I smile. Teaching. Not exactly what I excel at. But that’s not to say I don’t enjoy it from time to time. Just the whole everyday thing that gets on my nerves at times. At least this semester I don’t have to teach the Observation 100 classes. Thank goodness. As much as it’s my major, and I am pretty solid at it, teaching Observation 100 is like trying to get a bunch of cats to play fetch. Sure, one or two of the class will figure it out, but it’s got almost nothing to do with your teaching and there’ll be some pretty terrible failures that you can’t do anything about except ask if maybe they want to try a different focus. At least now I get the good earnest fun of teaching a programming class to a bunch of people who live in buildings and go to a school that actively messes with anything written out on a computer. The students find it equally hilarious and frustrating. I sometimes wonder how they would feel about it if they knew I mostly used typewriters for anything of import. Or that I have actively avoided staying in proper housing since sophomore year for the very thing they find frustrating. Not that that is important. As the class time winds down, I let my smile do so as well. “So, submit your work by the end of the day today, I’ll be checking it and where you’re at thus far at some point over the weekend. You’ll have my notes, and a grade, by Monday. As always, the grade isn’t final, if you go over the notes and resubmit by Monday evening, I will reevaluate. Any questions?” There are never any questions in class. These are mostly kids, freshmen and sophomores, who still are unsure about how vulnerable they should be around their peers.
As though to prove me wrong, one of my advisees, Felo, raises his hand. I nod in his general direction. “Um,” he says, “A question came up unrelated to class during your latest rant. Preferably I want to get some idea of things before your Wednesday office hours, are you available after class, or do you think we can find a time. Sooner than later?”
I give him a judgemental look. “Office hours are on Wednesdays and Thursdays, times posted online, on the board over there,” I gesture towards the classroom interior wall, “And in front of the Magisters’ office. If it is actually urgent, you can send me an email, and I’ll get back to you at my earliest convenience.” A couple of the students who know me better, including all my advisees in this class, chuckle at that one. Felo should honestly know better by now. I look over the faces of my students. “If there aren’t any questions I can answer right now, you kids can leave. I’ll be in the room for exactly three minutes, and then it’s the weekend.”
The class begins to file out, some faster than others. One of my better, and more frustrating, advisees Heather and her endearingly dumb boyfriend Jean linger, talking about something, but even they leave without asking any questions. Interesting. So either the whole class understood the assignment fully, which if I’m entirely honest is unlikely knowing these kids, or they are all so afraid of their peers that they’ll take the risk of failure. I know which is the case. There’s a reason I implement the single resubmission policy. Gives students a chance to look at the notes I give them and improve their work without having to open up about their misunderstandings and stumbling blocks. Because, while I may seem harsh at times, I don’t want them to fail. I wait until exactly three minutes after two, and then I head out of the classroom.
Most magisters live nearby campus, so they can walk. Some take public transit, some drive. Many, like me, bike. But none quite as far. But I don’t bike back to my fifth story apartment on the other side of town. Not yet. It’s the weekend, and I need a break from work. The moment I get back to my apartment, my real work starts back up. And it is not a work so trivial or with so little stakes as my thesis. Messages to be scoured, letters to be sent, people to be undermined. It is fascinating, fun, and personally enriching work, but it is work none-the-less. Which means, rather than go straight home, I take myself a mini-vacation. I bike a few miles down the other way, to a small park in the city. A well attended park in the middle of many shops. I found this place in my research and come occasionally, maybe once a month, when I really need to relax and muse.
Once I’ve biked to the park, I park my bike, locking it up on one of the bike racks. It’s not a nice enough bike for me to worry too much about it being stolen. I take a deep breath and begin to walk across the park. On the other side of the park, across the street, is a great little place to grab a coffee that I quite enjoy. They don’t try to talk to me much and don’t look at me funny when I pull out physical euros. And while it might be more efficient if I biked to the coffee shop, I’m on vacation. I don’t need to worry about efficiency. And walking through the park allows me to notice things. Like where I’m going to want to sit. And where the people seem to be congregating. And what today’s most popular activities are. Today, there seems to be a pick-up soccer game, a group of dog owners, and some children being little monsters. There’s a bench facing the dog owners, far enough it shouldn’t be creepy but close enough to notice details. With that in the back of my mind, I continue to make my way out of the park, across the street, and into the shop.
I approach the counter with a nod. The man behind it nods back. “Micah. Usual?”
“Usual,” I reply, pulling out money and counting the change. Sliding it over, he hands me the cafe latte in a mug. With a nod, I take the mug and head outside. Am I supposed to go to the park with it? No, In theory I should remain in their outdoor seating area. Do they mind, though? Also no, because I always come back afterwards.
I sip my latte as I walk across the street and back into the park. Settling in on that bench I’d noticed earlier, I begin to take in the scene.
If I wanted to lip read, it would strain my eyes and be fairly obvious, but I probably could at least with a greater than fifty percent accuracy. But that is not what this is for. I focus in on the body language. How people hold themselves tells a story all on its own, and that story can be quite fascinating. For instance, two of these dog owners know one another quite well, but are hesitant to show it in front of the group, leaning in when they are not being watched but actively avoiding one another when in the group. A secret romance of some kind, perhaps. Or perhaps something less mundane. Because another pair are much less concerned about showing physical affection in front of the group, so it is not as though this gathering of dog owners cares about a romance. Unless there is some reason the pair is keeping the romance a secret. They might have some other secret they are keeping. I should not let my initial thoughts cloud the truth of the story after all.
My thoughts are interrupted as someone sits down beside me on the bench, at the opposite side of it. “Micah,” she says.
“Why did you follow me?” I ask Heather.
She shrugs. “Had a question.”
“Jean here?”
“Nope, he’s busy working on the project. He’s got so many questions, but they aren’t important and he won’t just admit he needs to talk to you for help, so I get to suffer through not having my boyfriend on a Friday night.”
“That what the question’s about?” I ask, knowing the answer. Heather is not the type to ask a question for someone else.
“Nope. Though it’s probably the same question Felo had, I just know better than to ask you questions like this after class.”
“And office hours?”
She waves me off. “Who has time for those? Besides, your assignment is going to put a damper on my fun, so turnabout’s fair play, right?”
I sigh. The enthusiasm and certainty in their own greatness that the smart freshmen so frequently have can get frustrating. But that stubborn, intense certainty is something that can only be overcome by learning from one’s own, not from someone else telling you about it. “What’s the question, then?” I ask.
Heather looks around, then slides over to be closer. “I need you as my advisor to sign off on me being able to use off campus housing.”
I see why she’s hesitant to ask after class. “I assume you’ve thought this through?” I ask.
She nods. “I checked the rents and prices near here, and I can afford it on my current trust stipend, though I do think I’ll likely still have to get my meals from the Villa.”
I nod. Makes sense. The villa meals might not be cheaper than making your own meals, they would take less time and keep her connected to her peers at least a little bit. “Why, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I do. That said, I was planning on doing it before senior year anyways, so I can get used to it. My timetable just accelerated slightly after three times this week I noticed the indications of someone using an observation ritual on my room. I thought it was just some pranks of some kind and was using those tricks you taught us last semester in 100 to circumvent the watching, but the rant this week about the submission brought up the unsettling thought that it might not be a student, but one of the Magisters or Maestros, or even the Villa as a whole, creeping on us troublesome kids. And if that were the case, I doubt a little looped time delay is going to be holding the magic at bay.”
I nod. “There are a few ways to break most of the tricks I taught. They just require recognition, effort, and skill. You do realize if you do this, that means you won’t be able to do most of your school work late, you’ll either stay late on campus and have to head to your apartment at night, or have good enough time-management skills to keep up with your work over the course of the day.”
“I just can’t think of another way,” she says.
I sigh again. She’s right. “Assuming you’re confident about keeping up your grades, I’ll sign off. That said, if you want to make sure you can do it without the risk, there are some tricks using a combination of Observation and Illusory techniques to make the subversion less noticeable. Given how quickly you picked up Observation 100 stuff, you should be capable of doing it, and if you do that in conjunction with scheduling your time like you’re living off campus, you should be ready to move out come next semester, assuming you still want to.”
She sighs and returns to the opposite side of the bench. “I suppose that makes sense,” she says, “And I’ll just avoid doing anything suspect in my room until after Wednesday.” But she doesn’t leave. Instead, with an obnoxious grin, she adds, “So, what’re we watching?”
I take a sip of my latte. “Dog owners club hangout,” I answer honestly, turning my attention to them.
“Anything salacious?” she asks.
I shrug. “Probably. You and your paranoia interrupted me while I was figuring that out.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not paranoia when I’m actually being watched.”
I smirk. “But it is,” I shoot back in my best joking tone, “Just because your paranoia might be somewhat justified doesn’t mean you aren’t paranoid. Trust me, I’ve had plenty of therapists remind me of that fact.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “What do you have to be paranoid about?” she asks.
That blank smile I use so often in class returns to my face as I lie through my teeth saying, “Nothing, of course.”
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