Computer Sciences - Late October

[Lawrence Galontauré-Jones]

"Good afternoon, everyone," the wheelchair-bound professor said as he entered the classroom. "Please separate into groups of two. We're going to be doing a project today."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less Than Beta glanced about for someone to group with, only to realize that he was the first student to arrive. With a shrug he sat down in his usual seat. He hoped that he would be able to group with either Ada or Damien once they appeared.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen rushed into the classroom. The rain that day had soaked her when she was outside practicing random gymnastics moves in the soft grass. Her mad dash inside to change left her running a bit late (i.e. not ten minutes early) for the comp sci class.

She saw Less and sat down next to him. She noticed that they were supposed to put themselves into groups. 'It would be easier if he would just do that for us,' she thought.

"Hey," she whispered to Less, "I don't suppose you'd want to be my partner? We should probably look for someone who knows programming, eh?"

[Damien Griffiths]

Damien trudged in with his laptop under his arm, just after Kahlen.

"Groups of two? Okay, I guess. Are you two sitting together?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less set down his notebook (by now fairly well tattered and full of scribbles which bore absolutely no resemblance to actual notes) and turned to greet the other two. "Hello!" he chirped in an annoyingly cheerful tone. "Damien, come sit with us. Do either of you know what the project might be? I hope it's a simple one." Between Kahlen and Damien, he would prefer that Damien be his group partner, mostly because the other boy had helped him with the class before. He did not actually say that out loud because he was trying out this new thing called 'tact.' Hilarity was likely to ensue.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

Kahlen pulled out her notebook and scribbled a few notes on it. "No idea," she said to Less. "I'm sure it won't be too above our heads..."

She continued her doodling. "I'm sure you two want to be partners, eh? Boy thing? I'll ask Somariel." She didn't particularly want to work with Less because both of them were rather new at programming- not because she didn't like him. She also figured that the boys would want to stick together.

[Damien Griffiths]

"Oh, okay, if you're okay with it." It was fun to work with Less, a lot of fun, but Damien took a lot more time on his assignments because of having to teach Less a lot about basic computer use. He sat down on Less' other side and unfolded his laptop, and started pluggin in all the cables that went with it. "I seriously love this thing, I've never had my own computer before."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less had in fact purchased a laptop of his own from the student store, but by now some of the keys were finicky and one (the left shift key) had even popped off. He had charged his before class. "I have never, either," he said as he lifted it onto the desk and turned it on. Almost immediately an error message appeared on the screen.

[Kahlen Jeanne Nox]

"Uh oh," Kahlen said, noticing the message on Less' screen. She had been listening to him and Damien talking about their computers.

She pulled out her laptop, which was purple and covered in zebra stripe stickers (much like everything else she owned).

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"'The specified module could not be found.' What does that mean?" Less asked. He wasn't particularly worried, having assumed that computers were normally slow, buggy things that tended to randomly shut down whatever was bring run at the time. He had only had his laptop for a few weeks, but the poor thing was already full of malware and weird glitches. Never underestimate the power of the computer-illiterate.

[Damien Griffiths]

Damien blinked. Well, that was new. "That means that there's something seriously wrong with your laptop. Prolly best to have the professor look at it, I don't think I am anywhere near good enough to fix that." As an afterthought, he added: "Maybe you'll want to use one of the school units for now, or share my laptop. As long as you don't press the buttons too hard, I wouldn't want them to pop out." He smiled, and hoped that Less got the hint to be careful with his keyboard in the future.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less clicked out of the error message and the one that appeared after it, then pulled up a word processing program for the notes he was sure he would be taking. He continued talking as he waited for it to load. "How wrong would that be?" he asked. "Is it time to get a new computer wrong, or something lighter than that?" He was getting better at typing, at least; most of the damage keyboard-wise was from the first week.

"Professor?" he called out after the program failed to load. "Is my computer broken?"

[Damien Griffiths]

"I think you can fix it, but you'd need the Professor's help with it. I'll leave my hands off this one." Far too dangerous a thing to start meddling with himself. He didn't know that much about computers.

[Rena Thompson]

Rena walked into the class, carrying her laptop. It was mostly unused, but it did have some interesting features that didn't come standard. All hidden and locked, of course. She sat at the nearest available desk and started it up. Finding another person could wait a minute.

[Lawrence Galontauré-Jones]

Galontauré-Jones looks up from his lesson plan as Less Than Beta comes up. "Let me see here..." He tuts as he takes the problems of the unit into consideration. "Oh dear. This does not look at all good. I can repair it, but it will take time."

He reaches under the podium and pulls out a laptop with the academy emblem emblazoned on its surface. "You will have to use this school-owned laptop for now. Come by my office on Monday to pick up your computer."

"Now then!" His voice raises as he addresses the class as a whole. "Since I trust you have all gathered into your groups we will begin," he went on. "You and your partner will program a web page. It will not matter what is on the web page so long as it demonstrates creativity and correct use of programming language."

"You will have the rest of the period and part of next week to work. You may begin."