Emily giggles a little but mostly she smiles. The recognition for her work is always nice and Nicholas's reaction was amusing. It's good to see people willing to be a little silly.

Emily pays attention, her notes might leave something to be desired though. She alternates between taking down salient facts and doodling in her notebook.

Nick doesn't usually sit next to Emily. Maybe he should fix that. Obviously there's going to be something to learn from her, she's been mentioned at the start of class four out of the five times the professor has done that so far, she's smart... At least he made the list with that flash of brilliance. He's keeping up.

He keeps thorough but disorganized notes in his scrawly handwriting, and keeps getting distracted wondering what Emily might be thinking about the current topic, glancing over...

He pays very careful attention to the explanation for problem 9. The best he can do is come at the problems from a weird angle, he could never produce such thoughtful, elegant code. Emily is some kind of genius. He'll have to try his very best to keep up.

Emily pays extra attention to the solution for problem 6 it's always exciting to see a solution she didn't think of. Given that Nick sits behind her she has no way to notice his interest.

He's a little smug. Okay, more than a little. It actually was kind of a flash of brilliance, he had the idea and then spent half an hour staring at the screen and intermittently hammering the keyboard. He cheerfully explains his solution to the two people on either side of him and everyone else in earshot when they seem confused.

"See, you don't need to use those annoying trig functions to track the motion, you can use two variables and adjust them like so. They represent circles but they're not circles yet, just numbers... And you only need to do the conversion once, when you find the final result. Much easier."

"Smith! I'm the one who's getting paid to explain, remember?"

"Of course. Sorry, sir."

(The professor explains it in pretty much the same way, though.)

Eventually the professor moves on to the actual lecture for the day, and hands out the next problem set at the end of class. Due Friday, as usual. Also, the first midterm is next Friday, start studying!

Emily giggles a little at the exchange that Nick and the professor have. When class ends she puts her notebook into her bag and makes her way out of the room. She has a bit of time before her next class so she finds one of the trees she likes to climb on campus and situates herself there to look at the problem set.

He has free time after this class.

Maybe now that he's a recognized name Emily would want to study together. He can try to absorb some of that brilliance... Following her after class would be a creepy stalker move, though. So he just. Goes to the computer lab instead and distractedly works on something for another class.

He might see her in the tree most of an hour later if she's still there, though.

She will be. The problem sheet is attached to a branch with a binder clip and she's scribbling in her notebook while her bag hangs from a nearby branch.

He was heading towards the dorms to grab lunch, but... What.

"Whaaaaa- Emily?"

That can't be a very easy place to study. And she's not worried about falling out of the tree?

She closes her notebook and puts it in her bag then looks down at him. "Hi there, you're Nicholas right?"

"Yeeees. Call me Nick. Please. What are you doing in a tree? Er. Apparently, reading the problem set. Why are you reading the problem set in a tree? Uh, hi."

"Nick then. I like climbing trees and this one is comfortable. Also the outdoor tables tend to be sticky."

"That's true about the tables..."

He probably can't climb a tree without being embarrassingly bad at it.

"Uh, I was wondering if you would want to study together some time. I want to get ahead in class, hard work and studying's the way to do that. And I want to know how you figured out problem 9. I'll pull my weight of course."

"Sure, people don't ask very often. Where do you usually go to study?"

"Really? I can't imagine why not. The professor always mentions you, you obviously know what you're doing. I study in the computer labs, usually."

(Because he can't afford a decent laptop for himself yet. He's still using a crappy salvaged one he bought off someone for almost nothing and fixed. But no need to mention that.)

"Alright, the computer labs are nice. Aside from the one we have together I have class from two to six on Monday and Friday, ten to noon and two to four on Tuesday and Thursday and a class from one to three on Wednesdays. I'm pretty free otherwise."

"Hmm. I'm a bit packed compared to that. So, after six tonight, or one PM tomorrow? Lab 3? The student ID cards will unlock the CS building until eight, FYI."

"Tomorrow at one sounds good, it won't be a lot of time but we can always make more time on other days."

"I'm always doing something or other, is the thing. Class, homework, work-work, tinkering, fixing electronics for people. We'll see, won't we? Tomorrow at one it is, I'll look forward to it." And look forward to figuring out and maybe surpassing the academic brilliance that's currently sitting in a tree.

"I will too. Have a nice day." She smiles broadly.

He smiles back and gives a jaunty wave and walks onward.

And tries to figure out why he did that?? He's not really friendly with people. If he's being deliberately smiley and charming he can hold that up like a shield against doubt and hesitation, once he got the skill down. But what just happened was a bit different. There's a pit of anxious excitement lingering, from arranging a study session with an academic rival of Emily's caliber.

He'd better get most of the problem set done before tomorrow at one if he wants to get the most out of the meeting. And he always wants to get the most out of things. Linus's rebuild can be put off one day, and he can probably beg off his shift the sub shop without too much trouble. He knows someone who always wants more hours.

He goes to the rest of his classes. He puts other things off and works on the problem set. He climbs a tree just to see how hard it really is, surely not that hard? ...It's going to take practice, though.

He walks into lab 3 at 12:59 the next day.

Emily goes back to her brainstorming after Nick walks off. He seems nice, hopefully he isn't trying to cheat off of her, that's happened a couple times, maybe she'll even make a friend. Eventually Emily gets down from the tree to eat her packed lunch before going to class. She finishes up her prep work for the problem set but doesn't worry about doing the actual coding just yet.

She's sitting in the lab when Nick gets there. "Hi Nick."

"Hello and good afternoon. I don't know how much of the problem set you've gotten done already - I think question 3 is hardest of the lot, actually - and I don't know what you would like from this study session either. Review? Quiz each other? Working on the problems together? I'm sure it'll be productive, whatever it is."

"I figured out solutions to all the problems, I haven't coded them up though, and sometimes I think of better solutions while I'm doing that. I'm not really sure what to do studying together, like I said I don't do it that often. Quizzing each other might be good though, it's hard to do that alone."

"I've heard good things about pair programming. And didn't he say collaboration was fine if you label it? Or am I misremembering that? Well, there's the midterm next week at any rate, quizzing works."

Emily brings up the textbook as an Ebook on the computer in front of her and asks a question from one of the chapters they've covered.