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15minuteficlets exercise.
Jan. 20th, 2004 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynThis week's 15minuteficlets exercise involves Ira "Rocketboy" Dayan at college.
This week's theme word was 'obsession'. I did not actually use that word in this fic, but I feel that I nevertheless did a decent job of conveying it as a theme anyway.
Ira rubbed at his face with both hands. He'd have to sleep soon. It'd been thirty-six hours straight so far. The campus medical service wouldn't sell him Vivvera, not without a doctor's prescription, no matter how important the assignment was. The straight stims had long since passed out of his system. His French was starting to fall apart- he'd just caught himself writing a sentence that horribly munged English and joual together in what was supposed to be an academic paper on the ethics of human asteroid mining versus robotic remote mining. It didn't work in either tongue, not even to his sleep-deprived brain- God help him if he put it in front of Professor Singh!
He did have a week. He really did. He'd started early. Had to have it done early. It was still seven days away.
But, but, but. Exams. Other classes. Cybergenic code for analytic searching due Tuesday. Term paper long as his arm due Wednesday. Advanced mathematical proofs for quantum signal encryption as communications method due Monday- Dieu, that'd leave his eyeballs bleeding, the professor was un affront a l'humanité-
He pawed at his face again. Stay on topic. Stay on target.
It was his own fault. Damn school. Damn accelerated programme. Damn Astro-Engineering Society. Had to go for early graduation, didn't he? Just had to get off Earth fast as he could. No, no, not going to stick around- had to get to space, had to get away from family-
He stared blearily at the screen, prodding the liquid crystal surface with a finger that felt extraordinarily heavy. You know, if they made just a few minor changes to the charge delivery system, that new compound his Materials Science professor had mentioned would be perfect for a surface like-
Whoa. Focus, Dayan. Focus.
He found the Delete key and backed over the gutter Montréal French, forcing himself to remember the simplest, most academically correct word choices and type them in. Professor Singh understood the dialect, but joual was not welcome in any kind of academic paper. Anywhere. The AE's had made that very clear. If the professor approved of the paper, Ira planned to submit it to the AE screening board as part of his portfolio. He wasn't going to jeopardize his chances of getting into space just because he couldn't push his brain into third-year French mode. No. Dammit. No.
God, what he wouldn't give for a bottle of sleep compensators right now. Why the hell hadn't he gone somewhere sane instead, like McGill? Oh, right, the École Polytechnique's unprecedented rate of acceptance to the AE's. Dammit.
"A pill, a pill, my kingdom for a pill," he muttered. Mustering a supreme effort of will, he went back to typing.
15minuteficlets exercise involves Ira "Rocketboy" Dayan at college.This week's theme word was 'obsession'. I did not actually use that word in this fic, but I feel that I nevertheless did a decent job of conveying it as a theme anyway.
Ira rubbed at his face with both hands. He'd have to sleep soon. It'd been thirty-six hours straight so far. The campus medical service wouldn't sell him Vivvera, not without a doctor's prescription, no matter how important the assignment was. The straight stims had long since passed out of his system. His French was starting to fall apart- he'd just caught himself writing a sentence that horribly munged English and joual together in what was supposed to be an academic paper on the ethics of human asteroid mining versus robotic remote mining. It didn't work in either tongue, not even to his sleep-deprived brain- God help him if he put it in front of Professor Singh!
He did have a week. He really did. He'd started early. Had to have it done early. It was still seven days away.
But, but, but. Exams. Other classes. Cybergenic code for analytic searching due Tuesday. Term paper long as his arm due Wednesday. Advanced mathematical proofs for quantum signal encryption as communications method due Monday- Dieu, that'd leave his eyeballs bleeding, the professor was un affront a l'humanité-
He pawed at his face again. Stay on topic. Stay on target.
It was his own fault. Damn school. Damn accelerated programme. Damn Astro-Engineering Society. Had to go for early graduation, didn't he? Just had to get off Earth fast as he could. No, no, not going to stick around- had to get to space, had to get away from family-
He stared blearily at the screen, prodding the liquid crystal surface with a finger that felt extraordinarily heavy. You know, if they made just a few minor changes to the charge delivery system, that new compound his Materials Science professor had mentioned would be perfect for a surface like-
Whoa. Focus, Dayan. Focus.
He found the Delete key and backed over the gutter Montréal French, forcing himself to remember the simplest, most academically correct word choices and type them in. Professor Singh understood the dialect, but joual was not welcome in any kind of academic paper. Anywhere. The AE's had made that very clear. If the professor approved of the paper, Ira planned to submit it to the AE screening board as part of his portfolio. He wasn't going to jeopardize his chances of getting into space just because he couldn't push his brain into third-year French mode. No. Dammit. No.
God, what he wouldn't give for a bottle of sleep compensators right now. Why the hell hadn't he gone somewhere sane instead, like McGill? Oh, right, the École Polytechnique's unprecedented rate of acceptance to the AE's. Dammit.
"A pill, a pill, my kingdom for a pill," he muttered. Mustering a supreme effort of will, he went back to typing.
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Date: 2004-01-20 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-01-21 01:01 pm (UTC)The 'Catalogue' ficlet's good, too. Sounds suspiciously like what happens when I have my occasional fits of Must Get Organised Now Now NOW, or when my father suddenly launches into one of his overriding interests ("great, we're in for three months of Lawrence of Arabia again"). I'm impressed.