'Better Left to a Pro(fessor)'

(Sorry for all of the photo spam during the last couple of days-- I guess I've had a little more creative energy lately, and I've been trying to take advantage of it while I can.)

 

---------------------

 

It's afternoon at Osakabe Academy, and a supplementary chemistry lab is being held for those students who might have needed a little more help grasping the concepts applied during the given experiment. Teke, a first year, is helped by Fuyumi-- her upperclassman by two years-- and as they work, they chat about a few things that are going on in their group of friends...

 

 

Teke: "Hey, Fuumi, did Mom tell you that professor Aster might be coming back to visit soon?"

 

 

Fuyumi: "'Professor Aster?' Who's that?"

 

 

Teke: "You know, one of the people Mom met up with before she went to Dolpa? The one who lives with little Mei?"

 

 

Teke: ("I'm going to invert this now.")

Fuyumi: ("Go ahead.")

(*shake, shake*)

 

 

(".........")

 

 

("Oh!!")

 

 

Teke: "This one turned yellow."

Fuyumi: "Excellent, Teke! Let me record that before we move on..."

 

 

Teke: "Do you think the professor would be open to tutoring me a little? Our teacher said he was going to teach us a little organic chemistry 'just for fun,' but he also said that if we did well enough, he'd drop our lowest test score. I can't pass that up."

 

 

Fuyumi: "Teke, I offer study sessions in the library almost every week, and always before major tests! You know that. You've been to almost all of them."

 

 

Fuyumi: "What is it that my lesson plans are missing? I thought this was more than enough..."

 

 

Teke: "No offense, Fuumi, but I wouldn't consider you showing us episodes of DK's 'Eyewitness' programs when you're burnt out from your student council duties to be 'more than enough'."

 

 

Fuyumi: "... I-in my defense, the English in those programs is easier for some students to understand than the language used on Nova or Discovery. And, I thought that out of the entire study group, you'd appreciate the intro sequence the most, Teke..."

 

 

Teke: "*snort* The graphics in that intro make the animation in the 'Berserk' reboot look like a work of fine art."

 

 

Teke: "Your help means a lot, Fuumi, but I feel like I need to call in an expert for this."

 

 

Teke: "Now I just set it on the burner and wait, right?"

 

 

Fuyumi: "*sigh* Yes."

("... we'll just have to wait, I suppose.")

 

---------------

 

Last month, I had a really fun meet with Chise and Ie-Aster, and as we all parted ways, we were all really hoping we'd be able to meet up again soon. At the time, Ie-Aster had a pending job interview, and when I heard it was successful, I wanted to post a little photo story to celebrate Congratulations!! We can't wait to see you again

 

(For those of you who might not be familiar with the program Teke is referencing-- Dorling Kindersley's "Eyewitness" was first a series of kids books, which then became its own TV series. It was essentially an encyclopedia broken down into small, simple chunks that focused on one specific subject at a time. The introduction, shown here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR0vRuZkxdw, was considered pretty advanced for its time due to its extensive use of green screen and CGI.)

 

(Wondering why Teke doesn't have a lower body? Please see my character concepts thread!)

Edited September 15, 2017 by Guest

that squeeing noise of glee u may have heard 3 tows away was me. Spazzing at how adorable this story is

 

Yokai girls may be supernatural, but good-girl Teke totalz remembers the goggles and proper lab safety

"The graphics in that intro make the animation in the 'Berserk' reboot look like a work of fine art."

A sick burn if I ever heard one.

I love how cute they are with their science gear!

Oh gawd, is that the American Girl science set? I want that set sooooo baaaaaaaad.

 

And. . . yeah, that doesn't sound like very useful tutoring, LOL.

!! This is the best thing ever

I am honored that they think so well of me ^__^

 

also dear lord this takes me back to inorganic chemistry undergrad lab so hard

There were lots of solutions in bright and beautiful hues, and lots of "add A to B drop-wise and carefully observe the color change", and "let's reflux this over heat for two hours and if you're lucky we might get out of lab before 6pm"

Despite the long hours it was one of my favorite parts of the major, so this gives me all the happy nostalgia Fuyumi and Teke even have lab notebooks to record the results and a calculator to calculate how much of each compound to add! And Teke is wearing thermal gloves, which makes a lot of sense (since one of the reasons you'd add A to B drop by drop, as she's doing after the initial color change, is that the reaction of A and B releases heat, so you don't want to add it all at once because it'd overheat and maybe damage the test tube)!

 

It's really cool to see a Dollfie version of something that existed in my everyday life

 

 

I would have to advise them that they should actually wear their goggles all the time though (I used to put mine on my head like that sometimes when stepping away from the fume hood, and would get upbraided by the teaching assistant if I went back to the reaction without remembering to put them back down). But even the goggles remind me a lot of the colorful ones one of our TAs, who scorned boring black-rimmed lab goggles, got for us

 

Also, I had no idea that DK's Eyewitness ever was made into a TV program, but I was super obsessed with those books as a little kid!

 

this entire post makes me sound like the nerdiest person >///_///<

Chise: Teke is only being a good girl and wearing them because she doesn't want a lecture from Fuyumi on the importance of personal protective equipment :p I'm sure she's heard them many times before at this point

 

Torino: I'm glad that quip didn't go unnoticed Teke fancies herself a comedian a lot of the time.

 

Poofiemus: This an Our Generation classroom science set I bought at Target! It comes with a model of a skeleton and a microscope as well You're able to change the lenses and height on the microscope just like a real one!

 

... It's always funny how my trips to Target end in me walking out with more stuff for the girls... I went in to buy a fire extinguisher, but I (unwisely) decided to have a peek in the aisle where the OG stuff is kept, and I was weak... I almost forgot the fire extinguisher as I was getting close to leaving

 

Ie-Aster: I'm so glad you like it! A lot of it is based on what I can remember from my high school chem class-- right down to the "learning orgo chem for fun" part.

 

If their goggles had slightly better fit I would have kept them on (especially on Fuyumi, who is a lot more cautious than Teke and probably more likely to wear them anyway), but as you can see they look slightly goofy on Teke and I was having a lot of trouble trying to get them to stay up Unfortunately, I've set a bad example for Teke; when I'm sealing things or sanding things I do make sure to wear my goggles, but at work I often tear the face shields off of our masks because all they do is fog up on me and I can't see.

 

Eyewitness also had a series of computer games, iirc.

 

(Sayuri decide to omit the "probably a big nerd" part when telling my other girls about you. She thought that it would be much more appropriate to take a stab at guessing what your job was and call you a professor )