Suramya Pokharel - January 27, 2024
Where the fuck do they get these ideas from? Apparently, everyone has to do some project this year. “I’ll pair you all up with someone from the next department,” the teacher said today. ”You’ll get the list this evening in email.” I find this sort of thing funny. If I can do something on my own, and that too competently, why do I need a fucking partner for? Teamwork my ass! But, it’s not such big a deal really. I deal with idiots every day. One more won’t be that big a hassle.
The class had ended early today. I hurried towards the bus stop alone. It was nearing four and I had hopes of getting an empty seat on the bus. A bus arrived soon enough and voila! An empty seat. Perhaps it was my annoyed temperament or the coziness of the bus, I started to doze off as soon as I sat down.
At times, I’d half wake up, open my eyes a little to look outside the window and go back to sleep. By this point, I’ve travelled this route so much that I can tell exactly where I am with just a glance. When my station neared, I had to force my eyes open for they longed to be shut and deep in rest. The bus had already gotten pretty packed by this point, and I had to squeeze my way forward to get off the bus. I felt pretty darn tired.
As soon as I reached home, my phone pinged. It was that email with the project partner list. And who am I paired with? E— S—. I hadn’t heard the name prior to this. Anyways, some idiot I’d have to deal with. In the evening, just before going to sleep, I opened my Facebook and there was a message.
Oh! So, it’s this girl who’s always active on social media. I mean look at her story, it’s just a video where she zooms in on her face and fixes that single strand of hair hanging by her cheek, which she probably deliberately planted there to take this video in the first place. I was quite disappointed at finding out the identity of my partner. Some pretentious fool is who I’ll have to deal with here.
I texted back:
Her reply came soon enough.
Next day in college, right after the break started, she called to inform me that she was already outside the library.
“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll be there in a moment.” I was already on my way when she called, and thus arrived soon enough. She stood just outside with some other girl, I presumed to be her friend.
“Hello.” I greeted, slightly nodding and shook her hand and also her friend’s.
“Shall we go inside?” I asked, but in a lowered intonation which didn’t make it sound like a question.
We went inside. The library had a long table with many chairs side by side. I chose a seat and got seated and she sat beside me and her friend beside her.
“Thought of something?” I asked politely.
“Yeah!” she replied meekly.
“Go on.”
“No,” she said, hesitating. “You go first.”
In the past, I’d reply such statements in a childish manner like – “No, I asked first. So, you say it.” or something such, slightly laughing, in an attempt to crack a joke and be more ‘respectful’ and maybe make her ‘more comfortable’. Nowadays though, I give fuck all. And through my observation, I’ve noticed that with women, being comfortable comes from them being less self-conscious. And women are far more self-conscious as to how they’d want to present themselves. So, by actually going first and sharing my idea, she’ll axiomatically be more comfortable following what I just did, and in turn sharing her own idea. And meanwhile, I don’t give a shit as to how I present myself to her or anyone else for that matter. So, with time my replies have changed.
“Sure,” I said. And narrated to her my idea which was quite ambitious and complicated.
“What’s yours?” I asked after completing my explanation which took quite a while.
“Mine is nothing as complex as yours.” she said and went on to narrate a very basic idea.
“Okay!” I said as if it was thought provoking, when it was not. “But, I think it has been done quite a few times before. I don’t think the teacher will accept it.” I knew for a fact the teacher wouldn’t accept it. A year-long project and her idea was literally something anyone could complete in a matter of hours.
“Yeah, the seniors also did that,” her friend added, whose name I hadn’t bothered asking. “I asked a senior what they had done, and it was very similar.” People often say things like these to appear as if they’re putting in some value to conversation, and in turn to appear intelligent.
“Any other ideas?” I asked again politely.
“Not really. That was all I’d thought of. Let’s do yours. It seems hard though!”
“Yeah, but we have a whole year.” I said, knowing full well that it’d be only me doing it. “And it’s not been done before. So, it will be great when we finish it.”
“Okay”
“So, look into transformer models and diffusion models, okay?” I said. “They’ll be used quite extensively for this.”
“Okay,” she replied again. “And, we also need to write some documentation for the idea.”
“Yeah. So how about this?” I proposed. “I’ll take on the abstract and methodology and conclusion part. You write the introduction and literature review.”
“Okay.” It was her third 'okay' in two minutes.
“So, yeah. That’s it!” I said, getting up to leave. I made some small talk about what class it was next until we got to the library door, and bid adieu, and parted.