this strikes me as kind of a middle school venture for laur, in some ways? i feel like this is when she started to get really weirdly into her studies and when she moved away to the east coast for high school it would have been great for her to have ari to regale her california stories to and be even more happy-homesick over, if that makes sense? she eventually kind of didn't want to come back but things happen so she'd have been thrilled to try and prod ari towards her way anyway, ~*chasing her dreams*~ and all that.