Saturday, June 26, 2010

Chapter 4: In Which Genius meets Brick Wall

Jez looked around for a trolley at Blackbordkins, the University bookstore. As it was almost the middle of the semester, the bookstore should have been in need of a total restocking, and should have had at least one trolley out somewheres. Kyt grabbed his hand and half pulled and half dragged him to the math section. He abruptly pulled her to a stop, as he had spotted his prey - the ever allusive trolley as its usually either full, or stored in back out of site of the customers. He quickly grabbed it, then proceeded to follow her towards the math books.

Kyt grabbed the first Calculus book she saw, opening it to a random page. Her eyes started watering as she droolled over the page.



"Too bad you have frontal lobe damage! I bet you'd have been a genius at math otherwise." Jez winked, "But don't fret your eyelids on that score! For, I have to be in the Library tonight, and I know a 'spectable computer who lives there, wot'll give you tutoring for nothink, and never ask for the change--that is, if any genius he knows interduces him. And don't he know me? Oh, no! Not in the least! By no means. Certainly not!"

Kyt's eyes widen as her jaw dropped. "You know the original brilliant Oliver Twist?!"

"But of course," Jez exclaimed. "The modernization of that novel was insanely inaccurate! I'd only read the original." Jez reached down and grabbed 'Basic Algebra', 'Intermediate Algebra', 'College Algebra', and 'Basic Math' off the shelf.

Kyt grinned from ear to ear. "Me too! Of course I saw the greatest movie version of it as well! Jack was brilliant as the Artful Dodger, even if he couldn't use the original lines." She held the Calculus book against her chest and sighed. "Too bad he had to get old and die. He was really cute too! At least he was saved!"

"He was?" Jez looked at her inquisitively, "How do you know that?"

"Easy. He said so himself in the commentary on the DVD of that show he was in as a kid." Kyt said as a matter-of-a-fact.

"Now that is really cool! I never would have guessed that he became saved. Wow!" Jez pulled the trolley behind him and went in search of more books. Kyt stood there dreaming of Jack. "Coming? Or are you staying on planet Jupiter?"

"Oops! Sorry!" Kyt blushed.

A professor walked up to Jez and spoke gruffily and sternly, "I hope you are a student? We really need these books for students! We do not take to ordering extras."

Jez had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. He feined shock, exclaiming, "What? How else can I honor the far superior morality of aspiration if I do not learn?" Jez pushed his shoulders back and straightened up his back. With an air of superioirity, added, "And how else can I honor the morality of duty if I neglect to use what I've learned in pursuit of more learning?"

Jez stuck his nose forward and marched on, grabbing books along the way, while completely ignoring any response. The Professor glared at Jez, "Humpf! Don't they ever teach manners anymore?"

Kyt couldn't help herself, and just had to butt in. "Yes, they do. And they teach the value of a proper education. Unlike some people I know. Besides, if students aren't going to buy the books at the beginning of term, thats their problem, if they don't give tuppence about grades!" She then stuck her nose in the air and proceeded to follow Jez.

* * *


Its been two weeks and Jez wanted desperately to have no more interruptions - especially from power outages. What frustrated him even more was that is was fall and they shouldn't be having power outages as people aren't using air conditioners or electric heaters in over abundance. He felt that he had to get his RPG game done yesterday, and that time was quickly running out. Even Kytriya felt the pressure to do everything in her power to help him to be able to stay on task, even if it meant getting over her squeamishness with Spiders. They had not thought to check the news to find out why the power outages were happening.

Kytriya was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to go through the Basic Math book, whose sole purpose was to prepare her for Algebra. This helped her feel like she was doing her part for timeline they were trying to achieve in life. She opened up the book "The Government of the United Kingdom" and started reading about how a bill became law, confident that this too, would be easy. She stared at the flowchart and then at the worksheet that Jez had gave her to fill out. Going back and forth between the words, and where the arrows led her, she tried to make sense of what it was telling her. Her eyes started watering up as the flow chart made no sense to her consternation. She was supposed to make a similiar flowchart and put it in her own words how a bill became law. On her worksheet, she had made the same amount of squares as the original flowchart had. Shaking her head clear, she started over from the beginning, rereading the chapter several times. She made one arrow from the first square to the second square. She then made another arrow from the 2nd square to a 3rd square, before realizing that it had 2 more arrows that came out of it, and an arrow going into it. Her eyes popped out as she scratched her head. Not only could She not figure out whether to put an arrow out of it, or into it, she couldn't figure out why this was so hard for her. It was only a bunch of squares with arrows showing where things went. She also couldn't figure out why those arrows were going in on the diagram, in the first place. Her eyes watered more as she reread the text over and over again.

Jez stopped working on his RPG game code, got up and walked over to Kytriya's desk. He bent down and looked at what she had wrote. "Okay, so flow charts make no sense to you? Or is the whole concept of how the bill moves confusing to you?"

"Why does it go back and forth? I meant the arrows? Can't they ever make a decision? I mean shouldn't their 'yes' mean yes and their 'no' mean no? This is a mess! If we were to try to negotiate who got what toy that way the parents would yell at us to 'knock it off'!"

"I see the problem. You can't see the forest for the trees. No matter." Jez said calmly as if its was a normal thing that everyone dealt with.

Kytriya twisted her head suddenly in his direction and exclaimed, "What?!"

"It just means that you are a genius who is incapable of seeing the big picture because you see all the possibilities, or in this case, ins and outs."

Kytriya rolled her eyes. Jez folded his arms and propped himself up against the desk. "I knew you were bright and detailed orientated. That is a good thing! Trust me!"

"But isn't there such thing as being too detailed orientated?" Kytriya grumbled.

"Not really. There are jobs that need that attention to detail. Besides, I'll just have to find a way to help you see the big picture." Jez grinned from ear to ear.

Suddenly realizing she had interrupted his programming, became alarmed. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to interrupt you!"

"Don't worry about it! Besides, I just had this thought. Perhaps I should take a break and find out why those power outages are happening."

"I'll do that!" Kytriya got up and ran towards the Telly. Calling back behind her, she yelled, "You just focus on that programming! I'll get this!"

Jez shook his head and laughed before calling out after her, "If you want. I won't complain."

Within seconds, Kyt was back. She folded her arms and rolled her eyes. "Um, its not even news time yet." Then, with a sudden burst of inspiration, she grinned sheepishly and said, "Oh wait! I know! I'll use the internet!" She quickly sat down in her chair and feeling quite silly, tried to type in the URL for the local news site. After several dyslexic attempts, Jez took over and typed in the URL for her. She blushed. "Here it is! Transformers blew. The second transformer was defective but was meant to replace the first one that broke."

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