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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 19, 2010 13:54:35 GMT -5
Kassandra sat at a table with her books spread around her. There was definitely room for others, but she was already in trouble for her grades and had promised her dad to get them up.
It really sucked when your dad was friends with all of your teachers and could easily get updates on how you've been doing in class over morning coffee. She couldn't even properly lie about whether or not she had homework because her dad knew before SHE did what her assignments were.
So here she was, trying to figure out math with toast, eggs and bacon getting cold, with English next. And the worst part was... it was Saturday, and as close to a perfect day outside as things got in this dreary castle! Sighing heavily, Andra took a bite of her toast and a bit of the grape jelly promptly landed on the math problem she'd just figured out. Moaning slightly, she tried to clean it off the paper without smudging the writing. It was a lost cause.
"Oh great!" she grumbled, getting another sheet of paper. Time to copy it out.
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 19, 2010 14:50:38 GMT -5
Ammeryn sipped at her smoothie and walked out of the kitchens with a new novel tucked under one arm. She spotted Kassandra and smiled, making a beeline for that table.
"Hey Andra," she chirped, leaning forward to glance at the girl's work. "Ah... need help?"
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 19, 2010 15:02:01 GMT -5
Andra looked up and smiled slightly. "I guess. It's not really that I can't figure it out, it's that... well, this assignment is a few days old... Dad found out I haven't been doing my homework and put his foot down."
She pouted and sighed. "I guess I asked for it, but... now I have to catch up on all of my homework today."
Andra finished copying her work and got back to the problem she'd been working on. "Mph. Amme, are you any good at math at all?" she asked hopefully, looking at her with wide eyes, like a kitten trying to get a piece of food from someone.
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 19, 2010 15:07:30 GMT -5
Amme giggled and walked around the table to take the seat next to her friend.
"I am," she told her, ruffling Andra's hair. She set her book down and rested her elbows on the tabletop. "So what do we have here?"
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 19, 2010 15:28:52 GMT -5
Andra grinned at her, then showed her the problem in the book.
"I just can't seem to make sense of this. I can't find it in the book easily, either, and I've been doing homework for like, hours so I can't think of it." She might have been exaggerating just a little... it had only really been an hour, but it felt like it had been days since she'd started on this. Though, this was the third math assignment she'd worked on today...
The problem was relatively simple. ((Problem: Suppose the radius of circle O is 1 m. Find the area of regular pentagon ABCDE. illustration. ))
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 19, 2010 20:13:34 GMT -5
Ammeryn took one of the sheets of paper and drew a rough sketch of the diagram.
“Okay, see how these triangles are all congruent? Just take the area of one and multiply it by five. A-O-E” she pointed out the corners of the specific triangle, “gives us a tangent ratio we can use. So the measurement—m—of AOE is what we’ll use to find the 360-degree area. Divide that by five. Seventy-two degrees, right? That’s the measurement of this angle. Which means that the measurement of angle AOP is twelve.”
She drew out smaller diagrams, showing isolated parts of the original picture. A few minutes later and she had jotted herself through the problem, explaining her notes all the way. Her handwriting was slender but easy to read:
p m ∠AOE = 36 degrees In right ∆AOP, AP OP = AP 1 = tan 36 degrees. AP ≈ 0.727 AE = 2 p AP ≈ 1.454 (m)
A = 12bh. A ∆AOE = 12 (AE)(OP) ≈ 12 (1.454)(1) = 0.727 (m2)
A ∆AOE by 5: 5(0.727) ≈ 3.64
Ammeryn’s fingers clicked along the buttons of the calculator. The screen showed the solution as about 3.64. Ammeryn wrote A pnt ABCDE = 3.64 m2.
Ammeryn smiled at Andra. “That's how it works.”
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 19, 2010 20:32:45 GMT -5
Kassandra looked at the solution Amme had just written out, then at her math problem, then back at the solution. "Oh. Thanks. I think?"
She started trying to work it out herself, and slowly managed it, though she had to resist looking back at Amme's work. Then she paused. "Why did I... oh, you didn't write out all the steps. I have to; otherwise I always mess up and neither I nor the teacher can figure out how or where..."
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 21, 2010 0:25:21 GMT -5
Ammeryn shrugged. "I would have, were it my assignment. But then again, I tend to take extra steps as well. I guess I'm just tedious." She started doodling little designs on the paper she had written on. Swirls turned into an eye, and a nose, then a face, which she framed with hair. She wasn't as good as her sister when it came to being artistic, but then again she always had the option of crumpling up the paper and pretending it never happened.
"Do you want me to stay while you work?" she offered. "It's too hot outside. I was going to stay indoors anyway, and if you get stuck again..."
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 21, 2010 1:03:13 GMT -5
Kassandra looked at her gratefully. "Please? Like I said, I'm kinda grounded until I finish everything. It sucks having your dad know everyone. He knows my assignments before I do," she sulked. "I guess I should be surprised I managed to get this far without doing everything..."
She looked down at the rather large pile. "Which probably wasn't the brightest idea, now that I think of it..."
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 21, 2010 1:10:00 GMT -5
"Bah." Ammeryn flapped her hand in the air to wave the last statement away. "The faster you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up," she joked. Granted, that was the excuse that her sister used whenever her father confronted her about homework, but oh well. It made her father laugh every time.
She didn't think she could go without doing homework if she tried, though. Strange as it sounded, she actually liked doing it. Which, she reasoned, was probably to be expected, what with her other hobbies-- reading, cooking, blogging, MMORPGs...
Okay. So she planned to name her future children after her City of Heroes and Runescape characters. So what.
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 21, 2010 1:25:30 GMT -5
Kassandra blinked and tried to turn that in her mind. "Um... alright then."
She turned back to her homework. Finishing that assignment, she turned to an English assignment. That... failed rather quickly. Soon enough, the paper was covered in doodles rather than the essay she was supposed to be writing, and the doodles seemed to become just larger doodles.
"Well... that worked well," she mumbled.
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 21, 2010 1:28:32 GMT -5
Ammeryn looked up from her book (she had gone back to reading soon after Andra had returned to her work) and looked at the paper. She giggled.
"Hey that part looks like Fable," she chirped, pointing out a bit that looked-- by a stretch of the imagination-- like a growling face with a severe underbite and a single tooth jutting up from the lower lip.
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 21, 2010 1:48:15 GMT -5
Kassandra looked at it, then smothered her giggle. "Oh wow, yes it does. Then I should never show this to Akane, poor girl. All of her older siblings have told her that he'll hunt her down and eat her or something."
Sighing, she put aside the paper and grabbed another sheet. The essay took her a good... half an hour, but since it was still early in the school year, it hadn't really been a full essay anyway.
The history essay was another story. The research, which was the majority of the books around her, took nearly an hour, during which she'd lost interest three times and drawn other sketches that sometimes ended up looking like people. Joining Fable was Rhythan (in blue, for some reason that was totally not it just so happened to be the pen in her hand, nope), Alex, and Ozora. Or at least, that's who Andra said it was. It mostly looked like a bit rather sparkly swirl.
The essay did get finished, however. And Kassandra forced herself to go back to math. Halfway done!
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 21, 2010 20:15:32 GMT -5
Ammeryn, who had just finished her book, closed the cover and glanced over at Andra's papers. She smiled, holding up the essays.
"Do you want me to spell-check these or anything?" she offered.
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 21, 2010 20:30:17 GMT -5
Kassandra looked at them, then at Amme, then at her math assignments. She huffed a sigh and nodded, "Yes please. Dad always tells me I spell like my mother. He says I have handwriting likes hers too."
She sulked. "I'd rather have handwriting like his. For a doctor, Dad's got really good handwriting. I bet it's for the same reason he's always making sure everything's clean. I bet he has OCD or something."
She snorted and put her head down for a moment. "I wonder if I could get away with sneaking outside for a bit. I mean, I am more than halfway done..."
Andra looked over at Amme. "Do'ya think he might go for that?" she asked hopefully. If Amme said it, then Kassandra had an excuse even if he didn't.
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 21, 2010 20:33:36 GMT -5
Ammeryn grinned. "You should. Go and stretch your legs-- it's not good to focus on work for too long. Your work will be higher quality stuff if you take a break."
She straightened the papers and glanced at them.
"I'll hold down the fort here," she added brightly.
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 21, 2010 20:38:43 GMT -5
Kassandra leapt to her feet and gave her friend a quick hug. "Thanks. I won't be long, I just REALLY need to get out for a moment."
Without giving Ammeryn a chance to reply, Andra ran out of the mess hall and fast-walked outside. Since there was, understandably, no running in the halls.
Guilt drew her back inside about ten minutes later, and the knowledge that if her father had found her outside and not working, she probably would regret it. But, when she sat down, the math actually did make more sense. Sighing slightly, Kassandra got back to work. "Thanks. Did Dad come by?"
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Ammeryn Evans-Barros
Keme
Academy Freshman: Mage
Meet me where the Sunshine ends-- where You and I belong.
Posts: 153
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Post by Ammeryn Evans-Barros on Jul 21, 2010 20:43:10 GMT -5
Ammeryn set down the pencil she had been using to correct Andra's essays.
"I didn't see him," she said honestly, grinning at her. "Rhythan did, though. Brought cookies for you." She used the pencil to point out the sugar cookies that had been stacked on a plate and set on the table. "I stole one. Hope you don't mind."
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Post by Kassandra Stryker on Jul 21, 2010 20:49:34 GMT -5
Kassandra shook her head so rapidly her hair whipped across her face. "Not at all. You deserve them more than me. I'm being punished, after all. Sorta. You're just being nice."
She grinned back, then grabbed a cookie and started working on her math again. "But once I get this finished I can spend my Saturday doing something fun."
For some reason, at about this point, she started humming 'Hi Ho, Hi Ho' as she worked on her math. Hey, the Dwarves probably had to use math to know which gems to sell for how much... right? It made sense!
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