Lovesick Girl
Chapter 6: The BASICs of Computers
Friday, September 6, 2013 AF
Alright well I looked over my schedule and today is finally the day that I get to participate in the highly unique and coveted Computer Science lesson. Throughout the day I just couldn't contain my anticipation and, very unfortunately, ended up smiling like an idiot, especially on the second-to-last lesson (with Computer Science being the very last one). But that didn't matter, the teachers didn't get angry at me, and I could finally proceed to the lesson and its dedicated classroom.
And in the classroom, well, clearly my amazement upon seeing the Doki Doki Internal History Department for the first time, with a single Commander PET, clearly should have been withheld. There were entire rows of Commander PETs this time, one for each student and the teacher himself, Grant Sanderson, this time. So we all took our seats, wondered what this magical box with green text and a typewriter-like thing was, and finally, let Mr. Sanderson explain the thing.
"Welcome to what I think might be your most important subject of this school, in general, in the not-too-near future." Mr. Sanderson said and most other students nodded to themselves but just like with Mr. Samsung and Jan Misali there was one particular misfit who was having absolutely none of it. This one was a blonde girl but also had some light blue, almost white streaks and a rainbow butterfly pin in her hair (surprisingly similar to the Commander Business Machines logo) and I think she had her black jacket tied around her waist as though she was making some sort of fashion statement which basically amounted to "I rule and you suck" and with a manner of dress like that, she must have been one of the meanest, posse-iest bullies of the entire school.
She thus said "Ew, that is a literal impossibility. Who wants to spend their entire days by a typewriter and TV just typing things and seeing just green and black? That does not appeal, like, at all." and Mr. Sanderson immediately countered "Now, now, Magnolia Morgan-Chase, don't think of computers as what they are now. Think of the future: what if they instead provided you with the hottest gossip as it happened, and also fit in your pocket?"
"Well, there's just no way that could happen, leave me alone." So, Magnolia pulled out a makeup kit and corrected her blush and then glanced at Mr. Sanderson and realized: "Also, someone needs to correct your eye, I think part of it is the wrong color." and then everyone realized Magnolia wasn't worth acknowledging and we all embraced the black and green and the unique language of computers.
The language of computers, Mr. Sanderson told us, was called BASIC and basically (get it) looked like a bunch of math. You see, computers are actually glorified calculators, but they can also have memory and stuff and do a bunch of predetermined calculations at the same time. But also, some of that memory can be, like, useful and store things such as Flashlight Girl's student records that I was still supposed to be typing in.
I wonder if Flashlight Girl could contact us using some sort of wire that linked computers directly to each other?
And then, suddenly the lesson stopped being more of Math but not taught by Mr. Samsung and instead started being literal Samsung Group propaganda. Like literally we were taught things like:
10 PRINT "THE FUTURE IS SAMSUNG"
And we were also briefly taught about the GOTO command so I wondered what would happen if I added another line that reads:
20 GOTO 10
(And yes those line numbers are mandatory. However incrementing them by 10 is not mandatory but Mr. Sanderson says it helps if you want to add a line between two other lines but you forgot.)
And I typed RUN on the whole amazing two-line program and it printed the same thing over and over and I realized I didn't know how to stop it. But luckily Mr. Sanderson ran over to my computer and realized what sort of goof I had made and hit a key called Run/Stop on the fake typewriter and the whole thing stopped.
So that was interesting but unfortunately that was the only interesting thing that happened during the Computer Science lesson. And yesterday I had asked the maid doll café job if today I could have a shift that starts after 6 PM since that's when the gathering by the site of a mythical battle takes place and I wanna see what that's all about, and they granted my request, and now I had some time free.
And since my thoughts had briefly crossed the fate of Flashlight Girl and the Doki Doki Internal History Department that's where I was headed next. And before the site of a mythical battle thing, I just wanted a second opinion on how computers work, whether BASIC can actually be used to make something useful, and if I ever become employed by the Internal History Department, how will typing things work, given that right now, I can barely manage one character hit every second or so.
So, I asked things and I got answers.
Firstly, apparently even though BASIC is what the Computer Science curriculum starts with, it's not the only tool that can be used to make computers do stuff, and it's not even the best one. In fact, there's something called assembly language, which is more like talking directly to the computer's processor, and when you type the same sorts of math problems in assembly and BASIC, assembly turns out to be a hundred times faster. Of course the whole process of getting into an assembler and typing assembly code was nothing like the math problems that BASIC directly accepts, so I couldn't follow even a single thing about what Flashlight Girl was doing and you know what I can accept that the Computer Science lessons should start with BASIC. But I still can't accept that the Computer Science lessons should start with Samsung Group propaganda.
Next, regarding typing speeds. Apparently the operative measurement, much like meters per second for speeds of a human walking or a train, is not keystrokes per second, but rather, "words per minute". So Flashlight Girl briefly shut off her archive-managing program and instead turned on a typing speed test. First she sat me down by it and the keyboard just had too many keys and I couldn't focus and I think I only got 12 words per minute. And then Flashlight Girl tried it and she got something crazy like 110. Wow she is amazing and I wish to attain her typing prowess.
Lastly, regarding the communication between computers, that can actually be done, but Flashlight Girl is not an amazing hacker and doesn't actually know which computer I sat by at the Computer Science lesson, so she wasn't able to do it today. But I described the computer and she immediately got to work typing something and then she told me to look in the Computer Science classroom. And once I did, even though my memory as to where my seat in particular was might not be the best, I still saw a particular computer light up with a simple:
If you are seeing this, then my attempts to communicate between computers have been successful!
And then I ran back to the Internal History Department and reported back to Flashlight Girl. And then I realized just how tiring running up and down stairs is, even for extremely short distances that were entirely within Doki Doki High, and I was panting and wanting to sit down as soon as possible, and Flashlight Girl decided to grant my wish by giving me her own chair by her own computer, while she ran off to a place she called "the archives" to get more info. What else?
So, I was left alone briefly, and once I finally recovered from my fatigue, Flashlight Girl returned, and she wasn't fatigued at all clearly she had been doing this for a while and was basically a professional errands girl at this point. So I gave her seat back to her and then glanced at the clock directly above the door to the Internal History Department and it actually read something like 5:50 PM so I told Flashlight Girl bye and headed straight for the site of a mythical battle.
And at the site of a mythical battle there was literally no one. No one wanted to confess their love, but exactly one other person wanted to see a confession of love. And I'll give you a moment to guess who.
Wait a minute who's you I'm not sharing my diary with anyone okay I'll just cut to the chase it was Principal Creative Emogal.
"So beautiful, don't you think? Witnessing the blossoms of love, even if the participants of love aren't around you?" she asked, for once not addressing me by name, but also, speaking to me in a completely useless language that I wanted to forget forever and ever, so I answered: "No because neither beauty nor love matter in a world purely driven by efforts and results."
Creative Emogal then realized who she was talking to and got a much more serious tone. "Why are you here? Don't you hate me?" "Luckily for you even if I did hate you I'd still respect you as a principal so there. I just wanted to see what sorts of things happened by this site of love and remind myself that I never wanted to be involved in those sorts of things."
"Interesting." Creative Emogal then returned to thinking to herself and I asked "Why are you so attached to the site of a mythical battle anyway?" "Oh because the whole thing started with me I was the very first one ever in Doki Doki High" (at the time it was Samsung Group Adolescent Education Facility but eh) "to confess my love by the site of a mythical battle."
"To whom?" I asked and Creative Emogal shook her head. "Someone I'd rather not think about." "Then it looks like the site of a mythical battle did wonders in establishing the myth. It almost feels more like the epitome of heartbreak more than the epitome of romance." Creative Emogal just looked at me with pain and tears and a "you don't understand" look but of course she was right I didn't understand and I had my own views on love and the compendium of those views refused to mesh with the compendium of the site of a mythical battle... myth. Ugh, Creative Emogal really needs to pick better words.
But anyway my part here was done and my maid doll café job was calling so I closed my eyes and told her "See you next week." I needed to know if Creative Emogal seriously watched an empty plaque every week over a romance that wasn't even successful but for now I was going and I went and I'm at the maid doll café job now serving customers or something like that.
Except no I'm not. I was at first, and I was really getting into the swing of the maid doll café job and pleasantries and taking orders and relaying them to the cooks and then relaying the finished product to the customers, but then, some sort of a man in black approached me and stopped me right in my tracks. He even took the order that I was delivering and delivered it to the customer instead seriously what is up with him.
So he "Hello, I am a representative for Samsung Group and I am looking for a Madeline Myers." and I "Okay that's me what do you want?" and he "I want to tell you that you're hired for an entirely new kind of maid doll café job. It will only take place during Saturdays at a special event that Samsung Group organizes for business owners. Here is the address, and actually you know what you don't have to go there we'll take you there. So, instead, you can just write your address and a limo will arrive to you."
"Alright that's fine but first of all how much will I be paid?" and he "Oh our job will pay you more for a single day than this one pays you if you worked full-time Monday through Friday. And?" and I "And... who in the name of the phantoms sent you? Sophia Severity?" and he "I'm afraid I can't tell you that yet but tomorrow, you will get all the answers. Goodbye." and he just left like that and I was left irredeemably confused.
I eventually got back on track with this maid doll café job but after my shift was done I just had more and more questions and unfortunately today is not the day to figure them out because the shift was so late that I'd rather just go to sleep and hope I won't be woken up at crazy hours.
Yours truly, Madeline Myers.
