orange_boy (orange_boy) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2017-10-04 21:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, ~2017 october, ~25 points, ~~ian gallagher (orange_boy), ~~lindsay weir (mathletenomore) |
Who: Ian and Lindsay
What: Study group
When: after school, recently
Where: School library
Warnings: Low
Status: Closed, completed gdoc
So far calculus was going a little better for Ian than trig had. He’d ended up getting a C+ in trig over the summer even though it was his second attempt, only raising his grade slightly from the C- he’d gotten the first time he’d taken it back home. It was extremely discouraging. Ian knew that he wasn’t nearly as smart as his brother Lip, but he’d always believed that if he put in enough hours and studied hard enough he could learn anything. Trig tested his belief in that. It seemed like he’d come up against some natural barrier in his brain and no matter how much he studied he would never really “get” higher math the way people like Lip did.
Lindsay seemed to be one of those people like Lip for whom it came easy. She’d helped him with trig (although, again, it seemed that he could only be helped so much before he hit his natural limits) over the summer and he was eager to have her help again with calc now that the school year had started. She was really smart, but she could explain things without talking down to him, which he appreciated. So far calc was going a little better- he felt like he understood limits and had gotten a B+ on the first quiz- but the study group still helped a lot.
Ian went to the library after school and found a place to sit in the library. He took out his text book and started working on that day’s homework while he waited for Lindsay to arrive.
***
Lindsay was surprised at how much she enjoyed helping people with math. The first time she tried to tutor someone, it went horribly wrong. That was Daniel, though. She thought it was impossible for anyone to tutor him after she attempted it. It was different here, though. It helped a lot that the people in her study groups actually wanted to learn.
Ian especially seemed eager to learn and to improve. That helped a lot. It also helped that she liked Ian and genuinely enjoyed his company. She was glad to meet up with him at the library.
"Hey, Ian," she greeted, already pulling her calculus book out of her bag and placing it on the table. "Ready for the exciting world of calc?"
She was being somewhat sarcastic. She figured it wasn't as exciting for him as it was for her.
***
“Hey Lindsay.” He replied with a smile. “How’s it going?” He was certainly happy to see her. Studying was so much easier with a partner, especially one who could explain things like Lindsay.
“Oh, yes, it’s super exciting.” He said with a slight eyeroll. He didn’t hate calculus...ok, so maybe he did. But he tried to have a positive attitude about it. “So I’ve the first couple of problems done, if you want to check them.”
***
Lindsay just chuckled, knowing he didn't find it exciting at all. If she was being honest, she would agree. But she still enjoyed math. She knew that wasn't exactly the norm for people her age.
"Sure, I can check them," she said, already going over his answers. She was intently going over them occasionally making mental notations about ways to improve. "Not too bad. You got a few of them right."
She was kind of proud that maybe she had something to do with him being a little better at math.
"This one isn't quite right," she said, going over one of the problems. She then went on to explain some of the ways to fix it. She hoped she was giving proper pointers. She never wanted to come off like she was talking down to Ian. She did not at all think of herself as better than he was. They were peers, and she did consider him a friend as well.
***
“Huh, what did I do wrong?”
Ian watched and listened as she showed how he should have done the problem. “See, it makes sense now that you've explained it, but I never would have thought of doing it that way on my own.” Which was exactly his problem. He could memorize rules and formulas for how to do things, but figuring out which rules to use in which situation was hard.
“Have you always been this good at math?” He asked.
***
"Yeah," Lindsay replied, nodding. "For as long as I can remember. I think it scared my dad at first."
He was so old-fashioned, believing women shouldn't be mathematicians or scientists. He pretty much changed that thought when he realized just how smart she was.
"But I think everyone has their thing. Math comes easy to me, but I'm terrible at sports. I can't dance to save my life, and I don't play instruments. I wish I could do any of those things."
Basically, she didn't think her math skills made her better or worse than anyone else.
***
“It scared your dad?” Ian couldn't imagine why a parent would be scared that their kid was smart. It certainly seemed like a good thing. Even his dad, who was absolutely terrible in most ways, was proud of Lip's brains.
“Yeah, everybody has their thing, but some things are more valuable than others. It's hard to succeed without academics.” Even in the army, it seemed. Ian was more fit and athletic than his brother, could shoot and run and took ROTC, but the West Point recruiter had still been much more interested in Lip due to his intelligence and grades. Of course Lip had zero interest in the military, which had just made it all the more galling for Ian.
“I bet you could dance if you tried. All you really have to do is kind of sway to the music.” He said with a smile.
***
"I think he was more confused than scared," Lindsay admitted. "He's pretty old fashioned. He grew up in a time when women were more likely to be housewives, not scientists or anything like that. But really, he did get over that. He really wanted what was best for me in the end. He was really big about me doing well in school and continuing my education."
She always thought her dad was a little lame, but now that she'd been away from him for so long, she realized just how much she missed him.
"He'd say the same about the value of education," she said with a little smile. "I bet he'd like you."
To the rest of Ian's words, she just shrugged. She did smile a little, though. "I do like music."
***
“Wow, your dad really is old fashioned. But then, sometimes I forget that you’re close to my parent’s age. I guess people were different in olden times.” He said with a joking grin. She really did seem like a regular modern kid, but she was from a time more than a decade before he’d even been born, and he wasn’t above giving her a little bit of a hard time about that.
“No, I guarantee your dad wouldn’t like me, no matter what i said about the importance of education.” He said with a laugh, because the very idea was ludicrous. No parent would like a Gallagher. Even in their bad neighborhood they had a reputation as trashy. “I’m not the kind of guy that parents want their daughters around.”
***
"You laugh now, but wait until you get old someday," Lindsay said, laughing. She didn't mind going along with the teasing. It's the kind of thing friends did.
She was a little bit more modern than some people here, and she was adapting well to all the technological advances and all that. But she still was an early 80s girl at heart. The music of today just couldn't compare.
She wasn't thinking about that now, though. She was more interested in what Ian just told her. "And seriously, I think he'd like that you're hard working and have a goal."
He even took an interest in helping Nick when it came to his dream. Considering he was her ex-boyfriend at that time, it was really weird and awkward for her. But it was nice to see her dad being nice to one of her friends even so. He also seemed to be coming around to Kim a little. He'd probably never like Daniel, though.
***
Ian was hard working and had a goal, but he still had a hard time believing that the father of a nice middle class girl like Lindsay (because it's pretty obvious that's what she was, and Ian was very aware of the class difference between himself and most of his friends here, even if they weren't) wouldn't have a problem with trash like him. “I don't know. I drink, I smoke, I've been arrested. Most of the people in my extended family have done time. At least I don't have any felony convictions yet, right?” He knew that the army wouldn't take him if he did, so he was trying very hard to keep his record clean. That was a lot easier here than at home.
“So what about you?” He asked. “What do you want to do after you graduate?”
***
Lindsay was more aware of class differences than one would think. It wasn't at all the same as living in a different class, but she had seen what Kim's home life was like, and had gained more of an insight about why her friend was the way she was. It actually made her closer to Kim. In fact, she had become her best friend back home.
None of Ian's revelations about his extracurriculars bothered her in the least, though probably more realistically, her father would be bothered. It didn't matter anyway. He wasn't here. Ian was, and she genuinely enjoyed hanging out with him.
"Honestly, I don't know what my plans are. Maybe take some classes." She hadn't really given it much thought. "If you can believe it, I had plans to take a break from school and follow the Grateful Dead around the country."
Even just saying it out loud, she thought it sounded crazy.
***
“You were a Dead Head?” He asked, totally breaking down laughing. “No fucking way!” Ian could not picture her doing that. Not in a million years. “So you were going to, like, live in a van and just do LSD and go to concerts all the time?” Ian had no idea how that even worked. He knew people who lived in cars or vans because they were homeless, but not by choice. And you still had to eat. What did Dead Heads live on anyway, he wondered? “What would you do for money?”
***
"I don't know if I was a real Dead Head. I heard one album that really spoke to me if that makes sense," Lindsay admitted. "Real Dead Heads would probably think I as a poser if they weren't so high all the time."
She just assumed a lot of their friendliness and free love ways were the result of being high often. "I actually took off in a van to do just that after school was over that year. My parents had no idea. They thought I was going to an academic summer camp. I ended up here instead. We had no actual plans. I think we were gonna live out of the van."
She shrugged, pretty much realizing it was a bad plan.
"Probably better I'm getting my adventure here instead."
***
Ian listened to her story, and was surprised how similar it was in certain ways to his own. “So you had just made a pretty questionable decision to leave home, but then you ended up here instead?” He summarized.
“The same thing kind of happened to me. Not that I was going to be a Dead Head!” He clarified with a chuckle. “But I was feeling like I really, really needed to get away from home. I wanted to join the army now instead of waiting for graduation, because I just couldn’t stand to be there anymore. But the problem is that the army won’t take you until you graduate, so I had come up with a plan to sort of steal my brother’s identity. I was going to get a fake ID and enlist under his name. But before I could go through with it, poof! I ended up here instead.” Ian paused for a moment, then continued.
“You don’t think that whoever controls the dome knew that we were about to mess up our lives and brought us here to stop us?” He asked. It was a crazy idea. Everyone knew that it was random. But what if it wasn’t?
***
Lindsay listened to his story, amazed that they really did have this thing in common. Though it wasn't the exact same kind of bad idea, this was something they could both relate to. She kind of liked that she had a friend she could talk to about this.
"I don't ever know what the dome is thinking or planning, but I can believe it decided to save us from ourselves in a way," she said, really thinking about it.
Too bad they probably wouldn't remember this if they'd ever be sent back. They'd likely go right back to their less than stellar plans.
***
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe it did.” It was weird thinking of the dome as having a purpose, but if she believed it too, then maybe it wasn't so stupid after all.
“If we're here for a purpose, then I guess we gotta make the best of it. Not waste the chance, right?” And for him making the best of it meant trying to finish high school. Including this fucking Calculus homework.
“So, can you show me what I did wrong on this one?” He asked.
***
Lindsay liked to think maybe there was a purpose for all of this. Right now, she felt that her purpose was to try to help people. If that meant helping someone figure out a math problem, well, that was okay with her.
"Yeah, sure. You want to start here."
She was, in a way, thankful Ian asked her to help with tutoring. It just meant she now had another friend in this place.