Early days

Part 2

Spocks point of view:

Spock gathered the last things before leaving his office. He had proximately 15 minutes before he had to be at the classroom. He preferred to arrive at the classroom at precisely two minutes before the lesson were scheduled to start.

He frowned for a moment while reflecting on the nature of humans, in particular the cadets attending this year's advanced xenolinguistics. He had heard them whisper about him on the way out of the classroom when he dismissed the class, and that were something he was getting quite used to. Often he tried to ignore their whispers as it was obviously not intended for him to hear. However, his students tended to forget that his ears were quite a bit more sensitive than the human ear.

Thus he had heard, once again the rebellious mumbling about how he wanted the impossible and how he taught things that would never be utilised. Humans expressing this kind of emotions were not unusual; he rather thought he had heard them too often since he had agreed on teaching a class for the Academy.

Still he was confused by this behaviour. On Vulcan, in his childhood, the thought of giving vent to any kind of dissatisfaction concerning a teacher, instructor or master would never even have occurred to him. Humans tended to be offended if one discovered an error they had made, which confused Spock regularly. They failed to appreciate that the fact that he were pointing out their mistakes were for the benefit of them selves. How would they improve if they did not see their mistakes? Spock checked his internal clock and discovered that it was time to go. He took his PADD and headed for the classroom.

Spock fixed his gaze slightly above the blonde-haired cadet. "As you can clearly see Ms. Henningsen, you have overlooked the volume of 'h'*ari-* in your cross-referencing. In a training situation such as this it will have no greater consequence. However, should you make a mistake such as this when serving on a Star Ship; you would have risked interplanetary war. Perhaps one can request that until you have mastered the basic greetings, you might remain here on earth, as to not create a rebellion on the outer planets?"

The rest of the class tensed. Gitte, the blonde cadet, went almost scarlet from the neck up. Spock turned to the projector and resumed his lecture.

He was interrupted by a voice which sounded quite hysterical. "You know what Commander?" He turned and found the cadet with his eyes.

"Ms Henningsen, you have something to contribute?" He said, giving her permission to speak.

"I think I'm done with this. I don't really feel like taking any more remarks about how I am going to cause this war and that war. It can't possibly be that bad. You're always exaggerating, trying to make us nervous!"

"Cadet Henningsen. You mistakenly translated the sentence "We will be glad to see you" to something along the lines of "We are going to kick your teeth in". In what way do you expect that to calm the settlers on the outer mining planets?" He raised his eyebrow and tilted his head, whilst regarding her with neutral eyes.

She stuttered a bit before slamming her PADD down on her desk. "Well! If I'm such a moron I guess I should be somewhere else!" She furiously threw her belongings in her backpack. She paused and looked up on him.

Spock said nothing, while she gathered her things, but when she paused he took the opportunity. "I would appreciate if you could collect you belongings with some haste Ms Henningsen. There is still quite the schedule we have to cover today, and as you will no longer participate, I see no reason in you prolonging your stay here."

The cadet stared at him with disbelief, threw the last of her things in her bag and marched out. The rest of the cadets were suddenly very quiet. Spock continued his lecture. About an hour later he realized that most of the cadets had not been listening for quite some time. They seemed preoccupied with sending notes to each other, or had just subsided into some kind of passive stare out the window.

He debated with him self for about 2:23 seconds to start over, but realized that this was with certainty a lesson lost. "Attention cadets." He said, making his voice sharper, which made them all take notice. "Since it appears you have all mentally excused yourself from this lesson you are all physically excused as well. That will be all for today… However I expect you all to pay more attention next week. Dismissed." He turned his back to them, and heard them rattle and shuffle to get out as quick as possible.

When finally there was quiet Spock allowed himself to feel a hint of frustration. In his mind he ran the situation again and even though he might have gotten a bit irritated in the end, he could not find any reason why the entire class should stop thinking because one cadet decided to quit the class.

He shook his head ever so slightly and even mumbled to him self, "Illogical". He gathered his thoughts and turned to collect his PADD. When he looked up he saw cadet Uhura standing in the door.

"Ms Uhura. Did you have a question?" he asked her, trying to regain some dignity. He hoped she had not heard him mumbling to himself.

"No Commander. I… Well, yes. I actually do have a question…" She approached him hesitantly. When she was by his desk she stood still. "Mr. Spock, I just wondered if it was necessary, what you did to day? I mean Gitte… Ms Henningsen was really upset, and maybe…" She paused"… Maybe you could have done that differently.." She held her bag tight in her hands, looking like she was expecting a thunderstorm.

Spock regarded her and came to the conclusion that Ms Uhura weren't there to verbally abuse or throw, what he had experienced from humans before, a tantrum. "Doubtless you are right Ms Uhura that I do not always choose the right words in accordance to human temperament. It seems like I sometimes offends where the purpose is to state a logical fact"

He looked down and frowned. "In fact, I confess, you humans tend to be so overwrought with feelings that I find it is often quite difficult to predict your responses. I did not foresee Ms Henningsen quitting the class, and I admit to not being able to prevent more cadets to do the same." He felt the frustration again. It was not an enjoyable situation, to have a problem one could not solve by applying logic.

"Commander… Mr. Spock… Can I make a suggestion?" she looked up at him, and he grew curious. "Well, you see, you, sometimes, have a tendency to focus on the errors we have made. Humans don't really respond to that very well. We might learn better if you mentioned what we had done that were correct…" He stood with his hands at his back and slightly tilted head. "Your students are scared of you Mr. Spock. Humans are not easy to teach anything if we are scared. Make us feel safe, and I guarantee the class, as a whole, will improve."

Spock allowed a small furrow to his brow "It is illogical to ignore the fact that there have been made an error. If one do not see the error how can one avoid the same error in the future?"

"Maybe you could point out something positive after you have mentioned the mistake?" She looked into his eyes, clearly trying to figure out how he was receiving her advice. None of them spoke for a while.

The silence seemed to make her uneasy. He once again regretted that he seemed to make others nervous. He appreciated Ms. Uhura making the effort of returning and explaining this to him. Still she appeared not to harbour the same degree of uneasiness he usually saw in the rest of the students. He surmised that her present tension of the shoulders and the way she had a very tense grip of her PADD was due to this particular situation.

"Your suggestion would be a compromise I can accept." He said and saw her body language relax. He paused. "Ms Uhura… You mention fear as an emotion that is prominent in this class… I do not detect any signs of fear on your part… Am I correct in assuming this is a… Feeling… you do not experience during my lessons?"

He saw her thinking about it and suddenly she looked him in the eyes with a steady gaze. "I see no reason to fear you, Mr Spock." She said with what, to his ears, sounded like a mixture of surprise and certainty.

He regarded her. She had a dignity and grace about her that was undeniable. It reminded him of the women of his home planet except that in Ms Uhuras case, she had a softness, a compassion that made her come back and defend a cadet which had already quit the course. It was like she drew strength from that softness, and still she was to date the most stubborn, most persistent student he had ever encountered.

He also found time to appreciate the symmetry of her features and the way her jaw line told of a strong will and at the same time perfectly complemented the rest of her features. Her eyes were always very expressive and shone with whatever feeling she was experiencing at the moment. Right now they seemed to convey fascination and maybe some nervousness.

Spock realized that he had been staring at her for more than would ever be considered appropriate in either of the worlds he was from. He looked away and berated himself for letting his guard down, even if it was just for a moment. When he looked back at her she was looking down at her PADD and fiddling with some dials.

Pulling himself together he thanked her. "I am thankful that you would take the time to point out an aspect of the lessons which I can improve, Ms Uhura. I will rectify the situation promptly." He very carefully made sure he did not look into her eyes, but in his periphery vision he saw her smile and relax.

"That's alright Mr. Spock. I just wanted to help…" She turned and headed for the doors. When she was just about to leave she seemed to pause, and Spock though still avoiding to watch her were aware of her hesitation. She stood there for 2.09 seconds before leaving with the doors sliding shut behind her.