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 Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2011 9:45 pm
After weeks of hell had culminated and ended in what could only be described, at least by himself, as pure hell it was no wonder he'd taken Monday and Tuesday off school, though his mother had insisted he take Tuesday off after one look at her only child.
As Wednesday morning came, and with it his alarm clock loud and clear, the blond had showered and dressed in the ever so hated uniform. Fixing his uniform as he managed his way through the briefest of good morning pleasantries with his parents he hurried out the door and to school, thank god he could drive himself and didn't need to deal with one of his parents in the car. He was still wondering if they'd figure out something more than his excuses was going on, they weren't stupid by any means, and he didn't want to spend too much time in the presence of either just in case they decided the question him.
Once he'd parked in the student lot he'd hurried into the school, covering a yawn as he arrived at his locker. Numbers long since memorized were spun on the dial before a jerking motion opened his locker. Books for the first three classes were grabbed, along with corresponding notebooks. The first class up: History.
It wasn't a subject he minded but he also was sure he had a ton of homework, even if he'd only missed two days, the professor seemed intent upon drowning the students in homework.
Slipping into the room just as the bell rang, he couldn't get himself to care enough to hurry himself to class, he found his seat and noticed the message on the board: Sit with your assigned partners.
What assigned partners? What the hell had he missed. Glancing about the room proved that something big had been missed. No one was sitting in their usual seats. People who would normally never sit near each other were doing just that, and since he was sure hell hadn't frozen over, he had missed something. Looking around again, seeking some answer to an unspoken question. Should he wait and see if someone called to him, approach the teacher and wind up seeing all the homework he had to face now (when he could delay it a short bit), or did he find out what the work was and attempt it on his own?
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 7:36 am
Jude was one of those who'd been left behind -- one of those kids who hadn't actually know many of the 59, who'd spent six weeks with his head down and focusing on school work instead of on anything else. Sure, he'd poked around on Reddit for information, for any leads or clues on where they gone, but when he'd seen it was rampant speculation, he'd...slipped away.
If he was going to be writing fiction, he'd rather be writing fiction.
He sat in one corner with two empty seats beside him, fidgeting and toying with a pen, his face tipped forward so that a screen of strawberry blond hair hid his features. His notebook sat crookedly on the corner of his desk, text book spread open as if he was reading it but --
It was a screen. It was designed to keep anyone from talking to him unless they really needed to. And it allowed him to watch the rest of the class more subtly.
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:32 pm
Oh great, Wednesday morning, first class History was the glum thought that went through Arian's mind.
At least today he'd managed to turn up in good time for class – more often than not the dark-haired teen tended to run late and ended up having to rush to his first class of the day in order to skirt in before the bell.
He'd wandered over to his usual seat, end of the left-hand row towards the back, got out his books and in general had just started to make himself comfortable when one of the girls from the front had walked up with the expectation of him giving up his seat. When he'd politely protested – hey he'd unpacked all his stuff you know – she'd given him a look and pointed to the board.
It was at that point that Arian remembered that the teacher had assigned a class a project and split them up into groups of three and four to work on it. Stuffing his books haphazardly into his rucksack, he reluctantly surrendered his seat.
Glancing around he noted the boy sitting off in a corner on his own and after dropping his rucksack down, slipped into the first of the two empty seats. “Um Jude right?” His voice was quiet. “I'm Arian. I think we've been assigned as partners on this project.”
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:50 pm
While the dark haired, Arian, was giving up his seat Alexandre wound up in much the same spot. Only it wasn't a girl to try and vacate him but a male student. He'd had noticed what was on the board but wasn't aware of who his partners for this mysterious project were. Well, time to find out, he had no option of waiting and seeing what happened now, he got up and went to see if he couldn't find out from the professor.
A few quick words with the man, not to mention homework being laid in his arms in the form of a typed up list of the assignments and packets to read, and the blond was on his way to the two indicated teens. Neither of the teens was known to him, aside from first name. One of them he didn't remember from last school year, a new student he thought.
Seating himself in the remaining desk, slowly, he slid the work from the professor under his desk on the cage there. His notebook was pulled from the messenger style bag he had and settled onto the desk along with the text book.
"So, either of you mind filling me in? I'm a trifle lost on all of this."
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2011 7:44 pm
Jude blinked up at Arian from behind his hair, wide-eyed for a moment and then fading into something a little more friendly, a touch more gracious. He shifted, moving his chair over just a little so that Arian could sit without bumping, so they didn't have to crowd in together...
"...um." And Alexandre. Green eyes flicked from one to the other, and he reached out to flip quickly, absently, through the book. Finding their page. A double-spread on Sparta -- it definitely could have been worse. "Well. It's a...a presentation thing. However we wanna do it. Like. Just reciting the facts, or we can, you know, do something creative..."
He shrugged, twitch, offered a nervous sort of smile. "I don't know. Did either of you read it yet?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:16 pm
Arian nodded in answer to Jude's question. “Yes, I did a bit of reading yesterday.” As in he'd flicked through both his text book and an encyclopedia a little and had scrawled down a few notes. “Apparently Helen of Troy came from there.” He fished out an exercise book from his rucksack “I made a few notes,” flicking through a few pages he paused on the correct page and admitted “They're a little messy though.”
Considering Arian's approach to note-taking was to jot stuff down in whatever space was available on the page and draw arrows to link stuff together with whatever colour pen he had to hand – his idea of a 'little' messy was probably a massive understatement.
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Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:55 pm
"I wasn't here..." So he was lost, but what Jude said, explaining what they were to work on and in what fashion, helped. They were working on Sparta though, which there was a lot to be found on. Or at least more than some other things.
"Anything in particular or just everything dealing with Sparta?" Best to know if the professor wanted them to narrow in on anything. Already he was writing down, in a neat though slightly slanted, hand writing what they had to do and who was in his group.
"I'll start looking up information tonight. Do we want to work on this outside of school as well?" Or would they work on it here only, as he was sure some groups would do. There was just...something personal about working outside of school with people on things. You got to...see them outside of the school and without the social boundaries and such. So it was something he was iffy on, especially now with his position in the world. He didn't need to risk it cutting in to time blocked off for duties.
"If we can write about anything what about the famous war of the three hundred Spartans?" Famous they were not, save for the few known by name, but the three hundred as a whole were well known; I mean they had made a movie about the war...even if it was over the top.
"Can I see what you have Arian, seeing as I've got nothing. I'd like to see what we do have." So he didn't come up with the same stuff, he could come up with other things.
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 7:17 am
"Helen of Troy's cool?" It was the most input Jude was likely to give, in regards to their topic. He shifted, slowly, to settle his chin on his fist -- and then remembered himself, sitting up straighter again and forcing himself to focus. Nervous fingers paged through his history notebook to a page with a tidy, looping timeline laid out from top to bottom, arrows connecting related event.
It was color coded.
He turned the book around so that Alexandre and Arian could look at it, and Jude cleared his throat. "Um. This is a really loose skeleton. I'm not good at the...the actual presenting part. But anything else I can help with...including meeting out of school's fine, so long as it's after work."
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 2:19 pm
“We weren't given particular topic area,” Arian said in response to Alexandre's question. “Part of the project involves picking an area on Sparta to work on which we then have to present back to the class.”
At Alexandre's request about his notes, Arian nodded “Sure,” before pushing his exercise book where the other could reach it. His notes consisted of a bit on the location of Sparta and the geography around it, a few notes on the role of women in Sparta and a lot of notes relating to some of the mythology linked to Sparta as it was something that had really caught the dark-haired teen's interest.
“I guess we could do something on that war of 300 Spartans.” Arian hadn't seen the film himself, but he'd heard of it – hard not to considering it had been pretty popular amongst a lot of the guys in his old class. He looked at Jude “What do you think?” If it was something they were going to focus on then he'd need to make some notes on it.
He looked back at Alexandre “Working outside of school's okay with me too, maybe we could meet at the library.” If his cousin's place had been larger, he would have offered that they meet there, as it was since it was pretty small, Arian didn't think inviting them over there was a good idea.
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:41 pm
"So we need to focus on one particular part of Sparta...We could likely do more, and seeing as you both have notes and such on it, the Trojan war and Helen." It would make more sense if work on what had already been worked on. Looking over the notes that were pushed toward him.
"The library would be a good option." He might have offered his own home but he didn't want to be that open and have people in his home or his room. It wasn't like he had anything to hide, it was just the natural want to not show who he was to people he didn't know. He didn't like people getting to know more about him than what he wanted them to know or see.
"So Trojan war, which ties into mythology. I think there is a painting even dealing with some of the mythology..." Of course he thought of paintings and pieces of art, it was how his mind worked. He saw history in art and was sure there was a painting pertaining to it.
"I'll work on gathering up some information as well, before we meet up at the library." They'd have to figure when to do that, and he'd ave to force that to fit into his schedule.
Maybe they could just touch on the Spartan military way of life and mention the three hundred that way, as a side bit of information? He thought it was always good to present as much information as possible, that way all bases were covered and you went over and beyond.
Reading over the notes, a slender digit skimming quickly over the words written down by the dark haired member of there group.
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:29 pm
Jude's head bobbed up and down like a dashboard doll, agreeing without having anything to add, fingers knotted up a bit in his lap. His eyes twitched from Arian to Alexandra and then away, taking in the other groups; most of them laughing and joking around. These three, talking about Sparta and picking their topic, seemed much more...well...serious than most of their classmates.
It did at least mean an unfair advantage toward getting an A, so Jude wasn't about to protest. Instead he cleared his throat, looking back up at them, twitching a pen between two fingers. "...um. Are either of you actors or something? I don't know. Someone has to present, later..."
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:50 pm
Arian shook his head, “No,” he bit his lip before admitting, “I'm not much for presenting things to an audience either.” He personally hated public speaking – the words that came out perfectly in his head always seemed to sound so boring and awkward when he tried speaking them – which then made him want to just hurry up and get it over with.
He waited to hear Alexandre's answer to Jude's question, making the assumption that Jude had asked the question due to not liking presenting things to an audience either. Maybe the third member of their group, would be a better fan.
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 1:39 am
The question was odd and yet should be expected. It seemed most didn't like the get up and speak thing, it wasn't something he was fond of either. But with neither of the other two wanting to do it, obviously, or not comfortable with it... "I'll do it. I'm not particularly fond of it but someone has to." A small wave of one slender hand.
"So then were doing Helena of Troy, and all that." The notes skimmed he offered them back to Arian. "Thank you. It looks like you have a lot of information. I'll look up the painting, I can't remember the name but I'm sure it's in a book of mine." He'd take whatever information they got and put it all on to index cards so he could present from that.
"Do we just want me to read off of index cards, or something else?" Did either want to do something more showy, or just something simple and to the point? Either way didn't matter, so long as the information was there.
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 9:06 am
"I don't know. I guess some people might dress up or something, but...but I don't know." Relieved and flustered, Jude forced himself to put the pen down and fold his hands together, avoid his nervous fidgeting. His eyes flicked from one to the other, shoulders twitching up in a little shrug.
"Maybe we could have the painting or something, at least. People don't usually listen when there's nothing to look at." Not a stunning realization, but it was an important one -- and true. At sixteen, most of the students were going to watch them present with dead, distant eyes, totally unenthusiastic about what they had to say...or, alternately, watch too-brightly, waiting for a stumble they could snicker at.
"Maybe. Maybe more paintings? Stuff like that."
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:25 am
Arian took his book back, frowning thoughtfully as he did so “Something showy, might be good” he said at last. “Maybe some pictures or something – we could use them to illustrate points while Alexandre's talking.”
He paused to fiddle with a pen for a moment as he continued to think things out, before adding “The library's got a couple of colour printers and I think it does A3 sizes – maybe three or four pictures enlarged to in A3-size to make them look like posters will do the trick.”
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