I saw her in the back of the classroom, the green of her tank top complementing the purple of her mini-jacket, making her look the Joker fan-girl you knew she wasn't. Her jeans compressing her legs, she leaned back with her hand propped behind her head, a notebook out on the table with what seemed to be nothing more than just the Do-Now of the day and her heading. The teacher saw this too. I don't know if he saw this as an insult or a challenge, but whatever his reason, he called on her to answer the challenge problem on the subject he had just taught. The subject that the do-now didn't even talk about, so as far as I was concerned, she had no idea where to even start, explaining her lack of care in the goings-on.
I thought this was cold of him, to call on the new girl on the first day of advanced physics to go up to the board on a problem from a new subject everybody was struggling to complete. Eyes lifted from around the room as they watched her go up to the board. Not a word was uttered by her though. No angry retort that she had been called on, no whine that he was picking on the new kid, simple the tapping of her slight heels as she walked across the room to the board. She turned her back to us, wrote her answer, and sat down. Mouths slowly started to move again.
"Who is that?"
"I didn't even see her back there"
"Is that some college student here to learn how to teach?"
"I bet she doesn't even know the subject"
"This'll be interesting"
As the voices quieted, she chuckled to herself. I could tell she heard the voices, she didn't even care though. She went back to her former position at this point, as her own way of flipping everybody off. The teacher asked her to explain her answer, she told him simply and with an elegant flair like nobody else I had seen before, "I just did what you put on the board and used the formula's and wrote it down for you up there as I figured it out". He asked if she could explain it more than that and she said "Well I can't explain the way my mind works, all I know is that I was right and that you spelled his named wrong up there".
A hush over the room, all eyes stared at our teacher as he saw he had indeed misspelled it, and he went over how to solve the problem. Nobody looked back at her, but I had never stopped in the first place. She caught me looking at her and smiled a little smile, putting her head down to doodle in the void her notes would have inhabited if she hadn't already proved she didn't need any.
Henry,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your story. i like how you wrote it, and how the story flows. Your story did an amazing job of explaining your point of view on what or who is cool, and what goes into being cool. good job =)
-Rachel
Your cool person shows her true self. She is not pressured by the higher authority and speaks her mind.
ReplyDeleteThis story was interesting because it shows the main character as someone who's actually smart, most people see cool as looking good or having a certain personality but most people don't think of intelligence as cool. That being said, I felt as though the beginning of your story was a big list showing just what she wore. This information is useful to characterize her but it's not so important that it should take up the majority of a paragraph. All in all this story was well written and showcases a cool that we don't normally see or recognize which deserves some credit.
ReplyDeleteHenry,
ReplyDeleteYour story was quite vivid and your descriptions really kept my attention throughout. Certain phrasings were slightly awkward and confused me, but other than that, you got your point about "cool" across very well.
Like Marco said in the above comment, I also liked how you used the persons intellect as a device to demonstrate her strengths that made her "cool".
Particularly, your use of character interaction between you and the new girl, brought her down to earth so that the reader saw her from a first person point of view. Describing her smile at the end of your story was pivotal in that I almost felt like I was the person she was looking at. Anyway, really good job Henry. Keep it up
Henry,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you started off your story. Your character didn't dominate from the get-go as you said, but she manages to take over with her lack of drama. You can clearly see that she doesn't show respect to those she doesn't think deserve it, and respect (or a smile) to those who do. She is confident in her attitude and could care less about what others think of her.
Henry- I liked how you started off your story. It gave a really good image into what you wanted the reader to see. I also like how the cool person was not cool the first moment she walked in because its usually not like that. Its the slow build up and how she was smart.
ReplyDeleteHenry- It is very refreshing to see you admire a girl. I think after Andy’s comment about everyone using guys its nice to see you used a girl. I truly did like the girl that you were explaining she seemed chill and relaxed. I thought it was kind of funny how similar she is to you, sort of like a girl Henry with the joker comment. I like how ordinary she is yet how effortless her cool is.
ReplyDelete