Lessen Distractions [open]

[Daniel Jameson]

Date: October 7
Time: 1pm

So Dan had finally decided to buckle down and get some work started. He had been holding this paper off all week. It was his Medieval history paper. There was no way he would be able to get any work done in that apartment of his. The library was the alternative. The teacher had given them a list of topics that he could have picked from. The choice was easy. He could pick one about religion or the one about the manor system. Since he had no idea how the system worked or what the ranking was, he was going to do the religion one. How did Christianity play a part in a peasant's life?

It was simple enough, really. The professor actually went over this very same topic in one of his lectures. In fact, the lecture was titled, "Peasantry and Religion." However, his notes from that lecture wasn't enough to fill a five page paper. He needed more material, more resources, more meat to fill out this assignment. Why did he wait until Sunday afternoon to finally start on it. Instead, he spent most of the week with Ian. Something had been off with that guy and Dan had to admit, it was actually making him worry a bit.

Daniel opened his laptop and placed his notes on one side of it and a few primary sources the professor had assigned on the topic. There were a lot of reading on this topic and Dan must have read only a quarter of it. Opening a brand new document, Dan typed, "Religion Strengthen During Hardships." It looked like a pretty damn good title to him. Too bad it wasn't exactly original. It was in his notes. The professor probably said it and Dan thought it sounded good, so he wrote it down. Hopefully, the professor wouldn't remember that the title was his words verbatim.

After about ten minutes of reading through his notes and shifting through the primary sources, Dan had typed himself his frist paragraph. Excellent, he thought to himself. Only four and a half pages left to go. Giving up on what else to write, he took out a highlighter and started reading through the sources. Dan highlighted anything that popped out, thinking that he may be able to quote it in his paper. All was fine and dandy for the next half hour, except someone came that distracted him from his work. And, this distraction came in the form of...

[Lindsey Hunter]

This distraction came in the form of...

A pair of tennis shoes walking into the library. Okay, so it wasn't specifically the tennis shoes, it was their owner. A girl with orange-red hair and a tendancy to gossip. At birth she had been named Lindsey Arizona Hunter, but she preferred Linz. Since her shoes were what so obviously caught your attention at first, we'll start there. A pair of camo Converse Hi-tops with glittered wings on the sides. The laces undone at the ankle, one black, one neon pink. She was wearing skinny jeans again today, but this time they were purple. Her T-shirt looked as if it had been scribbled on, it said Dain

[/u] Bra[/color]maged[/font][/u][/size] in a crayoned script. Her friends had bought the shirt for her nineteenth birthday. She still had to smile every time she put it on. She was wearing a couple clunky bracelets, one each of green and purple, that she'd picked up at a yard sale. Her hair was down, and still wet from her shower this morning--or was it afternoon? I couldn't say for sure, Lindsey wasn't much for watching the time. Which got her in trouble a lot of times, especially now that her classes weren't back-to-back like they were in high school.

Lindsey carried a stack of folders under one arm. Yes, believe it or not she was actually going to study. At least that had been her intention. A once in a lifetime occurrance. But her teachers might not be that lucky today; like they ever were. She caught a pair of eyes glancing her direction. And as she walked past the table where the young man sat, she winked at him. Though she wasn't searching for a guy at the moment, flirting was practically in Lindsey's blood. She set her folders down and went to browse the nearby book titles. She was looking for the medical textbooks to research the symptoms of blunt force trauma. Oh the joys of being in forensics classes. Believe it or not that was her current major, Linz was certainly determined to get her kicks out of this whole college thing. Though most of the fun would end up being off-campus, she was sure.

So far she hadn't been to many parties, she wasn't popular enough. But Lindsey had heard a rumor about a big party coming up on Hallowe'en. What an awesome holiday. Back in Chicago she and her friends would go out and toilet-paper people's houses in costume. Once they had even spray-painted the school. But of course that was in junior high. Things were different now. More mature, right? Lindsey grabbed a stack of books and walked back to where she'd left her papers. She took a seat across from the guy, waggling her eyebrows wordlessly. Then she buried her nose in the book, searching the index for intercranial hemmoraging. As she flipped to the correct page, she peeked over the top of the thick volume to see if the guy was watching her.[/font][/blockquote]

[Daniel Jameson]

Of course Dan was watching her. How could he not? Part of the reason was because she was so loud. Not vocally, but by her appearance. Compared to everyone else in the library, she stood out. It wasn't a bad thing though. She was actually kind of cute. It was weird, considering Dan didn't really go for girls dressed up like her. However, Dan didn't really have a type. Girls were his type. The distraction was more than welcome and he didn't mind one bit. He continued to watch this girl go through some books on a shelf, trying to find the right one. Looking up, he saw that that was the medical area. So, this girl must be in the field of science.

His paper was long forgotten. The sun hasn't set. He still had plenty of time to do this. Right now, he was interested in getting to know this girl a bit better. After saving his document, he got out of his seat and wandered over towards her. He had to make it look like he wasn't stalking her, instead, he just happened to walk over. Standing next to her, he pretended to look at some of the medical books. After a few moments in silence, he finally turned to her. "Sorry, uh, do you know where I could find a diagnose book," he asked her. "I'm trying to find out what's the difference between a torn ligament and a strain."

Okay, so it was lame to try and use a fake excuse in trying to talk to her, but if it worked, who was to judge him? Besides, it wasn't as if he was as smooth as Ian Roberts who knew exactly what to say when he approached a girl. Dan had his own fair share of game, but he still needed to work on a few bits and pieces, like initiating the conversation. Once it got started, he was alright on his own.

[Lindsey Hunter]

Lindsey's pulse quickened as the guy walked by. He came over to where she was sitting, and then looked through the books she'd picked off the shelf just a moment ago. Was it to be another round of the games then? A good debate might be just the thing to liven up a dull evening. Oh, she probably wouldn't discuss anything important. Like she ever did. Sometimes she thought her conversation might make her seem shallow. But of course there was no way to get into the minds of other people, and she wasn't too good at guessing what people were thinking. So she could be considered the next Aristotle for all she knew.

The man finally spoke, asking her about a book. Her head snapped up upon hearing his voice. Then she smiled warmly. "I think you'd be looking for this one right here," she said with a wink, handing him a thick book from the stack. "But of course, I make it a goal never to do a favor for someone without knowing their name. Can I have it back when you're done?" She flipped through the pages of the medical encyclopedia that she was holding, then paused to scribble a note in her spiral notebook. She replayed the guy's steps, something didn't quite seem to fit. Linz wrinkled her nose and glanced up again. "I'm guessing that you really didn't want to know the difference between a torn ligament and a sprain, right? Because you weren't limping..."

A smile teased across her face. "By the way, my name is Lindsey." She rubbed her nose with her eraser absentmindedly. "What kind of a project were you working on there? It looked like fun." Truthfully, Lindsey wasn't sure if she was serious or not. School could go either way--sometimes it could actually be interesting. "Bet it's not as exciting as cadavers, though." Ok, so she hadn't started working on them yet, but she knew she could look forward to it some time this semester. It was enough to make a lot of girls scream, but it actually sounded kind of interesting to Lindsey. If it hadn't I guess she wouldn't be majoring in premedicine. Though in the end she wasn't sure about being a physician...

"Have you been around here long? I mean, the school? I'm a freshman," she said ruefully, "So I don't really know a whole lot of people yet." Linz was dimly aware of the fact that she was rambling, she paused for a moment, pretending to turn back to her notes. Her mind wasn't on her studies, that was for sure. She glanced over again to see if the guy was still watching her. He wasn't bad looking, but probably older than she was--maybe a junior or senior. And in her lifetime she hadn't experienced that much reaching out from across the aisle--or should I say the year. Everyone in high school was pretty well entrenched in their own grade.

[Daniel Jameson]

Dan was able to get a better view of her up close. He smiled at her as she handed him a book. He tucked it under his arm, not even bothering to flip through the book. A few minutes spared to talk to this girl would definitely be worth it. "I'm Dan," he said, introducing himself. "And, of course you get can get this back. After I'm done of it." When she pointed out that he wasn't limping, he smiled and looked down to avoid her eyes. That brief moment of hesitation allowed him to think quick on his feet. "It's actually not for me. It's for my friend. I'm looking up the difference for a friend, trying to see which on he has."

So the girl had a name, Lindsey. Dan looked behind him at the table with his books and notes. Then, he turned to look back at Lindsey. "Oh, yeah, it's my medieval history paper," he said to her with a smile. "But, it's not as fun as one imagines. In fact, I couldn't believe that it's more fun than...er, actually what is cadavers?" Dan had never heard of that word and had no idea what that even meant. And, in that case how could one say if it was more exciting or not.

Lindsey may only be a freshmen, but Dan didn't see the problem with that. In fact, he actually liked those freshmen girls. These girls were fresh out of high school, thinking and acting as if they're a lot older and experienced. And, yet they are still very much young and naive. Besides, he was the older junior and was more than willing to show them the ways of the world. That's what he was here for.

"Well, this is my third year," he explained to her. "And, it's only October. I'm sure you'll meet a lot more people as the semester goes on." Dan noticed Lindsey looking away for a brief moment, but then looked back up. "You know what, why don't you come to this halloween party that my friend is throwing. It would be a great place to know a lot more people." So, he got the name, gave her the invite, and now all he needed was the number. He was slowly, but surely working his way there.

[Lindsey Hunter]

"Nice to meet you, Dan," Lindsey said. She smiled. His excuses were pretty good, actually. If he hadn't paused for just a moment too long she might not have even noticed it. But of course she wasn't going to say anything. She knew what it was like to make excuses. Though she couldn't think of too many guys who had made excuses to talk to her. Sure, she knew at least some of her classmates of the other sex, but not many. And she hadn't dated a lot in high school. But that was a long story. And not one she was liable to share with someone she'd just met.

Ah, so the fellow wanted to know what a cadaver was. Lindsey nearly choked to keep from laughing. She wasn't surprised that Dan had never heard of them. She almost felt sorry for the poor guy, but she'd just felt she had to slip that into one of her conversations. "It's someone who donated their body to science," she stated simply. "I'm taking premed. Remember the dissections you had to do when you were a kid?" A lot of people would think it was disgusting but Lindsey actually thought it was kind of interesting. Maybe she should be a pathologist instead of a general physician, then she wouldn't have to worry about hurting her patients.

Dan was sympathising. He was also a junior. Lindsey nodded in agreement with his statement. "I guess I'll just have to wait a while to make friends and influence people." She glanced around, checking to make sure that no one was staring disapprovingly at the volume of her conversation. Sometimes she could get a little loud without even realizing it, but she was trying to turn down the volume a little. And glares from the others in the library would be a pretty good sign that her voice was carrying too many decibels. But no one seemed to be paying her much attention. Except for the guy standing nearby, whom, of course, she was conversing with. The guy by the name of Dan.

A party! So the rumors were true! Lindsey nodded eagerly upon recieving the directions. She'd have to find something to wear, if it was on Hallowe'en. Her mind was running through a plethora of costuming ideas even as she listened to Dan speaking. It seemed like he was waiting for something. She racked her brain to try and think of what he might want. A phone number? "Hey, let me give you my cell number. Then you can get ahold of me if I don't show up." It was about as subtle as saying, why don't you give me a call sometime? but as you already know, Lindsey was feeling kind of lonely.