Watterson illustrated this with a story from his sophomore year, when he spent months painting a copy of Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam' on his dorm room ceiling — working on a makeshift scaffold of chairs stacked on his bed. The housing director let him keep it only until the end of the year, when he had to paint over it. Despite the futility, it was his fondest college memory. He never spent as much time on any authorized art project or poli sci paper as he did on that one act of vandalism.