Kara
11/15/2007
=NYC= Fiske Library - Emerson University
Handsome in its gray stone and flourishing gardens, the Fiske Library is easily accessed off the main quad by a short series of steps. Within, the Library is a thorough collection of books, magazines, films, and electronic data all freely available for students as well as college visitors to use. A favorite hang-out for campus bookworms, peace can be found easily amidst the tall shelves, or working away at one of the computers in their respective section. Tables, chairs, and occasionally the odd couch are distributed throughout the building for students who wish to do their research and studying there instead of back at their dorms.
It's after her afternoon class, and Kara has decided to hit the library before heading home. She has her messenger bag with her, carrying whatever books and such she needed for her class, as well as a few books and her journal, to keep her occupied. Looking up at the signs hanging at the ends of the library aisle, she smiles and slips down the one with all the encyclopedia volumes in it, quickly grabbing one before going to find a seat.
Natalie appears around a corner, arms piled high with thick reference books that threaten to topple from their Leaning Tower of Academics. She's barely visible behind it, ponytail swinging with movement as she stumbles up to Kara's table and lets her load sliiiiide to its surface with a faint sigh of relief. Only then, leaning to snatch at a stray with quick hands, does Natalie notice Kara. "Oh," she says, smile faint and apologetic. "Sorry. I was kind of afraid I was losing them."
Kara looks up and reaches out quickly to catch the books should they fall. Offering Natalie a friendly smile, she shakes her head a little. "No problem. I know how it is." She looks at the pile of books speculatively. "A little light reading?" She jokes, giggling a little, before smiling and pulling a notebook out of her bag, which she set beside her on the table.
The books, such as they are, tend toward basic encyclopedias and dictionaries on the subject of neurology, with the odd genetics work thrown in for good measure. Natalie's smile turns rueful as she sweeps a hand back over her ponytail and then pushes her glasses back on the bridge of her nose with the press of a thumb. "Pretty much," she returns. "Me, the library, and a Thursday afternoon. My idea of a relaxing time."
Kara laughs. "I usually read at home. But this place has an amazing selection of reference material." She notes, looking around slowly before she glances over the spines of Natalie's books again. "Are you in the medical field?" She asks curiously, arching an eyebrow slightly/
"I get way more done if there's not a television in front of me, a kitchen to my side, and a boyfriend next door," Natalie answers with half a laugh before she glances down at the titles and then shakes her head. "Ha. No, I'm in math, if you'd believe it."
Kara arches an eyebrow again, then grins, "Well.. Television and kitchen I have a problem with.. boyfriend? Nope, don't have that problem. Luckily me and a lot of electronics don't get along, though, so I don't have any gaming systems to distract me, or the computer. I have a computer, but it doesn't distract me." She notes thoughtfully, before she asks, "So why do you have so many medical books if you're a mathematics major?" Yep, her curiosity is piqued now.
"My computer is more work than play," Natalie answers, working on tugging her messenger bag over her head so she can slide said laptop out. "Oh-- not a math major," she corrects absently. "Grad student. Mathematician. I'm doing some work with neural imaging and patterns."
Kara ohhhs slowly and nods, eyeing the laptop warily. Yeah, she has no desire to zap Natalie's laptop. "Trying to figure out why people only use 10 percent of their brains?" Attampting to joke, she glances down at her 'P' volume of the encyclopedia, flipping it open absently.
"Some people manage a bit more these days," Natalie answers with a short, sideways smile.
Nodding slowly, Kara smiles. "We can only hope." She muses, before glancing at the books again, "So are you a grad student here at Emerson, or do you just use their library?" It is a rather impressive library, though nothing of course to the New York Library. Just usually a bit less crowded. Sometimes.
"Oh, no, I'm at Columbia," Natalie answers, and if there is a faint upturn to her nose, a whiff of academic snobbery, it remains /faint/. A press of a button urges the laptop to life and Natalie stands considering her pile of books before adding, "I work in a lab here. At the Shaw Research Center?" It's the big shiny building, new this year, where all the cool kids get to play with cool toys!
Kara ahhhs and nods, grinning a bit. "I'm a creative writing major, so.. I don't get to go there often. Or.. at all, yet. Though I'm sure they'll try to stick me with some sort of science Gen Ed requirement." She says quietly, smirking slightly. "Why'd you choose mathematics, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Oh, creative /writing/," Natalie answers, and there's a hint of teasing in her voice as she tugs one book this way and shoves another that way. "Don't worry, you'll do a little of everything before you're out-- oh? Well. I majored in math and physics as an undergrad, but math's what appealed to me most," Natalie answers with a shrug. "Once I got into pattern theory, that was pretty much it for me."
Kara nods and smiles, "I know. I started at the University of Maine, but they didn't have th eprogram I wanted, so I just did Gen Eds there. They wanted more of a little bit of everything than Emerson does, I think." She says with another smile, leaning back in her chair, flipping through the encyclopedia a little more.
"You transferred here from /Maine/?" Natalie wonders, brows raising just a touch. "Goodness. That's a bit of a trip."
Laughing at Natalie's reaction, Kara just grins and nods. "Seven hours. Not too bad, really." She shrugs and smiles. "I have a relative in ALbany, so we used to come out here all the time." Another grin is given, before she shrugs, "Maine is... small. Not in land mass, but in people. The entire population could fit on Manhattan island with plenty of room to spare. And you always hear about New York, see it on TV, etc. It just got me curious.. I was looking to get out of Maine anyway. I still think that that's one of Maine's biggest exports.. Young people. It seems everyone my age is looking to leave."
"Yeah, well, that's /Manhattan/," Natalie points out with a brief grin. Books apparently arranged to her satisfaction, she takes her chair and considers Kara in silence for a moment. Then she asks, "So how do you find it, then?"
Kara leans back and thinks about that seriously for a few moments. "Scary. New York CIty is the boogeyman for adults. I came here, and I remembered every single story I'd ever heard about it. It's intimidating for someone used to living in a largely rural society, but it also is cold. People can be really rude here, and not very sociable. I used to get people randomly talking to me in grocery stores. Here, no one really even looks at you." Pausing, she thinks, and then smiles. "And yet, there's an amazing vitality to the city. It's interesting, and I'm always finding some new inspiration for a character or situation in one of my stories. It's fascinating, especially going around looking at the architecture. Some of the city is so old. I love history as well, so that's one reason I like to look at things like that."
Natalie doesn't quite laugh, although her smile widens and lights her eyes. "It's not that people are rude," she shares, leaning back a touch. "It's that most people who've been in New York for any length of time have gotten seriously burnt at one point or another. Especially these days, you know? It's not always /safe/ to talk to strangers."
Grinning, Kara nods, "I know. I never thought about that in Maine, because really, the crim rates are pretty low. It's still largely rural. The biggest city is 67,000 people, last I checked. If that makes me naive, then so be it. I think I'd rather be naive at this point about common courtesies. It's not just talking to people.. it's saying 'excuse me' if you run into someone, or holding the door open for the person coming in behind you. Of course, that's fading most everywhere, but here it just seems like it's so much worse." Stopping her rambling, she just chuckles and shakes her head, "Sorry. I think this is the first time anyone's actually asked me how I liked the city, so I've got it a bit pent up."
Natalie waves her hand absently, head shaking. "Oh, it doesn't bother me. I'm from /Ohio/. Trust me, I see the differences. It's not really a lack of courtesy though-- just. Think of it as a cultural difference. People do what they have to to get by."
Kara shrugs again and smiles. "Well, if I saw someone coming in the door of a store behind me, and I didn't hold the door for them, my mom would kill me. So I guess it's what was trained into me. To me, it just seems like something you do to be nice." THinking for a few moments again, she then adds, "Maybe it is just a cultural difference, but it comes across as being rather rude. And I don't see how survival can depend on whether you hold the door open for someone or not." Her voice sounds amused, though, and she finally finds what she's looking for in the encyclopedia, apparently.
"Only if you're not from the area," Natalie reminds before she shakes her head and laughs briefly. "It's not that the door is - it's that holding a door is like, a silent invitation. It opens you up, you know?"
Once again shrugging her shoulders, Kara chuckles softly. "To be honest, no, I don't know. That's like saying that if a guy brings you flowers he wants into your pants. Now, that may be true anyway, but instantly reading that intention into something like that is.. well.. rather cynical. Perhaps I'm just too much of an idealist. I like to think the best of people. Though that's a little hard in this city." A wry smile curls her lips, and she just grins. "Still, I have found quite a few people who are pleasant. I haven't met one person who lives in my apartment building who isn't nice, yet. And none of them are scary creepy or anything, either."
"Yeah, but then one day you'll be having coffee at your favorite place and a pair of mutants will be going at it, put something through the front window, and then send the place up in flames," Natalie answers bluntly. "Or someone will break into your next door neighbor's house by literally breaking the door down and carry them off just because they can. Or some guy whose advances you reject will corner you and drug you--" She breaks off then, expression gone abruptly dark.
Kara frowns a little, before she shrugs her shoulders a little. "Maybe." She says non-commitally. "But maybe it won't. I'm not going to plan for any eventuality that may or may not happen. My mind may change if something like that happened to me. I try to take things as they come." A small chuckle is given as she scans the encyclopedia slightly, hmmming to herself quietly.
"I know someone who experienced all of those in the past year," Natalie tells Kara quietly. "It's not really a 'may or may not', not in New York. Not anymore."
Kara smiles softly again, before she nods. "I know. But all of those in one year? I think that's still a may or may not. Again, I deal with things as they come. I've spent the last two months being afraid of the city, of not wanting to go out of my apartment because of every bad story I've heard. Everyone has had a bad experience of one type or another. I got sick of being in a constant state of fear."
Natalie makes a noncommittal noise, head shaking slightly as she glances down to her computer and focuses, for the moment, on pulling her work into life.
Finally looking back to her encyclopedia, Kara turns and starts taking notes in her notebook with her right hand, while her left finger trails along the sentence that she's copying. She attempts to find everything that she needs in this volume, chewing on the cap of her pen slightly in thought, before she starts taking a few more notes.
With Kara lapsing into silence, Natalie's soon lost to the task of scanning her own books for information, fingers flying over the keyboard in a quiet clacking of keys.
Suddenly, Kara seems to remember her rudeness, and she looks up, smiling. "I'm Kara, by the way. Sorry." Putting her pen down, she stretches her hand out over the table, offering it to the other woman.
"Hm?" Natalie's distracted, now, and it takes a moment for her brain to return from its concentration before she offers a vague smile and her hand. "Oh. Natalie."
After what feels like a brief static shock, which makes Kara wince, she shakes Natalie's hand. "Nice to meet you." She says with a nod of her head, withdrawing her hand quietly. After that, she falls silent again, not knowing what else to say.
Natalie rubs her hand briskly against her thigh as she pulls back, frowning slightly, and then nods. "Sure, you too," she answers. Silence is allowed to linger in favor of work.
Suddenly thinking of something, Kara looks up and around, spotting the clock, her eyes widening, "Oh, shoot!" She cries, closing the book and stuffing her notebook back in her bag. "I have to go. I have so much work to do tonight, I shouldn't be fooling around with this.." This is half said to Natalie, half to herself. She smiles at Natalie then, and says, "It was nice talking to you. Good luck with your research!"
"Sure," Natalie replies absently, lifting her fingers for a faint wiggle farewell, although she doesn't bother to look up. Such is the way of academic distraction, when it sets in. She's back to work long before Kara disappears.
A meeting in the library.
=NYC= Fiske Library - Emerson University
Handsome in its gray stone and flourishing gardens, the Fiske Library is easily accessed off the main quad by a short series of steps. Within, the Library is a thorough collection of books, magazines, films, and electronic data all freely available for students as well as college visitors to use. A favorite hang-out for campus bookworms, peace can be found easily amidst the tall shelves, or working away at one of the computers in their respective section. Tables, chairs, and occasionally the odd couch are distributed throughout the building for students who wish to do their research and studying there instead of back at their dorms.
It's after her afternoon class, and Kara has decided to hit the library before heading home. She has her messenger bag with her, carrying whatever books and such she needed for her class, as well as a few books and her journal, to keep her occupied. Looking up at the signs hanging at the ends of the library aisle, she smiles and slips down the one with all the encyclopedia volumes in it, quickly grabbing one before going to find a seat.
Natalie appears around a corner, arms piled high with thick reference books that threaten to topple from their Leaning Tower of Academics. She's barely visible behind it, ponytail swinging with movement as she stumbles up to Kara's table and lets her load sliiiiide to its surface with a faint sigh of relief. Only then, leaning to snatch at a stray with quick hands, does Natalie notice Kara. "Oh," she says, smile faint and apologetic. "Sorry. I was kind of afraid I was losing them."
Kara looks up and reaches out quickly to catch the books should they fall. Offering Natalie a friendly smile, she shakes her head a little. "No problem. I know how it is." She looks at the pile of books speculatively. "A little light reading?" She jokes, giggling a little, before smiling and pulling a notebook out of her bag, which she set beside her on the table.
The books, such as they are, tend toward basic encyclopedias and dictionaries on the subject of neurology, with the odd genetics work thrown in for good measure. Natalie's smile turns rueful as she sweeps a hand back over her ponytail and then pushes her glasses back on the bridge of her nose with the press of a thumb. "Pretty much," she returns. "Me, the library, and a Thursday afternoon. My idea of a relaxing time."
Kara laughs. "I usually read at home. But this place has an amazing selection of reference material." She notes, looking around slowly before she glances over the spines of Natalie's books again. "Are you in the medical field?" She asks curiously, arching an eyebrow slightly/
"I get way more done if there's not a television in front of me, a kitchen to my side, and a boyfriend next door," Natalie answers with half a laugh before she glances down at the titles and then shakes her head. "Ha. No, I'm in math, if you'd believe it."
Kara arches an eyebrow again, then grins, "Well.. Television and kitchen I have a problem with.. boyfriend? Nope, don't have that problem. Luckily me and a lot of electronics don't get along, though, so I don't have any gaming systems to distract me, or the computer. I have a computer, but it doesn't distract me." She notes thoughtfully, before she asks, "So why do you have so many medical books if you're a mathematics major?" Yep, her curiosity is piqued now.
"My computer is more work than play," Natalie answers, working on tugging her messenger bag over her head so she can slide said laptop out. "Oh-- not a math major," she corrects absently. "Grad student. Mathematician. I'm doing some work with neural imaging and patterns."
Kara ohhhs slowly and nods, eyeing the laptop warily. Yeah, she has no desire to zap Natalie's laptop. "Trying to figure out why people only use 10 percent of their brains?" Attampting to joke, she glances down at her 'P' volume of the encyclopedia, flipping it open absently.
"Some people manage a bit more these days," Natalie answers with a short, sideways smile.
Nodding slowly, Kara smiles. "We can only hope." She muses, before glancing at the books again, "So are you a grad student here at Emerson, or do you just use their library?" It is a rather impressive library, though nothing of course to the New York Library. Just usually a bit less crowded. Sometimes.
"Oh, no, I'm at Columbia," Natalie answers, and if there is a faint upturn to her nose, a whiff of academic snobbery, it remains /faint/. A press of a button urges the laptop to life and Natalie stands considering her pile of books before adding, "I work in a lab here. At the Shaw Research Center?" It's the big shiny building, new this year, where all the cool kids get to play with cool toys!
Kara ahhhs and nods, grinning a bit. "I'm a creative writing major, so.. I don't get to go there often. Or.. at all, yet. Though I'm sure they'll try to stick me with some sort of science Gen Ed requirement." She says quietly, smirking slightly. "Why'd you choose mathematics, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Oh, creative /writing/," Natalie answers, and there's a hint of teasing in her voice as she tugs one book this way and shoves another that way. "Don't worry, you'll do a little of everything before you're out-- oh? Well. I majored in math and physics as an undergrad, but math's what appealed to me most," Natalie answers with a shrug. "Once I got into pattern theory, that was pretty much it for me."
Kara nods and smiles, "I know. I started at the University of Maine, but they didn't have th eprogram I wanted, so I just did Gen Eds there. They wanted more of a little bit of everything than Emerson does, I think." She says with another smile, leaning back in her chair, flipping through the encyclopedia a little more.
"You transferred here from /Maine/?" Natalie wonders, brows raising just a touch. "Goodness. That's a bit of a trip."
Laughing at Natalie's reaction, Kara just grins and nods. "Seven hours. Not too bad, really." She shrugs and smiles. "I have a relative in ALbany, so we used to come out here all the time." Another grin is given, before she shrugs, "Maine is... small. Not in land mass, but in people. The entire population could fit on Manhattan island with plenty of room to spare. And you always hear about New York, see it on TV, etc. It just got me curious.. I was looking to get out of Maine anyway. I still think that that's one of Maine's biggest exports.. Young people. It seems everyone my age is looking to leave."
"Yeah, well, that's /Manhattan/," Natalie points out with a brief grin. Books apparently arranged to her satisfaction, she takes her chair and considers Kara in silence for a moment. Then she asks, "So how do you find it, then?"
Kara leans back and thinks about that seriously for a few moments. "Scary. New York CIty is the boogeyman for adults. I came here, and I remembered every single story I'd ever heard about it. It's intimidating for someone used to living in a largely rural society, but it also is cold. People can be really rude here, and not very sociable. I used to get people randomly talking to me in grocery stores. Here, no one really even looks at you." Pausing, she thinks, and then smiles. "And yet, there's an amazing vitality to the city. It's interesting, and I'm always finding some new inspiration for a character or situation in one of my stories. It's fascinating, especially going around looking at the architecture. Some of the city is so old. I love history as well, so that's one reason I like to look at things like that."
Natalie doesn't quite laugh, although her smile widens and lights her eyes. "It's not that people are rude," she shares, leaning back a touch. "It's that most people who've been in New York for any length of time have gotten seriously burnt at one point or another. Especially these days, you know? It's not always /safe/ to talk to strangers."
Grinning, Kara nods, "I know. I never thought about that in Maine, because really, the crim rates are pretty low. It's still largely rural. The biggest city is 67,000 people, last I checked. If that makes me naive, then so be it. I think I'd rather be naive at this point about common courtesies. It's not just talking to people.. it's saying 'excuse me' if you run into someone, or holding the door open for the person coming in behind you. Of course, that's fading most everywhere, but here it just seems like it's so much worse." Stopping her rambling, she just chuckles and shakes her head, "Sorry. I think this is the first time anyone's actually asked me how I liked the city, so I've got it a bit pent up."
Natalie waves her hand absently, head shaking. "Oh, it doesn't bother me. I'm from /Ohio/. Trust me, I see the differences. It's not really a lack of courtesy though-- just. Think of it as a cultural difference. People do what they have to to get by."
Kara shrugs again and smiles. "Well, if I saw someone coming in the door of a store behind me, and I didn't hold the door for them, my mom would kill me. So I guess it's what was trained into me. To me, it just seems like something you do to be nice." THinking for a few moments again, she then adds, "Maybe it is just a cultural difference, but it comes across as being rather rude. And I don't see how survival can depend on whether you hold the door open for someone or not." Her voice sounds amused, though, and she finally finds what she's looking for in the encyclopedia, apparently.
"Only if you're not from the area," Natalie reminds before she shakes her head and laughs briefly. "It's not that the door is - it's that holding a door is like, a silent invitation. It opens you up, you know?"
Once again shrugging her shoulders, Kara chuckles softly. "To be honest, no, I don't know. That's like saying that if a guy brings you flowers he wants into your pants. Now, that may be true anyway, but instantly reading that intention into something like that is.. well.. rather cynical. Perhaps I'm just too much of an idealist. I like to think the best of people. Though that's a little hard in this city." A wry smile curls her lips, and she just grins. "Still, I have found quite a few people who are pleasant. I haven't met one person who lives in my apartment building who isn't nice, yet. And none of them are scary creepy or anything, either."
"Yeah, but then one day you'll be having coffee at your favorite place and a pair of mutants will be going at it, put something through the front window, and then send the place up in flames," Natalie answers bluntly. "Or someone will break into your next door neighbor's house by literally breaking the door down and carry them off just because they can. Or some guy whose advances you reject will corner you and drug you--" She breaks off then, expression gone abruptly dark.
Kara frowns a little, before she shrugs her shoulders a little. "Maybe." She says non-commitally. "But maybe it won't. I'm not going to plan for any eventuality that may or may not happen. My mind may change if something like that happened to me. I try to take things as they come." A small chuckle is given as she scans the encyclopedia slightly, hmmming to herself quietly.
"I know someone who experienced all of those in the past year," Natalie tells Kara quietly. "It's not really a 'may or may not', not in New York. Not anymore."
Kara smiles softly again, before she nods. "I know. But all of those in one year? I think that's still a may or may not. Again, I deal with things as they come. I've spent the last two months being afraid of the city, of not wanting to go out of my apartment because of every bad story I've heard. Everyone has had a bad experience of one type or another. I got sick of being in a constant state of fear."
Natalie makes a noncommittal noise, head shaking slightly as she glances down to her computer and focuses, for the moment, on pulling her work into life.
Finally looking back to her encyclopedia, Kara turns and starts taking notes in her notebook with her right hand, while her left finger trails along the sentence that she's copying. She attempts to find everything that she needs in this volume, chewing on the cap of her pen slightly in thought, before she starts taking a few more notes.
With Kara lapsing into silence, Natalie's soon lost to the task of scanning her own books for information, fingers flying over the keyboard in a quiet clacking of keys.
Suddenly, Kara seems to remember her rudeness, and she looks up, smiling. "I'm Kara, by the way. Sorry." Putting her pen down, she stretches her hand out over the table, offering it to the other woman.
"Hm?" Natalie's distracted, now, and it takes a moment for her brain to return from its concentration before she offers a vague smile and her hand. "Oh. Natalie."
After what feels like a brief static shock, which makes Kara wince, she shakes Natalie's hand. "Nice to meet you." She says with a nod of her head, withdrawing her hand quietly. After that, she falls silent again, not knowing what else to say.
Natalie rubs her hand briskly against her thigh as she pulls back, frowning slightly, and then nods. "Sure, you too," she answers. Silence is allowed to linger in favor of work.
Suddenly thinking of something, Kara looks up and around, spotting the clock, her eyes widening, "Oh, shoot!" She cries, closing the book and stuffing her notebook back in her bag. "I have to go. I have so much work to do tonight, I shouldn't be fooling around with this.." This is half said to Natalie, half to herself. She smiles at Natalie then, and says, "It was nice talking to you. Good luck with your research!"
"Sure," Natalie replies absently, lifting her fingers for a faint wiggle farewell, although she doesn't bother to look up. Such is the way of academic distraction, when it sets in. She's back to work long before Kara disappears.
A meeting in the library.