i remember everything, so who are you?

[self_composed]

Bella attends her classes with faultless punctuality, every time. She sits in the second or third row on an aisle in the middle section of seats, in the classes that take place in big auditorium lecture halls like the main section of Bio; she's willing to put herself closer to the professors in smaller classes like OS and of course her flute chair (third; she hasn't been quite ridiculously showoffy enough to climb beyond yet) is assigned. But right now, she is in Bio, learning tidbits about auxin and tropisms that the textbook didn't cover fully. She's running at about one and a half speed, just enough that she can trivially listen to and process the lecture against her memory of the text while also permitting some mind-wandering. She liiiiiikes her cognitive speedup power.

Comments

[self_composed]

After a few days, Bella finds a time when both she and Bridget are available to get together and study. She proposes her own room. (It has a giant bean bag in it and is therefore obviously the best.)

[regularsized]

Bridget is swayed by the giant bean bag argument! She shows up with her Biology notebook and a head full of interesting ideas.

[self_composed]

Bella doesn't really need to do any studying, between eidetic memory and cognitive speedup; no one is expecting original insight from a freshman and she's not trying to stand out that much. She'll let Bridget steer the study session as much as she can without being conspicuous. (Having a study session at all instead of just hanging out with Bridget recreationally is also to be inconspicuous. It helps a little that Janine's going to be around to witness the "studying".)

[regularsized]

Consulting a scrap of paper to verify that she has the right room number, she knocks.

[self_composed]

Bella gets the door. "Bridget, hi! How are you? Janine, this is Bridget, Bridget, this is my roomie Janine."

[regularsized]

"Hi," says Bridget.

"Hi!" says Janine, waving from where she sits cross-legged on her bed.

"I think my first question," says Bridget, "is: who gets the bean bag?"

[self_composed]

"I think it's big enough for two or three people as long as we don't care very much about facing in the same direction," says Bella.

[regularsized]

"Well, I care about not facing in opposite directions, because that would make conversation awkward," says Bridget.

[self_composed]

"We can turn our heads," Bella says.

[regularsized]

"Well, let's try it and see."

[self_composed]

Bella occupies one-third of the beanbag with no further ado, and opens her biology text on her lap.

[regularsized]

Bridget perches on the remainder. As is the way with beanbags, 'on' quickly becomes 'in'.

"Comfy," she declares.

[self_composed]

"Isn't it?" Bella agrees. "What did you want to cover today?"

[regularsized]

"Well, I was thinking..."

Bridget does a lot of thinking. One of the real tests of a Class Friend, the things that make the difference between someone who will stay a friend past the end of the class and someone who won't, is whether or not they can keep up.

[self_composed]

Bella can. She turns up to one-and-a-half to be sure, but she can!

[regularsized]

It quickly becomes apparent that Bella is going to be a very fun study buddy.

That makes Bridget's life a whole lot easier.

She becomes increasingly cheerful and animated as the study session continues.

[self_composed]

"We're going to wind up overqualified for this course," Bella predicts. "Aren't the tests mostly multiple-choice because there's a hundred of us and the professor doesn't want to read our handwriting?"

[regularsized]

"Are you not having fun? Because I'm having fun," says Bridget.

[self_composed]

"I'm having fun, I'm just kind of wondering why you aren't in a 300-level specialized class. I mean, I wondered that before, but I wonder it again."

[regularsized]

"Because I like to be thorough," she says.

[self_composed]

"It's a peculiar notion of thoroughness that puts a physics Ph.D. with half a degree in medicine, in Bio 101 because she may want to finish being a medical doctor," says Bella.

[regularsized]

"I'd rather go through it all from the beginning and risk boredom than pick up where I left off and risk missing something. And, conveniently, I'm not bored."

[self_composed]

Bella pauses for a moment, then shrugs and returns to their original topic. It is admittedly not boring.

[regularsized]

A few minutes later, during a lull in the scientific speculation, Bridget asks, "What has you so curious about my unusual educational preferences, anyway?"

[self_composed]

"They're different from mine. I left high school early; I tested into an advanced programming course; I'm just about the right qualification level for this one but it's moving a little slowly and I'd be terribly frustrated with it if I didn't have other classes and stuff to keep me busy. I'm impatient. I can learn fast, so why shouldn't I?"