3: Around the world in half a day
"What do you mean Arnold isn't the coolest character on the Magic School Bus?" said Aelita with a mock face of disbelief as the bells rang to signal the start of another day of classes.
Having finished breakfast earlier than usual due to altercations with evil forces at the break of dawn, Aelita, Jeremie and Ulrich were already inside room 222. While Ulrich was feverishly running over his script with Melanie, his friends were arguing over a children's television program.
"Well…he chickens out of Ms. Frizzle's field trips all the time: 'I knew I should've stayed home today'", Jeremie scoffed. "I mean who wouldn't want to go around the solar system in a day? Now Dorothy Ann–"
"But he's–"
"Oh my. Talking about boring educational TV shows again are we?" came a sneering voice from none other than:
Elizabeth 'Sissi' Delmas
Age: 16
Rating: -1/10
Fun facts:
Some people don't like being called a sissy. Not her.
Her favourite class is shopping and her least favourite class is physical education. Sadly, shopping is not in the curriculum.
Once again, she was making fun of Mr. and Mrs. Einstein – or so she liked to call them. And as usual, she was flanked by a short, weedy-looking kid with sweeping black hair:
Herb Pichon
Age: 16
Rating: [cos(60) x 10] /10
Fun facts:
He sees himself as Jeremie's prime academic rival.
Derived Herb's equation of superiority: Herb Jeremie. Has yet to be proven.
She was also accompanied by a blonde-haired boy who looked like a rock star, yet sported a rather dumbfounded expression:
Nicholas Poliakoff
Age: 16
Rating: F (for fail, not female or fantastic)
Fun facts:
Ever seen a report card with straight F's? Nicholas's parents have.
He thinks 'soccer' is spelt with 2 k's and a q (sokkqer).
"Oh come on, Sissi. Just leave them alone," said Ulrich, looking up from his papers.
"Sorry, Ulrich dear. But honestly, the Magic School Bus? Who watches a show that makes science fun?"
"People who want to learn about the real world and enjoy a dose of humour at the same time. Seriously, just because you can't understand that Mars is the fourth planet from the sun–"
"Alright class, settle down," said Mrs. Hertz, their homeform teacher. The room immediately fell silent as Sissi scowled and went to her seat.
Suzanne Hertz
Age: 58
Teaches: Science, Social Sciences
Rating: A+++
Factual facts:
She was once a professor at Oxford University in the United Kingdom (aka Great Britain).
Teaching ideology: strictness gives you results…unless Odd Della Robia is in your class.
…But, where was Odd? That was what Mrs. Hertz was wondering as well. Usually, teachers check attendance in alphabetical order. Unlike usual teachers though, Mrs. Hertz always looked for Odd first; who showed up seconds later with an egg sandwich in his mouth.
"Mr. Della Robia, you're late again, and it's on a presentation day as well. I don't care if you were still hungry, but coming in to class after the bell is absolutely unacceptable and disrespectful to your classmates. I'm going to take fifteen percent off your mark from your presentation. Now hurry up and sit down."
Mr. Late's eyes widened, but he made no attempt to speak his case, fearful of losing even more marks. Sissi, on the other hand was livid that her partner had just ensured that the highest mark they could achieve was an eighty five.
"That's not fair Mrs. Hertz! Why should I be punished just because Mr. Eat-a-lot over there was too busy stuffing his face?"
"If you were truly concerned about your grades, then it should be your responsibility to ensure that your partner comes to class on time."
Pwn'd, thought Ulrich. While he did feel sorry for Odd, he'd take a Sissi letdown any day.
"Now, I hope you've all been working hard on these projects. So let's get right down to business." Mrs. Hertz took out a box that was filled with slips of paper that had the group members' names written on them. She then placed her hand in and picked out the first presenters.
Ulrich crossed his fingers. Please don't be me please don't be me please don't be me.
"And the first group to present…good grief Ulrich it isn't you, so stop acting like you're about to perform open heart surgery. The first group, well…first individual to present, Jeremie."
Since there were an odd number of students in the class, Jeremie had volunteered to work alone. And with a little help from a nearby supercomputer, conducting research on Japan and turning it into a multimedia seminar was no challenge at all. He didn't mind going first; it was better this way. He had received permission to leave after he had finished, which meant that he could go work on LYOKO stuff; including an interesting idea he just thought up of regarding Aelita's avatar modification.
Ulrich was relieved. Unfortunately, he forgot one of the important codes of in-class presentations:
Pres. Code #1
Some teachers mark easier for the first presenter, who sets the evaluation standards since there's no one else to base them on.
- In this case, since Jeremie 'Einstein' Belpois is going first, not only is Mrs. Hertz going to mark easier on him, but he is the one who sets the standard...a very HIGH standard.
"Good morning fellow classmates. Today, be prepared to embark on an exciting adventure in Japan; the land of the rising sun."
Already, some students looked disinterested. Clearly, Mrs. Hertz forgot about another presentation code when she assigned this project:
Pres. Code #23
PowerPoint presentations are boring. Especially when you have to watch a lot of them for several hours in a row. Physical symptoms include an urge to doodle, daydream and feel distress and despair.
Even though Jeremie's slideshow contained an immense amount of information, his visuals were amazing. He included breathtaking images and clips of Japan's landscape, and even a video on how to make a California roll; courtesy of Yumi's mother. Unfortunately, he couldn't prevent Presentation Code Item 23 from taking effect: Odd had started to doodle, Sissi had started to daydream and Ulrich was well on his way to feeling distressed.
"In conclusion, from Mount Fuji to Mitsubishi Motors, from sakura blossoms to the longest suspension bridge in the world – Japan is a nation of unparalleled beauty and splendour."
Most students clapped politely, while Aelita (one of the few that had listened attentively) gave him a thumbs-up. Mrs. Hertz finished jotting down notes on her evaluation sheet and asked Jeremie to choose the next group from the box.
"Well done. The next group will be...Odd and Elizabeth."
"Good luck, I'll catch up with you guys later," said Jeremie as he packed up and left.
Odd strutted towards the front of the classroom. Elizabeth – or Sissi, was right behind him and still fuming over the marks she lost to an egg sandwich.
"Don't worry, Sissi…it's all under control. And if you went on Wikipedia more often, you would know that!" For once, Odd did most of the work in the project, so it was unclear as to why Sissi was complaining. Odd then turned to address the class.
"The Pyramids! The Eiffel Tower! The Great Wall of China! All of these are great feats of engineering! But…you won't find any of these at the place we're going to be talking about!"
Some laughed at what promised to be a very entertaining presentation.
"Yep – prepare to be intrigued and astonished by the wonderful, wickedly-wicked country of…" he trailed, pointing at Sissi to finish it off.
"Umm…right! Great Britain!"
All in all, the project went pretty smoothly. Sissi stuttered a bit from not rehearsing as much, but she was good at improv and was able to keep along. On the other hand, Odd just blew the audience away with his energetic presentation skills – hand gestures, expression and sense of humour – all the goodies of a good performance.
"And that's what makes Great Britain so gggrrrrrreat!" said Odd with a Tony the Tiger emphasis on 'great'. The whole class cheered.
"Well, I must say that your presentation was…interesting, but you two may want to check some of your facts."
"What?" exclaimed Sissi. "But we used an encyclopaedia!"
"Indeed you did. And it was the only reference in your assignment. First of all, one of the requirements was that you were to have at least three different references. And you should know that anyone can edit Wikipedia articles and falsify them. The last time I checked, the currency in the UK is the pound, not the Euro…and the River Thames is not the second longest river in the world."
"Those Wikipedia bastards…" cursed Odd as the rest of the class laughed.
Some of the following presentations were indeed entertaining and informative, while others failed to get their point across. Herb failed before he even uttered a single word; his PowerPoint failed to upload due to a compatibility issue. Naturally, Herb and his partner weren't amused that they got a zero, which meant that he most likely lost to Jeremie. Again.
Next was Nicholas on the United States of America. How hard could it be to conduct research on the foremost superpower in the world? Very. It was Nicholas, after all. In fact, his partner had decided to do the assignment on her own, due to 'conflicts of interest'. Twenty minutes later, the class had only remembered that America was the birthplace of McDonalds, and that they were getting quite hungry themselves.
On the other hand, Aelita and Heidi featured the 'Land Down Under' in a way that would have made Zoboomafoo a happy lemur. They captivated the class with clips of 'finding Nemo' in the Great Barrier Reef and the Australian Outback with its host of amazing creatures such as koalas, duck-billed platypuses and of course, kangaroos.
Pres. Code #17
Interesting videos and/or images can enhance your PowerPoint. For effectiveness with most girls and some boys, try incorporating baby animal pictures.
- Baby kangaroos for the win – even Sissi admitted they were super cute.
YUMI
Meanwhile in classroom 113...
Mathematics was a subject of two extremes. Most students either loved the subject, or despised it to oblivion.
Yumi was sort of in between. She wasn't the type of person who aced all her tests, actively participated in class and slept with her math textbook. However, she knew the subject was critical to everything in life; including her post-secondary applications and future endeavours. Yumi didn't really have too much difficulty understanding the concepts, it was the higher-order thinking problems that proved to be a struggle and prevented her from getting into the A+ range.
They were still reviewing material from last year, and today's topic was Yumi's kryptonite.
Trigonometry.
Compared to other concepts, trig was hard for her to grasp; there were so many rules, special cases and formulas to comprehend. In addition, Yumi's mind was too busy focusing on other things.
Time seemed to zip by since she first stepped into Kadic Academy four years ago. And within ten months, she would graduate and move on. Yumi still hadn't decided where she wanted to go or what she wanted to study; although she always had an interest and aptitude in media arts. Of course, this also meant that she would have to retire as a LYOKO warrior. Without any employment benefits or pensions. Would they be able to defeat XANA and rescue William before that? And yet, there were still so many unanswered questions: Aelita's backstory, the 'Men in Black'… Of course, there was one more...thing that had been bugging her for the past year.
Ulrich.
Ever since preschool, Yumi's was always seen as being different because of her Japanese background. She had different customs; a different way of life. Whereas other kids brought lunch bags with sandwiches, Yumi had a bento rice box. Even though she excelled in her academics, no one besides her teachers would talk to her. Those who did were usually senseless male students who wanted to ask her out; and were promptly rejected. After all, they were only interested in her physical appearance, and nothing else. She had grown pretty tall and also developed more pronounced curves – particularly her chest – while maintaining her neck-length black hair and sleek dark outfit.
Yes, it was without a doubt that Yumi Ishiyama was hot.
But Ulrich wasn't like the others.
She remembered the first time they met, how she beat him in martial arts. But she was surprised by how he readily accepted her as just being someone to talk to, someone to hang out with when homework was completed. Ulrich also introduced her to 'Never a Dull Day' Odd and Jeremie. And two months later, Aelita would become her best confidante. Just like Jeremie, Yumi found out through being a member of Team LYOKO, that friends…weren't all that bad.
When William arrived, Yumi was initially glad that she had someone to talk to in class who shared a lot of common traits. Both were seen as outcasts and frequently squabbled with their parents. But as William started acting like a cocky cock and getting 'too close to her personal bubble', she decided that she no longer wanted to have anything to do with him.
Her mind wandered back to Ulrich and the moments. Sure, sometimes she had no idea why he did some of the things he did. He could be a complete fool at times – the pool incident among many others. Nevertheless, she admired his kindness, such as that time Sissi made fun of a young Milly for asking Ulrich to the dance. A hopeless crush. But he said yes anyways.
There was also that time when they were at the factory and Jeremie was programming away. She didn't get much sleep the night before and the factory was quite cold that morning. So, she rested her head on a snoring Ulrich's shoulder. It was pretty warm and cozy, and Yumi ended up dozing off. This made for a pretty cute picture on Odd's camera.
Then there was that time on LYOKO, when Ulrich saved her from falling into the Digital Sea...they had almost ki…
In the end, she told him that she wanted to remain as friends. Yumi felt that she wasn't ready yet. Already overwhelmed with XANA and exams, it just didn't seem like the right time. She liked Ulrich. Every time she saw him with another girl, she felt a deep twitch in her gut. After all, he was popular, gifted in all things athletic and had a 'cool' factor. However, she didn't want to risk losing their friendship. If you treasured something so much, would you be willing to gamble it all away?
Furthermore, her parents upheld Japanese traditions and culture with utmost strictness, and would certainly not approve of such a relationship with a 'foreigner'. Plus to them, it was too early for a teenager to be thinking of such long-term commitments.
Another problem was that she simply had no idea how to tell Ulrich her true feelings. Yumi tried to imagine such an opportunity:
"Ulrich, the soup you made is delicious."
Ulrich smiled. "You did tell me that you liked cream of potato."
Now it was Yumi's turn to smile. "Well…while I do like this food, the thing I like the most…is you."
Absolute rubbish. Embarrassing. Such a fairy-tale sugar-coated moment just wasn't her. Yumi absolutely hated confiding to anyone about her feelings and revealing her sensitive side. Still, she didn't want people to think that she was a tomboy, but that she did indeed have delicate, feminine attributes. It was all very complicated.
"Ms. Ishiyama!"
Yumi snapped back to reality.
"Yes, Ms. Lebreton?"
"Oh, I finally got your attention. Can you kindly tell the class the angle of this triangle?"
Minerva Lebreton
Age: 34
Rating: The derivative of {f(x) = 6x}/10
Fun facts:
She refers to all students by their surname only.
She is THE strictest teacher at Kadic. New students are advised to change their timetables.
It was the all-familiar right-angled triangle. The dimensions of its sides were given: the long side was two units long, the base length was the square root of three and the 'height' was a unit of one. The unknown angle was between the diagonal line and the base.
To find any interior angle was easy. Just get a freaking protractor.
Yumi knew that answer would have earned her a detention and so, she moved on.
"Yes, Ms. Ishiyama?"
"Uh…a moment please ma'am."
Someone at the back smirked: "and I thought Asians were good at math!"
Resisting the temptation to leap out of her seat and throttle her stereotypical classmate, Yumi tried to remember what Jeremie told her when she needed help last year. How to solve bloody angles without a calculator or protractor.
Pythagorean Theorem? No, that wasn't it. She already knew the dimensions. And it wasn't a sine or cosine law problem; that was too much work. Something simple… And that's when it came to her. Right-angled triangle? Yes. So…
SOH CAH TOA. The trig cheat or aid Ms. Lebreton never taught.
Okay. H is the hypotenuse – which is the long side, so 2. O is for opposite – far side…it's 1. So I use SOH…the sine of the opposite divided by the hypotenuse.
"It's zero-point-five–."
"Ms. Ishiyama, I believe that I asked you for the angle."
"…Well, in that case…" Now it was easy. Yumi had a clear memory of the special triangle cases, having memorized them during a summer tutorial session via flashcards.
"The sine of a half is thirty degrees."
"And in radians?"
Multiply by pi and divide by 180. And simplify. "Pi over six...radians, ma'am."
"Yes, that is indeed correct–"
SOH CAH TOA instantly became Yumi's best friend for the day.
"–However, please try to stay focused on math Ms. Ishiyama and not daydream over your sick boyfriend. You can visit Mr. Dunbar after class."
A couple of students snickered. "They'll do more than that," one of them remarked.
"One more word from you, Mr. McDuffin and it's detention. Moving on to the reciprocal trigonometric functions…"
It was nearly noon, and the students of room 222 had gone around the world, crossing through each continent multiple times; excluding Antarctica. Those who had paid attention to at least some of the presentations had gained invaluable insight of the world they lived in. Who (besides Jeremie) knew that Thailand was dubbed the 'Venice in the East' because of its massive canal systems?
"And last but not least, Ulrich and Melanie."
"Come on, Ulrich. It's our turn," Melanie said as she shook her partner out of his catatonic state.
Melanie Levesque
Age: 16
Rating: Prepared
Fun facts:
She knows how to make a delicious coffee cake.
She is trilingual; fluent in English, French, and Spanish.
The boy suddenly shifted his gears into high alert, sweat starting to form on his palms and throat drying up. The two headed towards the front of the class and inserted their memory stick into the desktop.
Please work, Ulrich prayed in his head. He didn't want to fail before even doing anything like Herb's group.
And he didn't, as their PowerPoint presentation soon projected onto the screen. Ulrich stared at the class and realized that most students were not even going to bother paying attention. But then he saw Aelita, who smiled and Odd, who whispered 'underpants'.
"Come on, Ulrich. I know you can do it," Melanie placed a hand on Ulrich's shoulder. His muscles seemed to have suddenly become less tense. He also remembered the advice Yumi gave him earlier this morning. Excluding that part about undergarments. Ulrich relaxed, closed his eyes for three seconds to organize his thoughts and began.
"Morning all. Nice to see that all of you are awake. Today, I'm going to be talking about Canada, the land of diversity, vast varying landscape and very good-tasting maple syrup."
All in all, it didn't go as bad as Ulrich had originally thought it would. He gradually gained more confidence as the presentation went on, and Melanie had the sort of charisma and enthusiasm as Odd did. While not as technologically advanced as Jeremie's, they had thoroughly gone over the geographical, cultural and political aspects of the northern nation.
"Wilfred Laurier, Canada's Prime Minister in the early 1900's said that the nineteenth century belonged to the United States–" began Ulrich.
"But he emphasized that the twentieth century will belong to Canada. And after truly becoming a country from sea to sea in 1949 to becoming a great, diverse cultural mosaic and being ranked the place to live by the United Nations several times in the 1990's, it looks as though Sir Laurier was bang on," Melanie finished.
The class applauded the two presenters, as well as for the fact that it was the last presentation they would ever have to listen to.
"Very good. Well, it appears that we still have some time left–" Some students started groaning.
"But, I think we could all use a break, so I'll let you all out early today," finished Mrs. Hertz.
The students were stunned. Mrs. Hertz being nice? No new lesson after a major project? Early lunch? After taking a couple of seconds to process the information, the students cheered and happily packed up.
"You're the best Mrs. H!" said Odd as he dashed to the cafeteria once more, his satisfactory presentation already a thing of the past. Aelita and Ulrich were about to leave as well, when:
"Ulrich, can I have a word with you please."
The boy gulped.
"I'm sure it's nothing...you'll be fine. I'll wait for you outside," Aelita said reassuringly.
The future captain and striker of the German football squad approached Mrs. Hertz's desk and prepared for the worst. Did I do something wrong? Did I cheat? No, that can't be it.
"Well Mr. Stern, I must say that after everything that I've seen today, I–"
Crap!
"–am extremely pleased with your performance."
"Huh?" asked Ulrich with a blank, surprised expression.
"Your project clearly demonstrated a good understanding of your assigned country. You and Melanie followed all the requirements of the rubric, something that many groups ignored."
"Well, yeah. She told me that you should always check the rubric first."
"Hmm, looks like she's making a good impression on you already. Furthermore, I noticed that your oral communication skills have improved much from last year."
"Yeah…I sometimes practice in front of my friends, in my head and…yeah."
"That's good. All I can say is that you're off to a good start to this term, and I'd really like you to keep it up. I expect you to be working hard, but not cramming at the last minute as I presumed you did for the geography test."
"Well, yeah. I know I should've started studying earlier, but I was just…I had a lot of other homework."
Mrs. Hertz sighed. "Ulrich, I know this year might seem rough, but there's a lot of material to cover in the curriculum this year – no matter what subject. You just have to balance your time more effectively. And if you approach every assignment and test like what you've done for this one, you'll have nothing to worry about. But remember, if you have any doubts, my office is always open from 4:00 to 6:00."
"That said and given your excellent presentation today, I'm going to exclude your previous test from your geography grade."
Ulrich's eyes widened. "Really?"
Mrs. Hertz smiled. "I don't see why not. This project was a more in-depth evaluation of your understanding of a country's geographical, political and socio-cultural aspects than was on the test. And you and Melanie have definitely demonstrated a good understanding of that."
"Thanks Mrs. Hertz."
"Alright then, I won't disturb your lunchtime any longer. Keep up the good work!"
"Definitely," said Ulrich as he walked out of the classroom to find Aelita and Yumi waiting for him.
"I take it everything went well?" asked Yumi upon seeing the grin plastered on Ulrich's face.
"You know, I think geography just became my favourite subject."
Fragmented Legacy Fun Fact 003:
The mean teacher Ms. Lebreton is actually named after a bus station in Ottawa, Canada. I was on my way home from work when I passed by the stop, and I thought: this sounded like a good name for a teacher, and it's French too.
A|N's:
Last week, while flipping through the channels, I came across an old 1980's movie called "Pretty in Pink". The first thing I saw was the main character who looked very much like a teenage Aelita! (Google 'Pretty in Pink Molly Ringwald') I also thought her best friend Duckie was the guy who played Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. During the end credits, I realized that it was one of the men from Two and a Half Men.
Initially, this was supposed to be the first Code LYOKO Short Story (CLSS). However, it soon became a full chapter because I also wanted to talk about what was going on in Yumi's class was well.
Feel free to leave a comment, and as always, thanks for reading Code LYOKO: Fragmented Legacies. Hope you had fun picking up tips on presentations and trigonometry as well (it's easier than it sounds). XANA will be back kicking butt next chapter. =)