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 Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:52 pm
Griffin, ever early and usually the good student, was waiting at May's Brother's coffee shop for her new study-buddy, Xavier. Her nose was buried in her English text book, apart from the times she would sneak a sip of her frappuccino. Around her were open books with colored tabs and post-its all over. She was quite the avid note-taker, but when it came to studying for finals, she didn't really know how to. Study the themes? Passages?
The student blew a puff of air upwards and used it as a means to push her bangs out of her eyes without having to let go of the page she was holding in her book or the pencil she was using to scratch down notes. She looked at her cell phone for the time and realized she was still pretty early. She leaned back in her chair which was outside on the wrap-around porch and got a nice face full of sunshine. She smiled at the sky and then quickly put her face back in the books, hoping no one had seen that.
Griffin scratched her head at a particularly confusing passage. She'd fancied herself good at English, but there were just somethings that everyone made up their own interpretation, but was she supposed to give her take on it or try to give the teacher what they wanted?! Cramming for finals was always so stressful. She slammed her pencil down on the wood table and huffed. Hopefully Xavier could shed some light on the study guide.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:29 am
The was one last thing. One last hurdle. One last task, separating Xavier Avery from attending Destiny City University in the fall.
That one thing was called English. The bane of blonds everywhere, as far as he was concerned. He was okay at english, really - just this particular class, and this particular teacher...
Yeah.
So when he'd gotten an offer from one of his classmates to cram for the bloody thing together, he had accepted it. Maybe Griffin could help him figure it all out - she'd done good with all the other tests... Right.. ?
Needless to say, Xavier hadn't noticed much aside from what had been directly in his face this school year. So many things had changed...
He arrived at the coffee shop a few minutes before the agreed meeting time, and seemed surprised to see Griffin already there and at work. "I didn't make you wait too long, I hope... ?" He asked as he slung his messenger bag off his shoulder and onto a free spot on the table.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:32 pm
Griffin looked up at the sound of a voice, and smiled when she realized it was Xavier. "Ah, no, not at all. Some people have a bad habit of being late, and I suppose my bad habit is being early." She cleared off some of the table from her things. "I was just getting started, really." She picked up the study guide. She put her pencil to a spot on the page before putting it to her mouth, which was pouting. It was true she was good at tests, and even better at essays, but when it came to the biggest grade of the year, she tended to lose all faith in herself.
She pushed her bangs out of her face and looked at the books scattered around. Some short stories, poems, plays and novels. They'd covered a lot this semester. Too much? She held in a groan. She didn't know where to start, but maybe...
"Where do you want to begin?" She held up her books in a fan with the covers facing him. The tabs of the books were color-coded by themes. Whichever he chose, she could probably explain for a while. One work? No problem for Griffin! A whole semester's worth for the final? That's where she began to stress.
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Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:43 am
That seemed to be enough explanation for Xavier, and the worried look was gone as he took the seat beside Griffin. "I always try to be early, too, but the traffic got pretty insane." Even on bike, really. The more idiots were on the road, the more one needed to be careful to not get the hell ran over them.
He spread out his own books, though he was much less organized than she was - no color coding here, folks, but he seemed to be able to to figure himself out just fine. The waitress dropped by, and he ordered an iced cappuchino.
When Griffin's question came, he looked up at the selection she was holding. "This one ?" He pointed his (thankfully capped) pen at one of the books. "I have no idea what's even going on in this one, even less how the questions have anything to do with it !"
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Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:05 pm
Griffin nodded empathetically. Especially when it came to bike riding. She had a car, sure, but she preferred biking and walking when she could. Heck, sitting a few feet away was Griffin's blue bike, chained to one of the pegs of the porch. She took a sip of her drink and peered over the books to see which one Xavier had gestured to.
"Ahhh, I see you picked Hamlet." Whew, thank goodness he had. Griffin had studied it in her last year at Crystal and then this year at Shlip. What were the odds?
"Oh, well in Hamlet, Shakespeare kind of uses the same themes as he uses in other works. Appearance vs. reality, nature vs. unnatural, you know." Hamlet was understandably a bit of a doozie for people. Especially the character himself. This was probably because of the language, too. Griffin reached into her bag to pull out yet another book. "No Fear Shakespeare - Hamlet!" She put it down on the table and flipped open to an act pertaining to one of the questions. "Yeah, if you have a better idea of what they're saying you have a better idea of the themes, and those all come together. Like this question..." she pointed to one, "goes with this act and this theme." Nodding more to herself than anyone else, she hoped that it helped.
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Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 5:15 pm
Yeah, Hamlet. It was safe to say that Shakespeare ans Xavier did not get along. To be truthful, the blonde wasn't even sure why they were ever doing this. Being able to pull Hamlet apart and then back together was going to help him in real life... how ?
Yeah.
He nodded along to Griffin's explanations, taking his drink as it was handed to him. He was doing his best to follow, really, even if the subject was less than interesting for him. "Oh..." Damn, it seemed obvious now that it was pointed out to him.
Stupid english. Really...
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Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:39 am
Griffin stared at the papers for a few minutes more before she slapped her book down on the table. "Ugghh. I know we haven't been studying for that long, but studying for English is so hard. Mind if we take a break?" She looked at Xavier with puppy-dog eyes.
She leaned back in her chair without waiting for an answer and closed her eyes for a moment, soaking in the sun. "Aren't you graduating soon, Xavier? What are you planning to do? Is there really life after Shlip!?" She feigned the worry but was interested to hear his plans. She hadn't really much thought of what she'd do after Shlip besides going to DCU. Then what? No idea.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 10:03 pm
Xavier was making a face at his own english paper. "Sure, let's... take a break."
Hopefully they'd remember to start back up...
"im going to DCU... Get to hand-pick my courses and not bother with english anymore." Weeeeeellll, not that much, at the very least.
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 4:40 pm
What a relief. She was glad he wasn't the kind to bulldoze through something. She certainly wasn't. Breaks were quite helpful and saved one's brain from prematurely shutting down. At least in her opinion. She leaned back in her chair and took a sip of her frappuccino. The chai and cinnamon reminded her of Christmas, how nice!
She laughed at how he wanted to avoid English. "I'll be at Shlip for a while longer. I just want to avoid math and a few sciences." She nodded, "Then I'll catch up to you and all the other graduates at DCU sooner or later." Dramatically, she added, "Hopefully..." She shuffled the papers around her and sighed, trying to make the pile of papers and books look as small as possible.
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 3:15 pm
Xavier took a sip on his own coffee, and seemed rather pleased with the results - he'd have to come back to this place again, really.
The coffee was damn good.
"Yeah, I was lucky that I had the marks for it, really. My year has been... pretty shitty. I had my arm broken in the halloween-ball-turned-disaster, then I got... attacked by ******** even know what and went in the hospital again for it."
Of course, he knew exactly what had happened there, but... Griffin didn't need to know that.
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