hatch their eggs.

The museum guide was full of information, and as Thomas found out, even with all that she had already said, she wasn't close to being done yet – not that he minded, since hummingbirds turned out to be more interesting than he had given them credit for. As he continued to listen, he learned that their iridescent feathers didn't get their colors from pigmentation, like how humans could have red, blonde, brown, or black hair.

Instead, they had the brilliant shades of color that they did due to air bubbles in a hummingbird's feathers. Depending on the hummingbird's intent, whether it was to intimidate opponents or show off to their prospective spouses, a hummingbird could change their own colors at will by causing the air bubbles in their feathers to change them to several vivid hues by using the principle of light reflection. By flashing the brightest colors possible, they puffed out their bodies to scare other birds trespassing on their territory – and if that didn't work, they resorted to full-on battle, bird-style, which meant diving at the opposing hummingbird from above in an attempt to injure them, or, at least, make them think that other places were better places to be.

To inflict this damage, hummingbirds used their wings to take themselves high up, at least relatively speaking because they were so small, and then swoop down on other birds. Their unique flying style aided them, because, as Thomas understood the guide, hummingbirds flew in a different way from all the other birds on the planet except for swifts, since they were distantly related. As he learned more about the way their wings worked, Thomas offhandedly wondered if Mischief could learn to fly like that, or if a bird specifically needed to be a hummingbird's size to be able to fly the way they did.

But thinking of Mischief made him think of trail mix, which made him think of the lunch he didn't eat, which made him think of the work he had been doing before he had gone out to have lunch. And as informative – and surprisingly mentally stimulating – this jaunt to the museum was, Thomas had real work to do, which involved reports and calculations and summaries. And so, after a few more minutes, in which he learned about different types of hummingbirds – it seemed like there were many kinds after all – he decided that his museum visit was at an end, and after getting his car and driving speedily, but safely, back to the university, he was back exactly where he had been hours ago, and sadly with less work to show for his time than he would have liked.

However, while his lack of focus was regrettable, there was nothing to be done except to work more efficiently in the coming hours. While he didn't have a hard deadline for the post-grant report, he preferred to finish it so that he could get it out of the way.

Reading through his students' post-production paperwork, he noticed that they had divided it into two sections, narrative and financial. Deciding to split the report into two different documents, he took out the staple holding it together, separated the pages of the paperwork into two neat piles, and stapled them separately for easier reading. After he was finished, he took the stapler and was about to put it aside when his movement made the stapler glint from reflecting the light from outside the window, causing Thomas to look at it more closely. When opened up, a stapler had three levels. The top part was the handle level, the middle part was the carrier level that had the spring and staples, and the bottom part, the bast of the stapler, was where the other two parts were pushed down to in the act of stapling. And maybe his mind was filled with thoughts of eating because he had learned so much about hummingbird eating habits earlier, but he thought that the staples seemed like metal teeth, which made the metallic stapler seem like a monster with hungry jaws...

...and that was how Thomas would later attempt to explain to himself how he went from stapling documents in his office to watching the original Jaws movie at five o'clock in the afternoon in his favorite place on campus, Screening Room H-Six. With the close proximity of the screening room to his office, as well as its great collection of movies, he was able to find the Jaws DVD easily, and it was a small matter of plugging in the correct devices and placing the compact disc inside the DVD player before he sat back to watch.

The two first scenes established the theme of freedom, showing several youths having a good time by a campfire - and in some cases by doing things that were not so good, like smoking - as well as a boy and girl playing lightheartedly. However, things didn't turn out so well for the girl, who was screaming and thrashing in terror not even five minutes into the movie. Thomas had always assumed the lesson of those first two scenes was that freedom had to be tempered with wisdom, because if the girl had chosen to swim when there were more people around, they would have noticed her distress and would have tried to help the girl immediately.

The next scene showed the chief of police working on a document when he was rudely interrupted by somebody who just walked up to his workspace without being told that they had permission to enter. The chief didn't tell that person – who was his colleague – to get out because he didn't want to be rude to her, but as Thomas watched her talk on and on about things the chief didn't really care about, Thomas felt a little sorry for him. Being disturbed like that when he just wanted to work quietly must have been quite annoying.

Things didn't get any better for the chief, who had to watch as a second person, a young boy was eaten by the shark, blood darkening the water the crowd ran from the dangerous waters to the safety of the sandy beach. The boy's mother, rather than grieve, instead offered a bounty on the shark's head - a very crafty move that lured all sorts of shark hunters to their town, but the community placed most of their hopes on a local man who claimed he could do it if he were given over three times the bounty the mother had offered. And while the police department didn't enlist his services right away, the chief did spend some time reading about sharks in books, educating himself on the enemy before seeking an encounter.

However, two characters in the movie seemed to just go for it and try to catch the shark without a whole lot for forethought, placing what looked like an uncooked turkey at the end of a heavy metal chain and tying that chain to a post supporting the wooden pier they were standing on. And while they were successful in having the shark come to them, having the beast drag away the holiday roast, the chain, the post, part of the wooden pier, and one of the men standing on that part of the wooden pier probably wasn't part of their plan.

He settled deeper into his chair and continued to watch the dilemma the town faced as they tried to catch the shark and dispel the fear they all felt as a community, shaking his head at some of the idiots who ignored boating regulations, prioritizing temporary needs over compliance with proper safety protocol. Thomas watched the whole movie all the way to the final credits, not sparing a single thought to the work he should have been doing instead of watching a classic film.

And after he had unplugged everything, returned the Jaws DVD case to its proper place on one of the shelves, and closed up Screening Room H-Six, Thomas entered the elevator with the intention of going back to his office, thinking about what he had just watched. Jaws was a well-known thriller film because of the dread the viewer felt as victims fell one by one to the menace lurking nearby when they thought they were safe. The fact that it remained unseen for almost the entire movie only added to the anxiety of the audience – they all knew what it was, but not being able to truly confirm it made them watch from beginning to end so that they could first see it, and then see it vanquished. As he turned left and entered the corridor where his own office was, he breathed a sigh of relief. While being a professor was sometimes stressful, it could be worse – at least he could walk freely in this building without having to worry about bumping into a vicious, bloodthirsty shark.

Priya chose that moment to turn a corner while walking speedily, almost bumping into Thomas in the process, but she managed to step aside at the last possible moment and still hold on to the binders she carried in both arms. Instead of stopping to converse, Priya merely gave him a nod before continuing on her way, and Thomas didn't stop her. From what she had in her arms, he knew what was keeping her here even though it was already seven-thirty in the evening. Because every professor, including Thomas, was required to have them in their office, he would recognize those binders with the official Hollywood University regulations and bylaws anywhere, and if she didn't even want to consult the professor who knew the student in question best, that was her decision to make. After stepping inside his own office, he saw his laptop, papers, stapler, notepad, and pen on his desk, and remembered that he had intended to have more done by this time. To delay working on the post-grant report now would only mean having to work on it anyway the next day or the day after that, so it would be better to read and look over everything now. But rather than stay and try to work some more, Thomas packed his laptop and papers into his laptop bag and headed home.

"Today, instead of working, I went to a restaurant and analyzed the health benefits of vegetables and herbs without actually eating anything; took a longer path back to town when a shorter one would have sufficed; learned about the eating, hibernation, and nesting habits of hummingbirds; and watched the classic film Jaws for the second time since this semester began. Priya, who returned to the university today, is still on-campus at this relatively late hour, doing research on university rules in order to build up her case for Marie Claire's academic hearing tomorrow. And while she can be harsh and unforgiving, but she is also ultimately extremely professional – at least in most cases. Rather than think that her relentless pursuit of a certain result for my student is malicious in some way, I must believe that she is merely doing her duty to the university and that she will conduct tomorrow's events in a professional and reasonable manner."

With their need for constant nourishment and the danger of being vulnerable to enemies, hummingbirds, as he had learned in the museum exhibition, led lives full of risk. But even knowing that, Thomas wondered what it would be like to be a hummingbird at that precise moment – in the midst of necessary nightly hibernation, conserving energy through the night in order to be able to wake up the next day and fight enemies who threatened their way of life, trying to continue living a life of frenzied activity and undeniable beauty. And as he closed his journal, he thought to himself that it must be quite a difficult position to be in.

(End of Chapter Thirty-Eight.) (29/04/17.)

00. My personal comments:

Unlike the other times where I made up stuff (like the spark sphere chapter and the grant news chapter), everything you read here about health benefits and hummingbirds and Jaws is absolutely true :D And it was complex for me to write for other reasons as well. This chapter has exactly nine scenes, and you will see some some hidden (and not-so-hidden) references to past chapters AND future chapters of this fanfic if you look closely enough :D

And, speaking of spotting things, I have a small challenge for you! :P Before I publish the next chapter, if you can identify in this chapter one writing technique (there are actually two to choose from) that I used for the very first time in this whole fanfic, you will win a tiny "prize" of sorts :P You'll be able to choose between a preview of a short scene about Marie Claire asking Thomas about something important... or a fun hint about The Chapter I Have Been Waiting For :D (Personally, if I were you, I'd choose the second XD) I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter... and happy identifying! :D (Oh, and there's also one super obvious Les Miserables reference XD)

01. Canon compliance:

The only HWU quest that took place in this chapter was The Hearing (L16).

02. A tiny request:

Thank you for reading my fanfic! :D If you've read this far, I hope you'll consider taking an extra minute to leave a review for Chapter Thirty-Eight ("One Day More 02")? :D Reviews really mean a lot to me as a fanfiction writer because I get to hear your thoughts on something I worked really hard on ^_^ Even if it's the year 2075 or something, I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! :D

03. Two interesting HWU things:

One, the HWU online television series! :D Did you know that a fellow HWU fan, Zoe (her username on Tumblr is "dizzyclueless"), is diligently working on HWU: The Series? It's a fan-made online television series based on Thomas Hunt and other characters from Hollywood U! ^_^ (At the moment, I'm just a very enthusiastic supporter... but I would LOVE to be involved in HWU: The Series someday! :D) You can find out more about this AMAZING television project on Tumblr (their official Tumblr blog is "hwutheseries"). I just LOVE how Pixelberry and Hollywood U have inspired SO many of us fans! ^_^

And two, my second HWU fanfic! :D If you're interested in reading Marie Claire's perspective of this chapter (Chapter Thirty-Eight), then I encourage you to read "NYTMC 2: Marie Claire's Interlude" ^_^ Here's the summary: "(Part two of the NYTMC series.) (Midquel.) How did Marie Claire Hart fall in love with her most dashing, yet most cantankerous, professor? A retelling of my MC/Hunt fanfic "NYTMC 1: Not Your Typical Meet-Cute" from Marie Claire's perspective, in 100-word drabbles."