|
|
Post by MICHAELANGELO DONATELLO GRACE on Jul 19, 2012 21:41:35 GMT -5
 He was leaning out the window in the teacher’s lounge. Well, more like sitting rather precariously on the window sill. Billows of faint gray smoke drifted from the end of the cancer stick between his lips, blown away by a breeze he didn’t notice otherwise. He weather was calm, leaving only a sense of tiredness, as if even Mother Nature was already on her way to bed. He sort of wanted to go to bed himself, with the slow darkening of the sky he was witnessed, but he was sort of disgusting for him to go to bed this early. It couldn’t be 8 o’clock yet. So he’d decided to sit and smoke after his day, because it had been bad and he really needed to stop before he decided to do something not wise. Admittedly, smoking was not the smartest thing in the universe, but he could, had, and would continue to deal with that. Nicotine was one of his addictions. When he didn’t smoke, it tended to make things worse for him. His voices started having faces and bodies that he knew weren’t there, because he recognized the voices themselves, but these could still be very…
Distracting? Daunting? Disturbing?
Well, Elsa wasn’t exactly disturbing. He liked her, even when it got bad enough that he saw her face—or at least he face his neurons decided to show him, because Elsa didn’t really exist. Dr. Jellycut had explained that to him fairly well, when she’d been alive, but now she wasn’t, there wasn’t really anyone to tell him what was real and what wasn’t. He still had her on speed dial. They hadn’t taken down her answering machine yet. Sometimes, when he was having a really bad day, he called the number just to hear the doctor’s voice. Although he hadn’t trusted her at first, she’d become his confidant, almost to the point that she’d been a second mother. When she’d died, it had struck him. He’d seen faces for the first few months, which he guessed was normal. For someone like him. Shock or stress made his symptoms worse. He’d isolated himself during that break. He hadn’t talked to anyone except his sisters. They’d kept him from doing something stupid and drastic. They were good at that, better than his parents sometimes—probably because both were a little afraid for their sanity as well. They were fine with him being insane because they might look int he mirror one day and see the exact same thing. He really hoped it wouldn’t happen to them.
Sticking the cigarette back into his mouth and inhaling deeply, he reached into his slacks pocket and pulled out his cell phone. It was a crappy old thing that had survived way more dropping and throwing than any phone ought to. It flipped open, had only the standard 1-9 buttons with a couple of extras like pound and arrow key pad. He couldn’t go into the internet with it even if he wanted to, which he didn’t, so he supposed that was good. Besides, that cost extra, and his parents had taught him to be careful with his money. His aunt would have helped him out, if he needed it, but he liked his independence. He didn’t want to go looking for another therapist anyway—and not only because he didn’t want to pay for the sessions. They could rack up bills very quickly, and he didn’t have the kind of funds to shell out. Honestly, it’d probably be good for him if he talked to someone, but he wasn’t the sort. He was the sort to throw things, like his cell phone. He flipped it open, gazing at the screen, and his thumb maneuvered to touch the number 3. The number popped up on the screen in bold blue characters, subtitled by the title and name. His thumb hovered over the little green “call” button.
There was no one else in the room. Why not call? Why not call and just listen to the voice he missed?
Because it’s stupid. Because it won’t help. Because it’s not going to reverse the shit day I had because time travel doesn’t actually exist. The students had been horrid today, asking stupid questions, not turning in homework, being assholes about his grading and fussing about his lectures. He’d spilled coffee on himself twice, ripped a hole in his pants that let air rush in and chill from his knee down, and stabbed himself with a pen hard enough to leave a mark he could still see on his arm. When he’d tried to get on the bus and his fare had been misbehaving, as he liked to call it, he’d just given up and gone back to the school for a few smokes in the teacher’s lounge. Fortunately, almost everyone had gone home at this hour. He’d been tempted to make a hell of a mess of the room, but he’d also been pretty sure there were cameras watching him, so he hadn’t touched anything. At least the camera operators couldn’t complain if he was smoking out the window. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and pulled the cigarette from his lips, exhaling a few smoke rings into the dusk air. April was warm and calm, but the chill of evening was refreshing. As long as nobody came in and pissed on his parade, he’d be fine. Fine. Maybe he’s just spend the night in the godforsaken building. Not like anybody would care unless he was late to his class in the morning.
|
|
|
|
Post by christina on Jul 22, 2012 23:53:20 GMT -5
God, it was late. Alright, that was a lie -- by any normal standards, it wasn't late at all. It wasn't so late that Chris considered she might need to go to bed, because even though she knew it was a really stupid idea considering the fact that she had a job that required she be up early in the morning now... well, her brain was probably just more awake at this time than at any other hour. It was why she tried to get work done in this period -- all her marking and the like, all that tedious boring paperwork that sometimes needed to be done. That was the shittiest part about being a teacher for sure... but then again Chris changed her mind about what the shittiest part was every other second. It wasn't even that the job was that bad -- she was just very easily irritated and there were many things that annoyed her throughout the course of the day. Whatever the most recent one was, it was usually the one that made her rage and want to punch a wall -- the "worst part" of those five minutes, or couple of hours, whichever. Thankfully, Chris had survived up to now. They were already well past the first half of this semester, her very first semester teaching. She could definitely make it just a few months more, drag herself out of bed every morning until the end of the semester, and then she could have a break of sorts.
She didn't even hate teaching that much, but to everyone else she would swear up and down the place that she did. It was kind of what Chris did. Still, if she hated it half as much as she said she did, she certainly wouldn't be stuck around here. Money was awesome, but the girl had some limits, and putting herself through fucking hell and misery was not something she was willing to do. She was still young enough that it wouldn't be that weird to pick up some boring part-time job and move back in with her parents, but fuck it all if Chris was going to put away her pride and try somethign she considered that drastic. In a way, she liked the freedom too, this whole being a real adult thing, after spending college at the Academy and living at home. Nah, Chris was totally okay just letting things be, even if she had to grade stupid kids' tests, and even if she had developed a really disturbing caffeine habit. Speaking of which, she really wanted coffee, whether or not this was a good idea at eight (or so) at night when she needed to actually sleep later because the next day was of course another early morning with classes. She had decided that it would, obviously, be a very bad idea to show up half-dead, half-alive like she had to half her high school and college classes just because she hadn't slept the night before. Chris could be responsible sometimes. It didn't feel very responsible though, when she walked out of her classroom with all her papers in her arms, and instead of making a beeline for the parking lot, she hesitated a fraction of a second before moving for the teacher's lounge instead.
Seriously, she was going to regret this later when she needed to sleep, but Chris couldn't claim that she had ever been the best at making decisions, and okay. She was still pretty young, alright. She was pretty sure she was too young to be considered a responsible teacher anyway, though she'd probably sock someone in the face if they ever tried to tell her this. (It probably depended on who it was, too, of course...)
Only about half the lights were on in the teacher's lounge, but even this confused her at first because she couldn't see anybody there, and it didn't even make sense to leave the lights on when the room was empty, that was stupid and irresponsible. Plus, there were probably plenty of ways elementals could make energy for the school, but she was pretty sure that this shit was just a waste of energy and money. Good to know where all my college money went, she thought -- still fresh out of school, still bitter about loans -- but then she noticed someone over by the window. Chris couldn't tell if this was weirder or not, someone's being here pretty late in the evening. Okay, it wasn't even eight yet, but whatever. Most teachers left after class ended. Damn, she'd really wanted to just grab her coffee and go home, too -- it always seemed to her that there was a pot full whenever she came in here regardless of the time -- but curiosity got the better of her and she dropped her things on the nearby counter, walking over. The person -- Professor Grace, or Michael, she saw as she approached -- didn't seem to have really noticed that she was there yet. "What are you still doing here?" It was a pretty fair question. Most the rest of the faculty was gone, except for those who still had to be here.
|
|
|
|
Post by MICHAELANGELO DONATELLO GRACE on Jul 24, 2012 19:57:49 GMT -5
He blinked at the woman for a moment, his gaze bleary and not entirely clear. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept in a few days, and he suddenly felt tired. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe his mood was affecting him somehow, physically. Maybe he was tired and that was why he was in a bad mood. He didn’t know which order it came in. He didn’t really care. The cigarette could be the cause of that. Cigarettes calmed him down and made him neutral if he was angry, and he was probably being a bit extreme about. Self-medication was dangerous. Usually it led to other drugs that could kill in an overdose. He was pretty sure that cigarettes could kill in an overdose, but he couldn’t imagine how many you’d have to smoke at a time to get that nicotine overdose. Not that he intended to get one. He didn’t want to die. He feared death, to be honest. He feared that endless nothingness he expected. On some days, he feared hell. Most days, he was unclear if such a thing really existed. Part of him just didn’t want to know. Part of him thought that wondering if such a thing existed was like tempting his schizophrenia to go even more crazy and start doubting the things that really did exist. After all, some people were just so convinced that heaven and hell were real. Wouldn’t they be incredibly disappointed if they died and found out it didn’t exist? What if they were wrong, and they encountered the reincarnating cycles of the Buddhists or the Hindu's instead? So what if he believed people existed, and then found out they didn’t? Or the other way around—what if Chann and Audley and Braedon were real people and the government had somehow implanted chips into his brain so he could hear them talking to him?
No conspiracies. Don’t think about conspiracies. He took another drag of the cigarette, inhaling deeply, and let breathed out the smoke through his nostrils as he regarded her. She asked a question. The words painted themselves in green ink in the air beside her, as if she had some sort of speech bubble, but eh didn’t really hear them so much as see them. Maybe he really was going crazy. But most questions required some sort of answer. So she wanted an answer. What was he still doing here that she could observe? Why had she asked? Had she planned to do something around here that required privacy? Was she going to screw a student or something? Unlikely. Christina, from what he remembered, wasn’t that sort of person. She’d been in his classes. She’d majored in a relating subject, if he remembered clearly, but he couldn’t remember what she was doing here at the school. She’d graduated. “What do you teach?” he asked, mostly to satisfy his curiosity, partially because he was still trying to formulate a good answer for ehr question. There weren’t any voices to help out, though none of the voices except Elsa ever helped him out in a positive manner. The others much preferred being negative and cruel o him, except Katiyn, who seemed to just plain old disagree with him and was rarely influenced in one direction or the other, which he respected. It was so hard to be neutral about anything.
“I’m smoking,” he replied finally, simply, his gaze flickering to the open window he was sitting in. How much of a shift of weight would it take for him to plunge out, fall however many stories it was, and land on the ground beneath? What sort of injuries would he conceive due to the fall? Would he die from them? Would he be paralyzed? Would he hit his head and somehow just lift his head and be right in it? Unlikely. He was insane and just going more so. How much did she know about his condition from his classes? How much had she guessed? How much had he shown? He didn’t remember actually chatting with the voices while teaching one his classes. The constant chatting with the students, the actual lecturing process, usually kept them at bay because his mind was working a mile a minute. They stayed away when he was thoroughly occupied. It was when he was bored, distracted, or down that they opened their nonexistent mouths and interfered. He took another drag of his cigarette. “I’m thinking. A little about possibly just spending the night here.” Why had he admitted that to her? It was none of her business. At least she’d remember that he was a weirdo. Hopefully. If she did, she could just brush it off to one of his eccentricities. Maybe she wouldn’t pick up on the bad mood he was trying to flush down the drain. Taking the cigarette from his lips and flicking the excess ash out the window—hey, it was biodegradable, right?—he turned his gaze to her face again, studying the feature there. Dark eyes. Dark hair. She was short-ish. She wasn’t physically domineering, but he thought he remembered a story of her punching someone.
A teacher?
Hopefully she had no intention of punching him. But then, maybe he was just remembering it wrong. His mind tended to fuck with him anyway. “What are you still doing here anyway?” He returned, assuming she ought to be willing to share since he had. He wasn’t expecting an answer anything like his own however. She wasn’t as… he didn’t even have a word for himself that would fit properly. Saying “crazy” was like an insult to her mental stability. He hadn’t observed any specific instability, after all. The word was sensitive for him anyway. The ones who were truly crazy were the ones in asylums, and he never wanted to be committed. He could control his schizophrenia. He could. And he didn’t pills for it either. Just his cigarettes.
|
|
|
|
Post by christina on Jul 25, 2012 23:47:25 GMT -5
God, he looked exhausted. Chris had been tired before, to some pretty severe points, considering she didn't always know her own limits so things could get a little out of hand. Still... the first thing Chris thought to say would have been that he looked like the fucking walking dead, but this seemed stupid and rude and she really didn't know how he would react -- people were always different when they were tired -- so she kept her mouth shut. Plus, she actually did have some kind of respect for the man. He had been a professor when she'd been in college. Those had been the days, she thought back fondly. She had never really appreciated how easy it had been to just... go to class and have few other responsibilities, other than getting her shit done. Now she had to go to class, get her shit done, and be a good role model and all that shit. Teaching high schoolers was a weird, hypocritical mess too much of the time for her. Apparently he -- Professor Grace, or Michael as she would have to call him now -- didn't know what she actually taught, though.
That was okay. It wasn't like she'd know what he taught if she hadn't been in one of his classes. The man was still even so young. "Math," she answered simply. It wasn't a popular subject too much of the time. Even some of the kids who opted to take a Math class as an elective hated it, used it just as a prerequisite for something else, or something like that. Chris kind of hated that bullshit, when they had the gall to complain about it to her later. It wasn't her problem if they wanted to do something but hated math. She didn't make other people's fucking decisions for them, certainly not her students anyway. She wasn't their mother. She didn't want to make her kids' choices either, if she ever had kids. Chris just needed to do her own thing first and foremost. "A far cry from Criminal Justice for sure." She liked that stuff too, though -- or else she would have never chosen to study it. She considered her two majors well-rounded together, one dealing so much with numbers and the other... words, ideas, concepts, all mixed in with good stuff like human morality despite how formulaic it was at its root. Criminology had been fun shit.
Was smoking even allowed in here? She didn't know. She didn't think so, but then again what was Chris going to do, run and tell their boss? Fuck, she'd probably hate the type of person who did that to her. No, Chris really wasn't the type to. This wasn't elementary school. "Yeah, I can see that." She didn't say it in a particularly snarky tone -- which was an accomplishment in itself, honestly, truthfully -- but more of a matter-of-fact one. She did respect the man, a litlte. Chris showed respect in strange ways. It was never an easy task figuring it out, especially since the boundaries were blurred now that they were co-workers -- albeit co-workers who rarely had reason to speak, but that was the way life worked. Her brows furrowed in confusion at his... second answer, though. "Didn't get enough of this place during the day?" That had sounded a little rude. She knew it. "Sorry. Why would you spend the night here?" she asked instead, not sounding particularly sorry, but then she didn't think she had mortally offended the guy or anything. She just pretty much had no brain-to-mouth filter, which admittedly got her in trouble way too often -- but she never tried to change it.
Her answer was much more simple. That was good, she always thought. "Got stuck behind helping some kids with classwork earlier today," she retold, thinking back to those kids from one of her Grade Eleven classes. They weren't some of the terrible ones -- not bad with their stuff, actually. "And then I was just grading and lost track of time I guess. Was going to grab some coffee before I headed home." She didn't know if any of this was relevant information, but it wasn't anything she was bothered about sharing. Chris didn't keep secrets, not in general and definitely not about such stupid things.
|
|
|
|
Post by MICHAELANGELO DONATELLO GRACE on Aug 13, 2012 3:53:01 GMT -5
He’d started teaching a year after he’d graduated. He had graduated late because he hadn’t been able to focus. But he’d still managed to graduate. He’d still earned his degree. He’d still gotten hired. And he’d now been working here for three years. In those three years, he’d had a lot of students. Some, he remembered. They were usually the ones he liked. He did his best to forget the ones he didn’t like, though sometimes there was just too much about them to forget, and they stuck around in his memory. She wasn’t one of those wonderfully terrible people. In fact, he remembered her as one of the better students. That alone made it okay that she was right there, bumping into his thought processes and interrupting them. He’d liked her, back when she’d been his student, though he couldn’t remember if she had done well in his class or not. She probably had. People who became teachers tended to be good at the learning factor.
Of course, he counted himself as an exception to that. He wasn’t a superb learner. He was too distracted. He had a wonderful memory, of course. If he tried, he could probably remember her student ID and every single essay she had ever written for him, but this was not a skill he used very often. It felt unfair to other people, though it was incredibly useful. He only ever had to read a book once for an English class, and (if he was able to focus enough) he could recall ever sentence for an essay if he needed it. He could probably make money selling homemade copies of various books he’d read if he were at all interested in breaking the law for money. But he wasn’t interested in that. In fact, he preferred not to break the law. The closest he had ever come was smoking before he’d been nineteen, and that was something he’d never actually gotten in trouble for. Maybe, if he had gotten in trouble, he would have stopped smoking. It seemed unlikely.
Just as unlikely as it was for him to become a math teacher. He had no interest in math. It wasn’t even a dislike for numbers, it was just a disinterest. He could do basic math, such as for grading, but he wasn’t about to go search out mathematical equations to solve out. He didn’t quite understand why people disliked math so much, but he also didn’t see the appeal, except that it was useful. His gaze searched her face, tracing the features, committing it to memory as he was sure he had done often before. That much didn’t matter. “Why?” he asked curiously, tugging his gaze back to her eyes. The brown orbs gazing back at him were interesting. Eyes were supposedly the windows to the soul. He wasn’t quite convinced a soul existed to begin with, but that was irrelevant. Of course a soul exists, Elsa insisted softly. The soul is your very self. Without a soul, you would not existed. God, he wanted her to shut up for once. He wasn’t in the mood. He sucked on the cigarette again, wishing the nicotine would make the voice go away.
It only ever succeeded temporarily, when it did, and that was never guaranteed. There were no such guarantees in the world. Guarantees were for hardware appliances like refrigerators, not for real people or or real situations.
He blew the smoke out the window, as he had been doing, and watched it waft away. Just smoke. Smoke on the wind. It made him think of throwing the ashes of a cremated relative off a cliff, the imagery he would expect from that even though he had never done it. Hopefully, the wind would blow the right way, in that situation, or you’d get a face-full of dead relative. That didn’t sound appealing either.
A shrug tugged his shoulders up and let them fall again as he turned his gaze back to her, amazed at himself for managing to stick with the conversation. It was mundane, so far, and mundane conversations usually failed to command his attention for very long. His mind had an awful habit of drifting, or attaching to random little details around him in an attempt to latch onto something more interesting than he was experiencing. It was rude of him, especially when people realized just what was going. No one liked to be ignored or considered boring. He didn’t like it much himself. Did that make him a hypocrite? Irrelevant. Back to her question. Questions were good. They helped him maintain interest. “I’d spend the night because I don’t want to walk home in the dark. Because I don’t want to pay for a cab. Because it takes less effort.” He wasn’t naturally lazy. In fact, he was rarely able to sit still. The fact that he was and had as long as it had been was a bit of miracle, though just thinking about it made him want to hop up and bounce around or at least pace.
God, he hated sitting still. He swung his legs down ward and stretched, arms reaching behind his head. He bounced up and down on his heels as she talked, trying to keep his gaze focused on her. It wasn’t as hard as it could have been, which was good. He nodded along. Paying attention wasn’t that hard now that he was moving a bit, which was also a good thing. Pay attention. Pay attention. God damn it, man, pay attention. It wasn’t boring. She was helping her kids. That was admirable, right? Even if it was technically part of her responsibility as a teacher, she didn’t actually have to stay behind in school. So yes, that was admirable. “Coffee’s a wonder at helping wake the brain. Though is it really a good idea to drink something at this time of day? Will you be able to sleep when it’s time for bed?” He sounded like a mother. He sounded like his mother. Though she was usually asking if he was taking his pills or something like that. He didn’t bother lying about that one.
|
|
|
|
Post by christina on Aug 15, 2012 17:36:56 GMT -5
Chris just stared when he asked why. What kind of fucking question was that? She really... just did whatever she liked, honestly. It was a stubborn part of her that she'd honestly never been able to get rid of, mostly because she didn't fucking want to -- and again, Chris just did what she wanted. It wasn't even what she would consider some kind of stupid leftover teenage rebellion, this idea that they didn't care about what other people thought, but really she just didn't like hbeing told what to do, and the world constantly insisted on trying to tell her what was up. At least, the people in the world that she'd met thus far seemed to, and she didn't like this at all. Those idiots could fucking deal with it if she wanted to do whatever she wanted -- and if she wanted to use the word "fuck" in every other sentence. They would deal with that too. As for this actual matter of why she taught Math... well, it did kind of make sense, or at least she thought it did.
She had always been really damn good at Math and thought it was a very decent subject when she'd been in school -- except when it was boring as all fuck because damn, it really did get repetitive when they were doing the same goddamn problems over and over again with different numbers. Her last year or two of high school had been a bit harder though, and college was a different world entirely. In the end she'd chosen Math as her major and then, pretty much at the last minute that she could, took Criminology up too. That was how she'd wound up in one of Professor Grace's classes -- and now here they were, not a long while later, co-workers. It was weird, but perhaps less so because Michael... was such a weird guy. Chris was very used to weird people. She didn't know what it was that made him weird at all, but it was how things worked. Either way, she figured she should come up with some kind of godforsaken answer for him and so she just said, "'Cause it's fun." It was her chosen field of study after all -- she wouldn't have put so much time and effort into it if she hadn't actually enjoyed it. "And it's easy, and it makes sense." It was a logical subject. Emotions didn't really come into play, unlike with Law.
"Unless you mean why teaching, then that's because I need a job." She'd needed the job, she'd been qualified to teach at the Academy, and there had been a Math teacher already leaving as it was. Chris had just gotten lucky -- and hey, it helped that she'd always gotten along fairly well with most of her teachers. It was all a matter of giving just the right amount of sass, and Chris... well, she came off as pretty crazy and rowdy to her peers she was pretty sure, but as a student she'd always been relatively calm -- intelligent-looking. That helped. It wasn't a bad job at all for someone who was just fresh out of college, and she found that she considered herself pretty lucky for it. Some days were shittier than others, though.
Chris guessed from his explanation that he couldn't or didn't drive, didn't own a car, or had a car that had somehow broken down or something similar. Well, whatever the case, that pretty much sucked. She didn't know why he wouldn't be able to (or why he refused, on the other hand) to drive. If he didn't have a car, then that was a shame and she should really get off this path of education if it meant that in a few years she wouldn't be able to afford her car, either, but thankfully she had one already. If his car had broken down... well, that was the worst of all, but there wasn't much anyone could do about that unless they were a mechanic. She didn't bother asking what the problem was, but she assumed that it was the last one -- most everyone drove at this point. "Oh," she said instead. There was a pause before she went on, "I could drive you or something if you want. I figure you can't live that far." Maple Hollow was all there really was around and that couldn't be much of a drive at all, even if he lived on the far side. "Unless you really really want to spend the night here. Which sounds uncomfortable, but if it makes you happy." She didn't really care which he did either way, considering it was his choice, but she didn't hate the guy -- and she wasn't such a heartless bitch as to just ignore his plight for no good reason.
Watching him move around so much was a little unsettling, but it made her feel like she should be doing something too. She drummed her fingers on the windowsill as she spoke, then stopped to lean against the wall instead when he spoke. "It is. Helps when you're trying not to fall asleep in the middle of class, too." This was true for both students and teachers she was pretty sure, but Christina's caffeine habit hadn't been that bad as a student. As a teacher... well, it wasn't as bad as it could have been either, but maybe she should switch to decaf. It was hard to tell if the caffeine was actually doing much for her these days anyway. "You sound like my mother," she pointed out afterward, raising her eyebrows at him. "And maybe not, no... I guess that's a bad idea. But it's already pretty much past time for bed." Well it wasn't really yet, but it was too late in her opinion to be hanging around at the school still. She should be home -- maybe doing work, maybe watching TV, maybe eating dinner. Fuck, she hadn't eaten much yet. "I think that's the least of my problems."
|
|
|
|
Post by MICHAELANGELO DONATELLO GRACE on Sept 1, 2012 18:57:07 GMT -5
Michaelangelo had not been a social creature as of late, when “late” referred to the eleven years since he’d first… become ill. Before then, he’d enjoyed being around people. He’d had friends. He’d gone to parties and he’d kissed a few girls (as well as a boy or two). But then, it hit, and he’d pulled away from all that. He’d stopped going to parties. He’d drifted away from his friends so much so that he knew of none he could still consider friends from back then. He remembered their names. In moments of hypocrisy, he resented them for leaving him alone just because he left them alone. He resented the voices in his head for encouraging that. Back then, it had been mostly Braedon and Audley. The others had grown out of that. According to his doctor, Elsa existed because he needed something to help him fight the more negative voices and keep him stable, like his mind trying to help itself out. Most days, he thought it was bullshit.
He was tempted to say the same about her reasoning, but he kept his mouth shut. He was just in a nasty mood. Technically, her explanation made sense for why she would want to go into that field. He just didn’t want to own up to that. Of course, who would want a job that was fun, easy, and made sense? He sure wanted that kind of job. He wouldn’t say teaching was necessarily difficult, but it had its moments of frustration and irritation. It wasn’t all sunshine. Honestly, the breaks bored him sometimes because he had so little to do. No homework to grade and no lessons to plan. It gave him time to catch up on his cartoons, to practice his fencing moves and play soccer or chess, to kick somebody’s ass in some online first person shooter game, but the routine eventually became boring as well. He needed something new every few days during the breaks, and in such a small town, that was sometimes a bit difficult to come across. Maybe he should enter the social scene more.
And how about no. He almost shuddered at the thought. It really wasn’t his thing. If he was desperate, he’d just take a walk to the bus terminal and go wherever he could. Or smoke a few and take a nap. Breaks were for being lazy, even if lazy ended up boring.
He chuckled a little at the point she made. People had jobs mostly because they needed jobs so they could live. Jobs were how you earned money, and you needed money to buy food, to pay the mortgage on your house or the rent for your apartment, to pay the bills so you could have water and power, to purchase clothing so you weren’t running around naked, and all the other good stuff. He didn’t need to worry so much about gas prices because he didn’t drive, but he knew a lot of people did. Like she did, apparently. He couldn’t stop the grimace when she offered to drive him. He didn’t drive, ever, mostly because he didn’t like being behind the wheel. Other than that, though, he didn’t really trust the other drivers to be careful either. He was tempted to take her up on her offer, however, simply because the teacher’s lounge probably wouldn’t be comfortable, as she was astute enough to point out. Yeah. Go home, where he’d be all alone, and mope till morning came around. He had no appealing options. He rubbed at the side of his face, then nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Thanks.”
[/color] Another grimace crossed his expression when she complained about his being maternal. It hadn’t been the point behind his comments on coffee. He knew he’d been maternal with it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to. He couldn’t picture himself in a parental role, taking care of little critters. He didn’t really want to pass on his genes either. Though schizophrenia was usually inherited through the mother (as far as he knew), he didn’t want to take the risk and make some kid end up having the same problem because he was stupid enough to reproduce. He almsot shuddered at the thought. Besides, he didn’t like little kids enough to want to deal with any of his own. He’d probably want to throw them out a window the minute they started screaming or crying. Yeah, he definitely was not daddy material. “Eat an apple if you want energy,” he suggested with a shrug. “Since coffee’s out and all. Or just get a good dinner before you do whatever you do.” It really wasn’t any of his business what she did when she went home from work, if she even went home, though he had to admit he was curious. People were always curious about the things that were none of their business. That was what caused gossip to circulate, and rumors to explode even though they weren’t even half-true. Those sorts of details he wasn’t interested in. He didn’t give a shit if one stupid slept with another. As long as it didn’t interfere with how well they were doing in his classes, he had no right to step in and yell at someone for making stupid decisions in their personal life. He didn’t really know much about his students’ personal lives, thank god, except when he caught them trying to tickle each other’s tonsils in the courtyard or something, a sight that bothered him a little whenever he saw it, but also made him curious (a fact that only embarrassed him all the more). “Food’s better than coffee anyway. More substantial or some shit.”[/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify][/size] |
|
|
|
Post by christina on Sept 4, 2012 14:37:30 GMT -5
Chris watched as Michael seemed to consider the offer. God, it was still weird not calling him Professor Grace or anything, and she wondered why that was -- it had been a few months now, she should be used to it. She was used to it with most of her old professors and even high school teachers, honestly -- so this definitely made him, Michael, a pretty odd case. She was pretty sure it was because she never actually talked to him, at least not since she had become a teacher, but even as a student she'd pretty much never really had conversations with him. There had been the usual things about the assignments and work and shit, but Chris hadn't needed that much help in his class -- it was actually pretty straightforward, she thought at least -- and so there hadn't been too much going on. He was one of those professors that she couldn't really decipher, either, when it came to whether or not he actually liked her. It was always nice to have teachers like her, though... and okay, she had her favourites too, but that had more to do with these kids being total idiots than anything else.
As a teacher, now, she didn't know whether or not Michael liked her either, because he seemed so distant all the time. She didn't really know for sure what was up with that, but she had her suspicions. Luckily Chris wasn't enough of an idiot to ask after any of them, so that was the way things had been going. This would all be good and fine except that sometimes things like this happened and then she was forced to wonder what the guy had to actually think of her. She wondered what the fuck was going through his head as he stood there and seemed to contemplate it. He finally accepted and she nodded. It wouldn't have really bothered her either way, unless he started providing bullshit excuses like that he didn't trust her driving or something. Chris wasn't a bad driver, alright, youth and everything aside. Even though her temper was bad, and aggression was usually connected to reckless driving and what-not, she was alright on the road, even though she did swear like a motherfucking sailor when people did stupid things. She was sure that was everyone, though. "Okay, cool," she said simply. "Just let me grab something and then we'll go."
By "something" she'd really meant coffee, which was what she'd come here for in the first place, but his mothering wasn't going to allow that apparently. Well, Chris did whatever the fuck she wanted, but his fucking argument made so much sense that she had to roll her eyes a little and grudgingly agree. "Forget it, I'll just get whatever on the way home." She might drop by the nearest Tim Hortons after she had driven Michael -- he wouldn't be there to nag her about it anymore. "And I would have eaten dinner but I kind of expected to be -- you know, home by dinnertime." That didn't mean much considering her schedule had gotten royally fucked up in college and she hadn't ever properly fixed it again after that. Still, she'd gotten way better, so this whole skipping dinner and staying to do work thing was so not okay with her. "But. Whatever, nothing that bad." She waved it off, deciding that she didn't need to bitch and moan to an ex-professor and now a co-worker that she barely knew, at least on any personal level.
She at least liked the way he said "substantial or some shit", and it brought a smirk to her face. "Tastes a hell of a lot better too, I don't know why the fuck I started drinking coffee." Okay, she did know, and it wasn't like coffee tasted terrible or anything, but there were definitely way better things. She'd probably still rather have food but an actual decent warm meal was harder to carry around than a cup of coffee. Plus, there was almost always a pot of coffee around in the staff lounge, and the same couldn't be said for food. Nobody was going to cook for her. "But unless you have food on you that you'll give me right now I guess we're shit out of luck. Ready to head out? You'll just have to give me directions once we hit Maple Hollow." There was only one road back there but after that the city was slightly more complicated, even though she'd grown up there.
|
|
|
|
Post by MICHAELANGELO DONATELLO GRACE on Sept 12, 2012 18:14:17 GMT -5
The students who talked to their teachers for reasons outside questions regarding the homework or the lecture were generally the ones he tended to remember. Those who did so in a polite manner were generally the ones he liked. Those he happened to be punishing were generally the ones he wished he could forget.He didn’t much like troublemakers. They made a difficult task all the harder, which he failed to appreciate. Teaching his class, making sure everything was noted at one point or another during the semester, was problematic enough. When students tried to be “funny” and messed with him, that generally only irritated him. He shouldn’t let stuff like that interfere with his grading, but sometimes he was harsher on those students than the others for the sole reason that he felt they should only be bothersome if they knew more than he did on the subject he was supposed to be teaching them. This was never the case, in his experience. Students tended only to think they were so smart, rather than actually being that smart. It was an interesting twist, sometimes, especially when he flipped the tables on them and watched the confusion flitter across their faces.
Maybe that made him a bit of a sadist. He enjoyed that confusion too much. He was supposed to eradicate it, not cause it. That was part of his job as a teacher. To clear the haze the universe provided. He was supposed to be giving his students their flashlights so they could find their way through the darkness, rather than simply illuminating that. After all, if he just told someone how it worked, they would never learn how to figure things out on their own. He encouraged the discovery. He loved it when his students debated various aspects of law in his class, loved the discussion it caused. He would sit back when they argued in such a manner, watching their thought processes and listening to their arguments. On more than one occasion, one of his students had come to him, surprised at an additional grade when he or she had thought they had merely gotten onto some tangent. When it came to discussion grades, he was generous. As long as they opened their mouths and contributed, he had no reason not to give them a treat by giving them a good grade. He’d noticed that the students who didn’t do their work sometimes did participate in the discussions, and it helped them, though it rarely saved them completely from failing.
He didn’t like failing students, but it couldn’t be avoided sometimes. Just like waiting was undoubtedly not going to be avoided, so he simply nodded towards her and settled back on the windowsill, fully prepared to wait upwards of an hour if she decided to do some evening yoga or something. He’d be fine. Having her in the same room would help his mood even as it stood.
The mood wasn’t stable however. He blinked at her in a moment of confusion as she changed her mind, but shrugged that away, too, not caring. It would only get him home sooner. And then he could figure out what to do there he couldn’t do here. There was nothing on the list. The thought made him frown a little for a moment. He really had nothing to do. He considered, watching her, trying to discern how serious she was and what she wanted. “How about I buy you dinner? In exchange for the taxiing,”
[/color] he suggested, lifting an eyebrow. He didn’t want it to come out as an offer for a date, which was why he proposed it in the form of an exchange. He hadn’t ever asked someone out for a date, and rarely even considered the notion to be reasonable. He didn’t often hold non-platonic relationships. They just didn’t seem like something that would work for him. Besides, when it came to food, why should he turn it down himself? He was hungry. He could afford to grab something cheap to eat with her. Maybe even something a bit more expensive, but he didn’t want to worry about the price. They both needed to get some food in them. He just hoped it would come across as such. “I don’t have anything on me right now, unfortunately.” He certainly would have shared if he had.[/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify][/size] |
|
|
|
Post by christina on Sept 15, 2012 11:30:49 GMT -5
A total bitch or not (and she totally was, she wouldn't deny it) Chris would probably suggest that other people were totally worse. At least she was upfront about things and didn't bullshit like other people. She just did what she liked, and so far it'd worked out for her pretty well. At least she knew that she was doing the right thing whenever she did anything, even if that "anything" involved reaching over a table and punching motherfuckers in their faces. If they deserved it, they'd get it. That was the way she operated -- it wasn't like she went around beating on strangers or anything, that would be stupid. She just wasn't afraid to get to it if need be. Apparently that made her a pretty crazy, rude, angry person, but if that were the case then Chris would take all of that with fucking pride. Either way, she was always following the moral compass or something, even if sometimes she used the moral compass to beat other people over the head. Hey, at least she got her shit done. Another part of it was that she would never do things just to get something for herself, at least not entirely. She was pretty sure people were just innately that selfish though, but if so then she was just the same as everyone else so it didn't really make sense to ever feel bad. Obviously, Chris didn't.
In this particular situation, she hadn't actually expected him to want to repay her or anything random like that for the ride home because... well, it was just a ride. The city wasn't so big, anyway. Even if she had to drive to the opposite side of the city, it wouldn't have been that bad to turn around after that and head back to her apartment. She was also not desperate enough for money or anything that she'd even consider it to be out of the way or something she couldn't afford, so when he asked she had to consider it for a second. It was literally no more than a second though, because in the next instant she had nodded very certainly. "Eh, I don't turn down free meals. Why not, let's go," she agreed, nodding. She probably wouldn't have thought it was a date or anything even if he hadn't mentioned the last part. Chris had been asked on dates before. People never asked like that, so nonchalantly -- even when people were pretty casual about their shit (which was always nice, actually) it was never like that. Plus, considering he'd been her professor at one point, that would have been fucking weird. Then again, he was pretty young and not totally unattractive, but still, ew no, he was like... her teacher. That would be like Chris dating one of her students now. So gross. Payment or no payment, dinner was just dinner amongst colleagues, and she could agree to that readily enough.
She waved off his other comment without giving it much thought. "No big deal, I don't think I'm dying of starvation in the next few minutes or anything, don't worry," she said, her tone dry. The girl didn't even mean to be rude. It was just her personality. She wondered if this ever bothered people but decided that even if it bothered Michael, there probably wasn't much to do about it. Plus, she was at the school several hours after she had to be. She had a shit ton of marking to do still, and she just wanted to go home. Fuck being appropriate. "C'mon. Car's out in the parking lot." Well, of course it was. It wasn't like she could have parked in the goddamn hallway or something. She didn't bother saying this though, just led the way out to the car. "Anywhere in mind? To eat, I mean. Or we can just stop somewhere on the way back to your place, just give me directions or whatever." She'd grown up in Maple Hollow so she knew the way pretty well, actually. It probably wouldn't be a problem wherever he lived.
|
|
|
|
Post by MICHAELANGELO DONATELLO GRACE on Sept 30, 2012 1:34:21 GMT -5
There conversation was by no means a comfortable one. It was awkward and punctuated by silences in which neither knew quite what to say or was waiting for a response, though the latter was more characteristic of her than he. She answered him quickly and efficiently, whereas he took his sweet time in answering the questions she posed him, letting his thought processes run away from him exactly as they currently were. Was it so bad that she had to wait? No. People nowadays were in far too much of a rush due to the advancement of technology. They tended to grow impatient too quickly because they were so used to being able to get what they wanted almost immediately when they wanted it. They forgot how to slow down. So what if he was forcing her to do so? It’d be good for her in the long run.
Just like choosing food over coffee would. Coffee was okay, but he knew that it was not among the healthiest things and that, even if she decided to dine solely on grease, food would be better as a whole. As long as she stayed away from certain, heavier foods, she’d get the energy boost, too. From what he’d heard, apples were good for that, though he didn’t consider apples a dinner food. They were more of a snack, or perhaps something to be eaten with breakfast, or even as a dessert at lunch if they were in a fruit salad—a dessert not appropriate for dinner, in his opinion, unless dinner was a barbecue. There were so many conditions on what was and wasn’t appropriate for various meals. It was a bit ridiculous, in his opinion, but he also knew that alone was hypocritical because he was defining those limitations. Steak wasn’t a lunch or breakfast food. Cereal wasn’t something to eat for lunch, but it was fine for both mornings and evenings. Oatmeal, on the other hand, was not appropriate any time of the day because it was disgusting and should only be used as a prank or other punishment.
He wasn’t going to buy her oatmeal. He absolutely refused to further the existence of oatmeal. But he was fine with buying her anything else. “Whatever you want. Just no oatmeal,”
[/color] he replied, bouncing on his heels and trying not to let it show that he was nervous about getting in a car. At least he wasn’t driving. But she was. He really hoped she was a good driver. A safe driver. Preferably someone who drove 20 miles an hour under the speed limit, though, knowing Christina, she was more likely to speed just so she could get stuff done faster. Except for the bit about making him nervous and the lack of safety in the fact, it was fine. He wasn’t really judging her. He was just going to be nervous if that was one of her habits. Everyone had habits. He got nervous when he was in a car, doubly so when he was supposed to drive. Maybe she was the kind to speed. Fortunately, downtown was not the best place to speed anyway, considering the abundance of lights. He just hoped they’d be getting caught in a few red ones to control the possible speed. Jeez, he was just getting paranoid again. He rubbed at the side of his face, then nodded and headed out the door, completely expecting her to follow, as he answered her question, “I live downtown. Shoddy old apartment.” He’d give her more specific directions once they’d found a place to eat and were actually in vicinity of his place. He didn’t want to give her directions now that he would need to repeat a few times over in an hour so, depending on how long it took them to eat. Would it be long? Would they get sucked into some sort of conversation as they caught from the months they hadn’t spoken? Or would it be an awkward silence because they had nothing in common and it was weird he’d even offered to buy her dinner? He didn’t really care outside of a natural curiosity, and, for that, he just needed to wait.[/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify][/size] finished , |
|
