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Post by mia on Feb 18, 2010 0:04:41 GMT -5
 I WANT TO BREAK FREE
god knows i want to break free[/b] [/size] Scapula, clavicle, vertebrae… oh, shit. Cervical… thoracic… sacral? Mia consulted the labeled skeleton on her notes. Right. Sacral. Okay. Now the arm. She trailed her fingers along the unlabeled version of the diagram. Humerus, ulna, radius, tarsal, meta… wait. No. That’s not right! She groaned in frustration. She was never going to get this. She’d hoped that a quieter, Jamie-free environment would help her focus. But it didn’t seem like it was helping. She could recall about as much as she could back in the dorms. The exam wasn’t until Monday. Really, Jamie had had a point earlier. She had the whole weekend to study. Why worry now? Well, easy. If she didn’t worry now, she’d slack off. And if she slacked off, her grades were going to suffer. Plus, she knew Jamie. The weekend for her was playtime, usually up until Sunday night, when homework ‘magically’ appeared. And if Jamie had her way, Mia would play, too. The problem was, Mia didn’t want to play. Well, she did. But she couldn’t. Ugh.
If she was really, hopelessly, painfully stuck, she had options. A few of them. Up near the top of that list was her mother. Her mother was a doctor – this kind of stuff was easy for her. And then again… she didn’t really want parental help. There had to be someone else. Jamie was a no-go. Mia pulled out her cell phone and flicked through her contacts. No one was really in her science class. At least, no one that would be helpful. She tossed the phone onto the table. “Fuck.” Yes, she was swearing. Contrary to Jamie’s beliefs, she didn’t get good grades just because she was smart. It took a surprising amount of hard work to maintain her GPA.
Maybe she did need a break. But if she texted Jamie, she knew what would happen. She’d be dragged off to the lounge to play pool, or something equally time wasting. Which would not result in Mia actually learning the skeletal system. It wasn’t that hard. It couldn’t be that hard. She sighed and stood up. Maybe a little walk would clear her head. She didn’t leave the library. She just picked up her cell phone, her purse, and her iPod. The rest, it didn’t matter if it disappeared. She wasn’t going to be long, anyway.
At least, she hadn’t planned on being long. But things happen. She hadn’t planned to run into Toby Sullivan, either. The second she saw her classmate, she perked up. Toby was smart, too. And Mia wasn’t particularly shy. She approached him with a look that she hoped wasn’t all that desperate. “Toby! Please, please tell me you’re getting this skeletal stuff in Science. … Please?” … Okay, that was sadly desperate. But at least Toby might understand her panic. At least better than Jamie, and her other roommates. Maybe.
STATUS: Finished TAG: Toby!
WORDS:479 LYRICS: I Want To Break Free - Queen
OUTFIT: Duckies! CREDIT: i dream of GEE ! of caution, bby!
NOTES:It sucks. I’m sorry. <3
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Post by toby on Feb 18, 2010 11:48:41 GMT -5
 H E L L O D A R K N E S S M Y O L D F R I E N DI ' V E C O M E T O T A L K W I T H Y O U A G A I N-----------------------------------------------------It was his fault, really. He'd been the one to knock his wireless router off his desk, essentially forcing him to piggyback on someone else's signal or tethering himself to the most uncomfortable desk chair possible. Toby hated working at the desk in his room; most of the time he did his homework while sprawled on his bed, his macbook in his lap. But until he found the money to get a new router for himself, that wasn't an option. Which meant he had to go to someplace with wireless. Which meant he went to the library and found a comfortable spot, hidden by a bookcase on an overstuffed couch. And if he could finish his paper on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest before six o'clock, he was going to enjoy himself. (With a nice bottle of rum he'd procured when he'd earned by copy-editing papers for upperclassmen. There were some definite perks that came with being well-known as a nerd.)
“Toby! Please, please tell me you’re getting this skeletal stuff in Science. … Please?”
Though he had music playing through his headphones, it was quiet enough that Toby heard someone talking to him. He perked up, smiling, when he saw it was Mia. "Oh, Hi Mia." Between being about the same age and having similar high-achieving attitudes, he'd been in a lot of classes with her, and she'd always seemed really nice. (And she was clever, and pretty.) He swung his feet off the couch and gestured for her to sit down. Then he pulled up his notes on his laptop. Though they were in a few classes together this year, only one of them was a science class.
Anatomy hadn't been his choice of science class that year, but he'd been bumped from physics by a senior who needed more credits to graduate. As a sophomore, that didn't really surprise him, or even bother him, really. But he knew he'd never need to know the names of all the bones and muscles while simultaneously not being in proximity to Wikipedia access. Physics might come in useful, at least at a rudimentary level; anatomy was just rote memorization at this point.
"I admit, I haven't even looked at my notes this week. I was planning on reviewing everything Sunday." Hopefully he'd be able to do that anyway. If he was careful on Saturday, he could have some fun before cramming a little 24 hours before the exam. "But I think I've got a pretty good handle on it all. Do you need help with something?"
Of course, he knew it was likely that she did, or else she wouldn't have asked. She wasn't one of the ones who went to him for help all the time--sometimes Toby worried that his friends were using him for his brain and his willingness to help them. And Mia wasn't exactly his friend; they'd studied together a few times, but that's because one nerdling knows another.
----------------------------------------------------- S T A T U S:Finished! T A G:Mia! W O R D S:519!
C R E D I T:Tony! L Y R I C S:Simon and Garfunkle!
O U T F I T:This! N O T E S:Nerdlings!
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Post by mia on Feb 18, 2010 12:18:44 GMT -5
I WANT TO BREAK FREE
god knows i want to break free [/b] [/size] Mia had only escaped her usual study domain for one reason. Jamie was being a pest. That was all the motivation she’d needed to flee the dorm and head somewhere quiet. Of course, Jamie would probably figure it out, sooner or later. Mia didn’t have a hope of hiding for too long. But hopefully, it was long enough to make anatomy stick. However, staring down at her notes, it didn’t seem like there was enough time in the few decades, let alone the next hour or two to make that happen.
But running into Toby, that was a stroke of good luck. It wasn’t often she asked others for help. Ninety percent of the time, she understood the material on the first read. She could remember about ninety-five percent if she reviewed it a few times. The remaining five percent was when she had to submit to someone else, and beg a bit of mercy. The easiest solution would have been to call her mom, but she was probably working hard, and... Mia was doing so well. Her parents were proud of her. She didn’t want to look pathetic. Which, of course, was ridiculous. Jamie told her that often enough.
“Hi,” Mia managed, realizing her lapse in manners. She returned his smile. She liked Toby. Unlike most of the student body, he was like her. He focused on his studies, and hard. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him slack off. He was a nice guy, which seemed to be more and more rare around Eisley. (Okay, he was just a little cute too. But Mia didn’t have time for boys.) As he moved on the couch, Mia took advantage of the invitation and flopped down beside him. It was good he had his notes – she’d left hers back at the desk. But at least she had an excuse. She hadn’t expected to find a classmate to help her. Now that she had, however, she was a little calmer.
Mia had to take Anatomy. In her head, she was still heading blindly towards a medical career. Ergo, she needed anatomy. Most of it was all right. She understood the basics. And, unlike some of her classmates, she could tell you what a ligament and a tendon did. But she was stumbling on the bones. She kept getting them reversed, and she was getting the sinking feeling that she was going to do exactly that on the exam.
Toby’s admission made Mia’s eyes widen slightly. Was he crazy? “Oh my gosh, Toby. There’s no way I’d be able to cram all this on Sunday.” And part of that was going to be blamed squarely on her cousin. Why? Because Jamie was the biggest distraction around. Yes, Mia loved her like a sister, but sometimes... she wanted to strangle her. But as his question, she stopped slouching and sighed. “Um. Kind of...” And then it occurred to her that she just might have been interrupting something. Yay, hindsight. “Unless... I’m not distracting you, am I? I mean, I can go back and look at my own notes, or something, if you’re busy.” She didn’t want to take him away from his own work. Hell, she knew she had other things waiting in the wings. Like a bit of math homework, and she still had to read a few chapters for English. But that wasn’t going to get accomplished until she got this straight. She knew that. This was going to dig at her until she got it down.
... No wonder Jamie insisted she was weird.
STATUS: Finished TAG: Toby!
WORDS:594 LYRICS: I Want To Break Free - Queen
OUTFIT: Duckies! CREDIT: i dream of GEE ! of caution, bby!
NOTES:Oops. Lets just forget to change the notes. xD Um... rawr? I like how she's only now realizing she could have interrupted.
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Post by toby on Feb 21, 2010 0:39:41 GMT -5
A N D T H E N A V I S I O N S O F T L Y C R E E P I N GL E F T I T S S E E D W H I L E I W A S S L E E P I N G----------------------------------------------------- Toby scooted over, giving the girl more room. (His mom raised him with enough manners for that, though she would have been unpleased to see that he had his feet up on the couch at all.) Science wasn't his strongest subject, but he figured he could help her a little, at least. (Frankly, he was surprised that it was him she'd ask; Mia always seemed to be ahead in science.)
"Oh, I didn't mean cramming. I've pretty much got the bones down cold; I'm just going to need to review," he said, with a note of pride in his voice. It wasn't often he was able to show off his knowledge in this particular area, especially to one of the smarter girls in his grade.
Toby smiled warmly, happy that he had someone to talk to. He'd always been socially inclined, even if he was a bit self-conscious. Very self-conscious. Even when he was in the middle of a crowd of friends, he had a little, niggling, voice in the back of his head that said he wasn't measuring up to their expectations, or maybe they only liked him because they wanted to use him for his brain. At least he wasn't really worrying about that with Mia. She was too smart.
But really, with all those worries in his head, plus the stress he put himself under to get good grades, it was obvious why he drank so much.
"Don't worry about it, really. I need to study anyway, and we'll both do better if we work together." Toby was one of the people who always remembered things easier after having a study session with someone else. Even when he studied alone in his room, he had his TV on so there could be some sort of chatter. He needed a little noise to focus, and he'd been living in the city long enough that he was just used to it. "And I can write this," he gestured towards the small pile of books on the floor near their feet, "just as well on Sunday. Probably a bit better. I was getting to the point where my brain was getting a bit fried." That wasn't exactly true, but he wanted Mia to feel comfortable. He liked her; it was nice to have someone he could depend on to be even more nerdy and academically-focused. And really, Toby was that friendly with just about everyone. He just liked people.
"Is it the bones themselves or the joints that are the problem?" He had two different sets of notes for them, though he pulled them both up on the screen. "I can't get the plates of the skull to stick. I keep forgetting the sphrenoid and the Maxilla. I've tried filling in a chart, but I keep putting mandible twice."
Toby rummaged through his bag to pull out a diagram of the human skeleton (a little rumpled, but color-coded and neatly written) and handed it over to his classmate. "Did she tell us on Thursday exactly what we're supposed to know for the test? I think I missed it."
----------------------------------------------------- S T A T U S:Finished! T A G:Mia! W O R D S:538!
C R E D I T:Tony! L Y R I C S:Simon and Garfunkle!
O U T F I T:This! N O T E S:You're going to make me dig out my high school science notes, aren't you?!
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Post by mia on Feb 21, 2010 13:12:55 GMT -5
I WANT TO BREAK FREE
god knows i want to break free [/b] [/size] As Toby scooted, Mia found herself somewhat more at ease. Toby was a nice guy, in her opinion. Really nice. She’d never heard anything bad out of him. And, as a bonus, he seemed just as driven as she was to excel. Which meant that she wasn’t going to get the third degree about studying from him. That would be nice. Much as Mia liked being a science geek, well, sometimes things just didn’t stick. The human skeleton was just one of those things. (Though, if she decided to go into psychology, like her father and her uncles, then she wouldn’t have to know this.)
“Oh, good. For a second there, I thought you were a little nuts.” No fair, though. She wanted to know the bones down cold. Then she wouldn’t be nearing panic mode. If she wasn’t comfortable heading into a test, she had this awful, awful feeling that whatever she wasn’t clear on would make up the majority of the questions. And if she didn’t calm down, Jamie was going to make her. “Wow.” She leaned back, relieved. Toby knew this material. Toby could help her. “I am soo glad I ran into you, then.”
Normally while she was studying, Mia didn’t want to talk to anyone. And she studied a lot. When she wasn’t studying, and was actually hanging out with other students, she tended to feel a bit like the odd one out. Her friends might giggle and bemoan homework, or classes, and talk about skipping, or blowing off homework in favour of boys. Sometimes Mia was convinced she was the only one that actually cared if she passed her classes. But talking to other achievers, like Toby, that made her relax a bit. He wasn’t going to tease her for being a nerd, or a geek.
If Mia was anything like Jamie, who seemed determined to flirt with every male creature that headed her way, she might have taken advantage of the study session. Maybe brushed up closer to her classmate, draw it out for as long as possible. But that wasn’t Mia. (Much as she might want to date, there wasn’t time.) For Mia, this was going to be a friendly talk between two classmates, and, he was right. It wasn’t a big deal. If they studied together, they’d both do well. “Okay. If you’re sure. ... But you’re right.” Now Mia was hoping that something wasn’t sticking with Toby. Otherwise, this was completely one-sided. And she knew it irked her when her friends only wanted to talk to her because they needed to pick her brain. Mia followed Toby’s gesture to the books and nodded. She knew what it was like to feel a little burned out. “I know how that feels. Um. Thanks, by the way. I really, really appreciate this.” Based on lies or not, Mia was definitely a little more at ease now. Then again, it was hard not to be at ease around Toby. He was so... sweet.
Oh. Right. Mia blushed slightly, still not happy with the fact that she couldn’t force the bones to stick. “Bones. I have the joints down pretty well.” So there was something Toby didn’t get, too. That relieved Mia just a touch. Funnily enough, she was okay on the skull plates. It was the tarsal and carpal bones she kept reversing. She smiled at Toby, trying not to giggle. “If we all had two mandibles, we’d be in trouble.” Okay, she had to giggle, but it wasn’t meant in a cruel way. And she stopped quickly. “How about a trade? I’ll help you with the skull plates, you help me with the tarsal and carpal bones. I keep mixing them up.”
As Toby pulled out the diagram and offered it to her, Mia took it and looked it over. On paper, it didn’t seem so confusing. “Um. Well... we have to know this. All of it. And we have to know the difference between tendons and ligaments. Oh, and the different kinds of joints. I think that was it.” She pulled the diagram so that it was between them, and pointed to the lower jaw. “Here. That’s the mandible. It’s mobile. And the maxilla,” she pointed to the upper jaw. “Is the top of the mouth.” Was she more at ease helping Toby, rather than him helping her? Absolutely.
STATUS: Finished TAG: Toby!
WORDS:728 LYRICS: I Want To Break Free - Queen
OUTFIT: Duckies! CREDIT: i dream of GEE ! of caution, bby!
NOTES:... Wow. Mia’s muse is hyper. And yes, yes I am. But you tripped me up – we never learned the names of the skull plates. So now I have to Wiki them. >.> And all my knowledge is based on veterinary medicine. But it’s all the same, apparently.
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