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]

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?"

[regularsized]

"Good question," says Bridget. "Sadly, not one I can answer."

[self_composed]

"And you're obviously brilliant, if I were you I'd just have applied directly back to medical school, and if I ran into any gaps I'd find a book about it and fill it in that way."

[regularsized]

"Ah, and there we have it. The main value of institutional education is in teaching you things you didn't know you needed to know," says Bridget.

[self_composed]

Bella shrugs. "You could still get that more efficiently by swiping a copy of the syllabus. Did you learn anything from the lab the other day, the tedious one with the dialysis membranes? It took an hour and a half of your life."

[regularsized]

"I'm having a little trouble with your definition of efficient. Maybe I just value my effort more than my time. If someone else has gone to all the trouble of streamlining the process of learning for me and packaging it for sale, why should I interfere?"

[self_composed]

"Do you eat a lot of prepackaged food even when you have access to a kitchen and go on guided tours when you travel, too?" Bella asks, wrinkling her nose.

[regularsized]

"I'll admit to the first one, but I don't actually travel that much."

[self_composed]

"Huh. I guess I'll chalk it up to personality differences," shrugs Bella. "One-size-fits-all doesn't reliably fit me. I can often get more of what I want by finding it myself."

[regularsized]

"In that case, why are you here?"

[self_composed]

"Unreliably, not never - and as I get further along, I'll be able to take more highly specialized classes and mix those up according to how I like. I just have to slog through some introductory prerequisites."

[regularsized]

"Well, that's fair," says Bridget.

[self_composed]

"I'd hope so," laughs Bella.

[regularsized]

Bridget giggles.

[self_composed]

Studying-slash-discourse-on-vaguely-biology-related-subjects ensues. "I have about a half an hour left before I need to go to my sectional," Bella says after a few more minutes. "Anything you wanted to be sure to get in?"