prerequisite avian tomfoolery
Nanaba did her best to negotiate the throng of bodies that flooded the hallways, nervousness catching at her throat with the need to run and the frustration at being precluded from the action by this world of slow-moving revenants she found herself in nearly turning her red. Clutching hard at the neatly-penned class schedule she’d made for herself a week ago (and already memorized), she managed to make her way to her classroom in the Anthropology department and was somewhat disappointed to find the room already almost filled to capacity.
She preferred to be early in order to secure her choice of seats, but it seemed that couldn’t be helped in this particular instance: her Geology lecture just before was held in a building halfway across campus, and it was impossible that she’d ever get here in time for such a luxury. The only available seat was next to a rather leviathan form of a man who appeared to be slumped rather informally in the chair, though Nanaba wondered if it was from actual laziness or the inability to physically fit within the confines of the seating.
"Hi," she greeted the shaggy blonde with sandy hair, slipping into the seat next to his. "This is Cross-Species Ensemble: Human and Animal Sonics, right?"
Before he could answer, the professor arrived, immediately passing out the syllabus, which confirmed her question. She sank back a little, listening to the professor begin his explanatory spiel:
“Through contemporary/primitive choral chants and improvisations, this course reveals unexpected creative possibilities in our own voices. Traditional pitched singing and notation are not used, and no prior musical experience is necessary …”
Nanaba blanched and began furiously flipping through the syllabus as if to find some sort of rational explanation for waht she’d just heard. “Is he serious?” she asked in a horrified whisper.
“Yogic stretching and breathing begin most sessions, after which the class learns an accessible vocabulary of sounds such as the slide, the shake, the flutter, gibberish, howling and cackling. A main focus is creative interaction with remarkable digital recordings of some 60 species …”
"I cannot believe …" she murmured, shaking her head in disbelief, wondering how she could have let herself be convinced to take this as a Gen Ed filler by Hanji, the world’s worst advice-giver when it came to choosing classes: things that were deemed "fun" to her were most often patently not to Nanaba, but her effulgence over this class was winning enough to convince Nanaba that this was the perfect supplement to her Anthropology reqs, and signed up without a thought.
“You’ll be required to create a group presentation as your final project …”
In her haste and desperation, Nanaba immediately looked over to her left, hand immediately outstretched in greeting. “Hi, I’m Nanaba, and we should be possibly sort-of be group partners maybe?”
Punctuality wasn't exactly on his mind; he just ended up lucky when he breezed into the class. Maybe a little too lucky, when he checked his phone for the time. Met with a near-empty room and a plethora of seats, Mike considered the class and put in an earbud to pass the time.
Its a class that popped out at him as something interesting, amusing. Gerger convinced him ( laughed it over and said, "Do it, I dare you," more like ). It took all of a Between The Buried and Me song before the class started filling up more, and half of one by Haken before the small blonde came in and addressed him. He couldn't even afford her a nod before the Professor strode in and answered. Mike slipped the earbuds and iPod back into his bag.
By the sounds of things, its not too far off from what he expected. He's not exactly thrilled at the prospect of a group project, but its not offputting entirely. Its, apparently, very offputting for the girl seated next to him. Going a bit far ahead, is she? Taking her grip in a handshake anyway, he locked eyes with her and looked her over briefly. Not quite as relaxed as he was; that's notable.
"Mikael, but I'm called Mike." he greeted, "That would be fine. ... Did you not mean to take this class? You don't seem pleased."
