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 Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:17 pm
Class Description Students here move beyond problems and charting and instead focus on a more practical approach to mathematics, with reviews of the techniques used to solve the problems in different links on the page. Students may also use this to connect to an international “chatroom” of learned mathematicians for interview requirements or help on their problems.
Emerald eyes scanned the boring rows of computers and looked up to the sky-filled roof. The glass gave way to the morning and he smiled almost cheerfully. It reminded him of Jaden, what with how bright it was. Good thing too, because this was going to be a painfully gloomy class. Clutching his bag, he sat himself down diligently into a chair before a PC and started up one of the first lessons.
What was the trajectory of a hyperbole whose inverse was log base 3 of four?
It was going to be a long day.
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Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 9:31 am
Scyeth stared blankly at his computer screen and hated life for a few brief moments. Advanced mathetmatics? Oh, gods above, why would he take such a stupid class? Inner Scyeth wanted to shrivel up and die. This was going to be so incredibly boring. The blond gave a great yawn and rubbed his eyes. He should probably start at some point, he thought with a great strech.
...nyah.
Scyeth settled back into his chair (at least it was kind of comfortable, he was going to he here a while) and clicked his mouse. Uh. He was on the second question? Did he solve the first? Hey! Did he actually have to get these right to move on? The blond leaned forward and typed in a completely random equation before hitting 'submit'.
The computer beeped at him and represented the question. Scyeth scowled and folded his arms over his chest.
"This is wicked stupid."
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Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 6:14 pm
Lost in new methods for problem solving for a few moments, he had barely realized there was another living, breathing creature only a few seats away. It was only when the other had spoken up that he had the decency to look over and acknowledge the other boy. A curved eyebrow raised very slightly, 'Wicked stupid? Who says that?' But of course, he was polite and would keep his thoughts to himself. Not to mention he was slowly terrible at starting conversations.
The other didn't seem like one to chat with either. In fact, he seemed just as annoyed and bored with the whole lesson too. Nathaniel glanced back at his screen with bright emerald green eyes and let out his own sigh. Who could blame anyone? This stuff was positively cruddy. A new method for solving quadratic equations? Wasn't one enough? And all these statistics and advanced calculus, were they necessary? He was sure that he wouldn't need these things as a pharmacist. It wasn't as if he couldn't look things up if he did though.
He'd have endless resources at his fingertips. So why did he need to learn this now? It seemed nonsensical.
Yet he was here. Solving these problems.
Well, might as well be practical about it...
"Bloody pointless, if you ask me," chimed Nathaniel in a sort of annoyed voice himself, almost in response to Scyeth but not quite. It was said in a low tone of voice so that he could retreat back into himself. For once, he really had no idea what he was talking about, so only a mask could help him stay sane here. And so that mask was encased around his face in the look of calm composure, only a slight twitch to his large and endless acid green eyes.
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 9:54 am
Scyeth blinked and looked over as someone agreed with him. Someone agreed with him! For some reason, Scyeth assumed he was the only person in the room who did not enjoy the class. (He supposed you either really had to love math or be a complete masochist to be in the class. Or, like in his case, not pay attention enough to avoid the inevitably bad things in life.) He raised an eyebrow and nodded over to the student...who he hadn't met yet! Excellent! The perfect excuse to...
...excuse to...
Scyeth huffed a sigh and shook his head. No. He was supposed to be focusing. He brushed a blond bang out of his face again and shook his head again, as though disagreeing could get him out of it. "Are we going to be needing this in later classes, you think?" he muttered. If they were, he'd have to actually...try. Try hard enough to remember after this class was over, at any rate.
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 7:26 am
Those same acid eyes glanced at the boy again for a passing moment, and then back to the screen as he quickly scribbled down the directions in his notebook and then proceeded onto the problem. While the page was open and staring at him with another insane question, he sighed and shook his head. Would they need this? He was sure that he specifically did not need things like this to be a pharmacist. What sort of chemist needed to graph parabolas when writing out the formula for an extremely combustible poison sample? It just wasn't likely.
"Later classes, perhaps. Depending on many things, like the classes you take and the thing you want to be. I don't need it," he concluded matter-of-factly. Things like these pointless questions seemed to irk him, and although he knew it and didn't have too much trouble, it was still an annoyance. An annoyance that forced the mask of supremacy. He had an air about him that reeked ostentatiously, as if he knew everything about anything. And for certain subjects, perhaps this was almost (but never quite) true. But for math? Not really.
A bit angrily he tapped on his screen, trying to come up with a reason for the answer he'd just concluded, and all the more distressed because he'd been incorrect. It would simply not do to become this angry, but his face was the epitome of calm and serenity. Only his insides were boiling but it could barely be heard in his voice or seen in his eyes, merely in his gestures. He took a prolonged sigh, finally managing to qualm some of his inner annoyance.
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 12:43 pm
Scyeth rolled his eyes. A smart a**. Excellent. He shifted and scribbled a few figures down on his scrap paper. He blinked, bit his lip and then the blond tapped in a few figures before hitting the 'enter' key. The computer 'plinged' happily and let him progress to the next page. The teenager gave a sigh of relief and scanned the next problem before looking over at Mr. Angry over yonder. Hmm. If he could thinking and tease at the same time...
"So why are you here?" Scyeth asked, the question innocent enough. His tone alone was enough to let the other student know that Scyeth really didn't give a damn. He rearranged his hair again and jotted something down before looking up. "If this is so above you, you must be gracing us with your presense?" Scyeth flashed him a nasty smile before finishing scribbling numbers and figures, typing them in and hitting the 'enter' button again.
'Pling.'
"What question are you on?"
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 12:57 pm
Silently whirring on, the British boy progressed with his notes and various other questions, seemingly blatantly ignorant of the other boy and his jests. He had been in the wrong to have been so vicious, to let so much show, but he'd been so annoyed that he hadn't even thought about it before speaking. Most of his concentration was focused on this silly problem in front him. Something about an easier and more direct method to the angle of elevation. It might as well have been a thesis essay explaining Einstein's E=MC squared. Like hell that wouldn't happen though. Nathaniel figured it was probably a bonus question on the next test.
With his mask back on and his thoughts more properly aligned after careful deliberation, he realized that even Jaden couldn't blame him for not wanting to be friends with a person like this. To Nat, there wasn't much beyond the surface of everyone else. He was still to absorbed in himself to see that other people led lives just like his, and perhaps there was something more to that cocky boy's tone, but he didn't care to know. He didn't even consider it existent. The boy was just a waste of time, as far as Nat now cared.
"You talk a lot," Nathaniel remarked off-handedly. It was a curt statement, just proper for someone of the other's status and manners. Of course, Nathaniel knew nothing of his status, but his manners were certainly gutter material. Even in anger and red-eyed rage Nathaniel could be polite instead of this spiteful sarcasm that the other boy displayed so clearly.
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Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 4:42 am
Scyeth laughed. It was something he hadn't done in a long time and really, there wasn't anything terribly funny about the situation at all, but for some reason, Scyeth tipped back his head and laughed. He had one of those laughs that could be inexplicably creepy and terribly drawing all at once. Sexy. And scary. A very strange combination for a teenage boy, especially one currently fighting his way through a series of advanced mathamatics problems.
"I'm just being friendly," he purred. At much as he hadn't want to talk when he arrived back at school, something about the place brought out the best in him. Or maybe, the worst in him. But at any rate, he couldn't help himself. Scyeth was a social creature, and as far as he was concerned, torturing other students counted at being social. "If you didn't try to ignore me, I wouldn't be trying to bother you," he remarked with a sideways shrug.
He stopped his playful banter to scribble down some thoughts and enter his answer. The computer beeped and asked the question again. Scyeth rolled his eyes. Hadn't the machine ever heard of being creative? Because he did not care about circles and squares and there...whatchamacallits, and thinking outside the box should really be rewarded. Scyeth sat back and reconsidered the problem. "See, here's the problem, between you and me. You've got a stick wedged so far up your a** it's practically coming out your nose." Scyeth shrugged and flashed him a grin. "And as far as I know, it was my born duty to get people around here to loosen up a little. So you see, we have a problem."
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 6:49 pm
There was something that stopped Nathaniel dead in the tracks of his typing. The laughter he could ignore. Psychotic and manic laughter seemed to be contagious around a creepy school like this one, no matter how many morals and good wills they put into it. Yet... the other just purred. Outright purred his words, like a slur. It made a chill run all the way up Nathaniel's spine and instantly he was sitting rigidly straight, like an ironing board. Not to mention, the logic that came with that obscene sound was not quite solid.
So basically, the other had just said he was an attention needy brat who obviously didn't have a stick wedged up his arse like Nathaniel did? This sentiment procured a raised eyebrow that made Nathaniel physically turn his body to face this new opponent. By far, this was the rudest and most worst student he had ever met. The pleasant smile on his face betrayed all his emotions wordlessly; he hated Scyeth.
"Oh yes, I see as well." Oddly enough, Nathaniel too was capable of sarcasm. Though his was a very scornful sort used for dealing with people of the impolite lower class. And with the way the other looked and acted, the Brit had never for a moment considered them on the same level. "Forgive me for not realizing your insolence. I don't usually associate with people like you." The tone clearly said everything he meant, and he went on smiling as politely as possible, before turning back to the math problems on his screen and taking down the notes again.
Logics? Statistics? He supposed this was a little better than the theorem of life or something.
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Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 9:50 am
Scyeth's lips curled into a nasty grin. Oh, dear. This boy was playing right into the blond's game. This was number two in Scy's list of enemies, the second notch on the stick, so to speak. The Aussie was never known for making friends...quite the contrary, actually. People hung out with him so he didn't pick on him. Very few of them he actually...liked. Of course, he was finding more resistance here at the school, but that was to be expected. All of the students (or at least, a good majority of the boys) were much more intelligent than the beach bums he spent his free time with. (With the exception of Fell, but Fell was a different story entirely.)
"Don't socialize with people like me?" Scyeth asked, as though he didn't understand. He batted his eyelashes, twisting to type in another answer to the circle-squarething problem. The computer accepted and asked something else, and Scyeth did not care enough to focus on it any longer. "Huh," he said, glancing back at the other student, "weird." He flipped his hair, smirking. "So, back to this 'you think you're better than me' shtick. Fine, fine." He shook his head and looked on at the computer, smiling to himself.
"We can have that fight if you want. But you should know, I never lose."
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Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 8:09 am
So Shinkami didn't care about the student's personality when the let them in, huh? Well Nathaniel could understand that. If a boy was smart and possibly useful, why on Earth should they care if he's a stuck up brat? There was no reason to care, and of course Nathaniel began to take less and less notice of the other. It was people like him that made the world more difficult. Didn't humans have a common enemy? Couldn't they understand the concept of alliance? During times like these you'd figure that most could look back on human history and notice that even the worst enemies could band up together as friends for a time.
Apparently the other didn't know this. And that wasn't a problem. Nathaniel didn't need friends anyway, and he certainly didn't even want a sort of truce with this kid. He had a mouth that just seemed to shoot off and try to bother kids. How-many-buttons-could-he-push-before-the-other-person-blew-up-in-his-face, sort of thing. That was more attention needy than Nat could ever be. This was certainly a waste of time and conversation. And then somehow it became a contest, a matter of win or lose.
Nathaniel seemed to be slightly bored by all of this and continued with his math until he encountered something entirely puzzling. No matter how many times he read the question, it didn't seem to make sense. Finally, giving up for the moment, he spoke up to the boy in a very delayed reply:
"It's not a game. You must be very young if all you ever want is to win..."
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 6:15 am
"And you must be very old if you've forgotten life is nothing but a game and our only importance is the part we play," he countered, already focused on his computer. He'd gone through two more questions while Nat was giving him the silent treatment. On his third, he was forced to scrawl out a few long equations, a few numbers, and typed an answer in the small white box. This really wasn't so hard once he put his head in the right place. Nothing was more motivating than wanting to beat an obnoxious p***k.
'Pling.'
Scyeth smiled to himself. Done. Really not so bad at all. All those puzzles really helped logical thinking, huh? He shifted to look at the other student and tipped his head. Words were starting to lose effect. That was fine. Time to resort to Plan B. Scyeth leaned over behind the computers and began rummaging around, 'accidentally' knocking into Nathaniel's power plug.
"Oops."
Smile.
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Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 4:11 pm
Finally, he had come to the long and dreadful end of the list of these insatiable problems. His brain was humming with activity, unused to being used in such a voraciously vulgar manner. Science was one thing, but this type of math was another completely. It was challenging, mind boggling, and annoying. He had had to stop frequently and check himself. He had even wasted more precious moments chatting with one of those online teachers he had access to.
And momentarily, just as he pressed down on the submit key and let the page load halfway... the screen blanked. It was a black sort of emptiness that reminded the Brit of the eternal night. His eyes narrowed in smug satisfaction. He knew for a fact that his score had been loaded, and all the other had done was stopped him from seeing it.
Of course, he probably had another quiz or something he had to take. But as far as he cared, this class was over. He stood up from his chair and flashed the other a friendly smile from behind his mask.
"Was a pleasure," the brown haired boy whispered as he headed for the door. It was a polite gesture, no malice hidden in it whatsoever. It was almost as if he'd expected it. And although it looked like he was running away, Nat never ran. He curled himself up and planned.
Naturally, this boy wasn't worth the effort. And he'd already taken all from the class that he needed. A final remark from the other would end this visit promptly and efficiently. Or perhaps silently in fuming vengeance, since the pastel-colored punk seemed the type.
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Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 5:54 pm
Scyeth snorted. Oh well. He had come close, it was a very good try, he assured himself. It also welcomed him for another try, which was also very much appreciated. But Nat was quite right when he assumed Scyeth would not be done there. The blond was never done. "Always a pleasure," he replied, standing as well. He followed Nat to the door.
It wasn't hard to catch up with the Brit, the Aussie only had to bound forward a few steps before catching Nat's shoulder. "I look forward to our next meeting," he purred, smile calm and quiet. It was a sincere remark. The intentions behind it were most certainly not. Scyeth was not a good enemy to make.
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 7:21 am
For a moment Nathaniel let the other's hand lay there, almost daring him to keep such a crude gesture up. And then he easily slipped his shoulder down and away and took a step back. Brushing it off as if the other had germs, he continued to smile pleasantly. There were a range of things going inside his head, but the number one was that this boy was not worth it. Not worth his anger. Sure he was rude, had no manners, and had a penchant for disaster that annoyed Nathaniel and his research, but he didn't care very much. He'd gotten over it.
The other was just a bump in the road he'd be willing to run over, over and over and over again. That's all there would be too it. And so with vivid green eyes and that smile that agreed it wasn't over, he nodded; there was no need for words. And then he turned to walk away, leaving this behind him for now.
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