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[notvitiligo]

[Oh God everything is so cute and wonderful and they're trying to BAKE and Jessica might be about to splode from delight right now. OH GOD THAT ONE HAS A CHEF HAT. It is so fabulous that she almost forgot to order. Almost. The chocolate chip cookies are entirely too tempting, although she's noticed that the lack of tastebuds thing is rarely conducive to great food. Still, she definitely wants to encourage the robots in their efforts, so...]

Comments

[notvitiligo]

Hopefully they can help out a bit, too, since I've never dealt with anything that fancy before.

At least I've gotten better since the moth thing...

[hopelessdreamer]

Moth thing?

[one of the robots toddles up to take her order and Gal nearly explodes from how cute that is. She bites her lip so as not to let out a very strange noise.]

I'll try that chocolate chip cookie...can't go wrong with a classic.

[notvitiligo]

It's a really basic robot... Just a triangle of wood on wheels for a base, and a motor powered by a solar cell. You shine light at it, and it rolls toward it.

At least, that was the idea... mine just kind of struggled. The base was too heavy. That was not the best science fair ever for me. Of course, that was when science fairs actually mattered, at least if you were a nerd.

[hopelessdreamer]

A solar cell...so light-powered? That's still pretty neat.

Science fairs...so wait, you had fairs just for that kind of thing? Building things? That sounds pretty great to me.

[the waitress beeps for her attention and holds up her plate.]

Oh! Thank you. [she grins.] This is so great, it almost makes up for the pirates.

[notvitiligo]

Yeah, really. I could get used to these guys socializing with us.

But yeah, the science fair was... you make a display about some kind of science... thing. Like, usually experiments and stuff, and you show your data and write ups and all. And then you get judged for how, uh, cool it is.

I lost to someone with a really nice display in 3rd grade... I was really upset about that.

Not that they were all bad; I mean, I usually got at least second prize just for, y'know, being a huge nerd.

[hopelessdreamer]

So it's not just professionals? They do it while you're in school? [she breaks off a piece of cookie while she thinks.] Hey, this is pretty good...

I never went to a real school, I just sort of sat in on my best friend's tutoring sessions...and Pere taught me pretty much everything else. What's it like?

[notvitiligo]

Yeah, it's an education thing. Trying to trick kids into learning things.

It's kind of a mess... it's a bunch of kids, all in one room, and they're all over the place as far as smarts go. So the people that want to learn stuff have to put up with the ones that just want to goof around.

I'll bet tutoring's a lot more efficient.

[hopelessdreamer]

Trick them? [she laughs a little.] I can see why, kids don't like sitting still.

[she shrugs.] Probably, but you have to be either nobility or rich to get it. And I was neither at the time, just lucky.

...plus she hated doing any extra work, so she usually made me do it for her.

[notvitiligo]

Hah, that's not too different from some kids I know. One guy makes side money writing people's essays and stuff.

I'd rather let them suffer, honestly. I mean, even I can manage something in Lit, and I hate that class.

[hopelessdreamer]

Well, no one learns anything if they let people do things for them. That's why...

[she sobers a little, sighing.]

I shouldn't have indulged her, you know? Because she was so spoiled, she made a huge mistake, and it...got a lot of people hurt.

[or dead, more like, but it's hard to talk about even with cookie-encouragement.]

That kind of thing is--I mean, it's too big for someone to carry when it isn't really their fault. She was kept ignorant on purpose.