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Post by Cato Riley McKenna on Nov 8, 2012 2:38:59 GMT -8
 youheardthatiwastrouble,
BUTYOUCOULDN'TRESISTJUSTTAKEABITELETMESHAKEUPYOURWORLD
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All Cato could say was that he was glad it was the weekend. Sure, his job at the university wasn’t necessarily that taxing in terms of physical labour, but trying to keep several hundred hormonal young adults interested in the finer points of Shakespeare and Hardy took some serious work. It was a badly-kept secret that half of them were minoring in it because they’d thought it was going to be easy, and now pretty much all of those people were failing. Not that the Irishman was particularly bothered; if they’d been stupid enough to believe that they wouldn’t have to work for it then they weren’t exactly the bright sparks he needed in his lectures. Regardless though, he now had a massive stack of marking to do before Monday because he’d been procrastinating in favour of going down to the barn in order to work his two horses. At least piles of work like this only really came around when the major assignments were due in – part of the reason he was a university lecturer and not a high school teacher. Casey had the best deal there, given the fact that teaching Drama didn’t really involve much written work.
Even so, Cato couldn’t deny the fact that looking through five hundred or so mostly-mediocre essays was going to be a painful experience. It was also why he’d decided to do the above at the Vintage Brew, where there was an awful lot less to distract him from the work. At home it was way too easy for Facebook and such to get in the way, especially as the brunette didn’t tend to have much of an attention span unless he was teaching or riding. Finding himself a seat at one of the tables, he took the time to order a cup of coffee and have a quick glance around at the various faces in the café. Some of them he knew by name or face, but the majority of them were complete strangers. And, thank heavens, no cousins in the place right now. Not that he didn’t like his family but there were just so many of them. And currently, they all seemed to be residing in a random little town just outside Texas. How they’d all ended up in the same area coincidentally was beyond him…and now, of course, he was procrastinating again. Sighing almost despairingly, the twenty-three year old leant down and pulled out the first hundred or so essays. These next few hours were not going to be fun, but at least once he was done he could head for the barn without feeling too guilty about it.
And then he looked at the mountain of papers sitting by his feet again, internally wincing. This probably could have been avoided if he hadn’t been quite so determined to enter last weekend’s show. But, well, there wasn’t much he could do about it now, he supposed. Stirring his coffee absent-mindedly as he finally started to read, there wasn’t much else he could do except settle in for the long haul.
Idek. Painfully few. WORDS
Olivia/Ish TAGGED
Nothing interesting OUTFIT
PANIC!ITSLAUZ@CAUTION TEMPLATE
I'm sorry, it's awful... NOTES |
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Post by Olivia Cora Atkins on Nov 10, 2012 5:51:42 GMT -8
Liv pretty much lived for the weekends these days… ever since Skylar had gone back to England for who knew how long, and then Briar had moved, it just didn’t seem the same. Well, she was sure it would be fine eventually, but her two best friends moving away almost simultaneously was a little bit depressing, and she was fairly sure that anyone in her situation would be feeling a little put off by it. So she had been keeping herself busy by spending more time at the barn, picking up a few extra shifts at the diner, seeing as though they had also lost some workers recently, going to the gym a bit more now that the weather was putting a hold on sport, and spending a bit more time than usual focusing on her homework.
But right now, with lack of most of those things to do, and being bored, she had opted to go for a walk… immediately regretting it when she realised how cold it actually was outside, but she kept going anyway, heading towards the main streets of Addison and towards the coffee shop. Coffee while she was bored and didn’t have anything to do was probably not the best of ideas, considering she tended to be a little hyperactive to begin with, but that thought hadn’t really crossed her mind just yet.
Walking at the pace she was going at, it didn’t take her all that long to reach Vintage Brew, practically bouncing through the doors and into the warmth that the interior of the coffee shop provided, stopping for a moment to look at the menu before she stepped up to the counter to order anything. Once she had decided what she wanted, she stepped up to the counter, ordering it in a takeaway cup on the off chance she decided to walk home before she finished, stepping back to wait for her order and stuffing her hands back into the pockets of her jacket once she had paid, still feeling whatever cold was left from outside that the shop’s heater hadn’t managed to chase away yet.
It didn’t take long for her coffee order to be called, stepping back over to the counter to take it with a thanks and a friendly smile, turning back towards the rest of the shop and the tables scattered around the place, hazel eyes scanning the area for a free seat, spotting one at the other end of the shop. Moving forward, she wove her way through the tables, feeling her hip connecting with something through the fabric of her jeans as she passed one particular table, and the tell-tale noise of several sheets of paper hitting the ground, wincing at the sound, even though it was hardly a loud one.
“Ah, crap, sorry about that,” she said quickly, balancing her coffee in one hand as she hastily ducked down to retrieve the papers she had knocked off the table from the ground, straightening up and holding them out to the owner of them after she had managed to collect them all up somewhat clumsily, doing it with one hand and all.
tagged nem
words 526
notes pfft, better than this half asleep post xDD
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Post by Cato Riley McKenna on Nov 11, 2012 0:31:56 GMT -8
youheardthatiwastrouble,
BUTYOUCOULDN'TRESISTJUSTTAKEABITELETMESHAKEUPYOURWORLD
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How long had he been here? A few minutes? Hours, maybe? Cato didn’t really have much of a clue, but if the slowly growing stack of marked homework was anything to go by, the coffee and the lack of procrastination methods was working a treat in terms of making him focus on the essays in front of him. Not that any of them had been massively profound thus far, which depressed him internally. There really wasn’t much that he found worse than reading an average, okay-I-guess-that’ll-do answer to a painfully simple question. Spectacularly bad ones could almost be comical sometimes, while good ones were a pleasure to read. But sifting through this seemingly never-ending pile of repetition was mind-blowingly boring.
Returning unwillingly to his task, pushing the unmarked pile to the edge of the table without thinking about it much, Cato couldn’t help but pinch the bridge of his nose. One of those foggy headaches was beginning to set in, the kind that came from a lot of monotonous work. He was almost glad when one of the various people passing his table knocked the pile of work off – maybe he could unintentionally lose some of the papers? But no, that would probably result in him being out of a job, so he supposed he should help pick them up. The girl managed to scoop up most of them, while the brunette leant down to round up the ones that had scattered a little further afield. Some strange part of his brain automatically noted that she was pretty, if a little flustered.
And also way too young for me to be thinking things like that.
Truth be told, he probably did shift slightly at that, because she really was too young for it. Not that Cato was hugely brilliant at gauging such things, but she looked about Inez’s age, if that. And while the Irishman was only twenty-three, that was just…wrong. Inez would probably clout him around the head if she ever found out – and with good reason. That wasn’t even to mention the fact he made a living teaching teenagers and young adults, so he should probably find a way to prevent himself from thinking things like that again. Coming to the conclusion that he should just spread his marking out a little more so he didn’t end up in situations like this on a regular basis, Cato looked up as she held them out to him. He took them gratefully, although not because he was getting all hot under the collar at the thought of marking them. So far, he’d been told that Shakespeare was an excellent philosopher and that Homer wrote lovely Emma poems…something which made a small part of his soul wilt and die whenever he thought about it.
”Don’t worry about it…I was kind of hoping you’d lose them anyway, if I’m honest,” he replied with a slight shake of his head. Oh wow, tactful much? He pointed the pen at the papers, now sat safely away from the edge of the table. ”But thank you.”
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Post by Olivia Cora Atkins on Nov 19, 2012 22:38:46 GMT -8
Trust her to be clumsy enough to do something like this… sure, she could run around the track at school, and play soccer and get on a horse without falling over, or off in the case of a horse, or knocking something over or running into someone, but get her to walk past someone like this and she would turn into some sort of giant klutz and she always ended up doing something like this. She was surprised she hadn’t gone as far as to spill her coffee all over them as well, actually.
Liv hadn’t really gotten a good look at the guy who was sitting at the table that she had knocked all the papers off, too busy trying to pick them all up quickly before someone else ended up stepping on them or a gust of wind from the door made them scatter further, but after she had straightened up and went to give them back to him, she got a better look. Now, she would admit that she did notice if someone was attractive or not… like most people in general usually did at first glance… but she wasn’t usually one to just stop and stare for a moment, like she was doing right at this very second, once she had properly set eyes on him, but she just really couldn’t help herself. Something about him just drew her in for a second, almost stopped her brain process until she realised that she had just been staring at him, and he had already taken the papers from her, until he started talking, which snapped her out of it.
The corners of her mouth twitched up into a small, amused smile when he said that he had been hoping that she would lose them, letting out a light laugh. “Well, I can always actually lose them for you if you want… I’m sure that if you told them a strange girl at the coffee shop stole them they would let you off the hook,” she answered.
Wait, why was she still standing here talking? The normal thing to do was say ‘no worries’ or something and then carry on your merry way. Apparently she had missed that memo today.
tagged nem
words 372
notes whee.
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Post by Cato Riley McKenna on Dec 7, 2012 1:35:20 GMT -8
youheardthatiwastrouble,
BUTYOUCOULDN'TRESISTJUSTTAKEABITELETMESHAKEUPYOURWORLD
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Cato was frankly thrilled that the girl hadn’t chucked hot coffee all over him too, because he knew from experience that wasn’t particularly pleasant. Not that women threw coffee at him regularly, but accidents did happen…and Inez did have a temper on occasion. In that situation he’d probably be glad it was only coffee being thrown his way, but Inez had a screw loose and so adding her into the equation would have made it an entirely different ball game.
Luckily, his junior cousin wasn’t around right now. Which was good, because she had a horrible habit of saying something exceptionally inappropriate at just the wrong time. He looked back over at the stack of essays, doing a quick mental calculation of how many should be sitting there, and was somewhat relieved when the pile looked about the right size. As much as Addison was turning out to be a bit of a non-event for him, he didn’t want to lose his job because he’d made a poor venue choice in terms of where to go to do his marking. He stirred his coffee absent-mindedly with one hand as he considered the likelihood of getting fired for losing a couple of assignments. Probably not very high, provided the majority of them were there, but it was the students who would suffer…most of them having failed spectacularly already, one lost essay wouldn’t really make a huge difference to their grades.
Truth be told, he didn’t really expect the girl to respond because it wasn’t really often that people whose work you’d just knocked off decided to strike up conversation with you, but that was his family’s way. Or…it was Inez’s way and living with her for five years had not allowed him to escape with some similar personality traits. And honestly, people tended to be a lot more friendly this side of the big pond so perhaps it was more normal. Cato wouldn’t know; before now he’d never even set foot in the US. Regardless, he was just about to make a sore attempt at getting back into his previous state of mind – after this sip of coffee, he promised – when he heard her reply.
Grinning despite himself, Cato put the coffee back down even though it was untouched to avoid choking on it. He looked back over at her, clicking the pen in his hand amusedly. “I don’t think the ‘a strange girl ate my homework’ excuse would really work in this scenario…” His dark eyes wandered back over to the stack of marking, and he felt a distinct sense of unwillingness to continue with it when there was still an entire heap at home that hadn’t yet been touched. “That said, I’m thinking it might be worth a try.” He had that deadpan-expression-sarcasm going on, he knew, and he only hoped she realised too or this day would go from bad to worse in a split second and that wasn’t something that he wanted, understandably. “Seriously though, if you do know somebody that can mark literature essays, I think I might need their help.”
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Post by Olivia Cora Atkins on Dec 12, 2012 21:52:20 GMT -8
Liv grinned a little, letting out a soft laugh when he said that he doubted that telling his bosses that a strange girl had taken the papers would go down too well with them, shaking her head a little. “It could very well be… if all else fails, they might give you points for creativity at least,” she answered, lifting the hand holding her coffee up to take a sip of the now rapidly cooling liquid, figuring that she should probably start drinking it before it went stone cold and became nearly undrinkable or she would end up having to buy a new one.
It occurred to her that standing here, continuing talking to him, probably just made her seem like some sort of weirdo… but maybe it was just the boredom she had been feeling taking over right now, making her stand here and talk to him even though she probably should have walked away by now and left him in peace… at least he didn’t seem to mind so much and seemed nice, although she figured that she should probably let him get back to what he had been doing soon anyway.
She shook her head when he asked if she knew anyone that could mark literature essays, flashing him an apologetic smile. “Unfortunately, no… especially as I’m completely unqualified to do so myself although I possibly have a better idea of what I’m talking about than a lot of people,” she replied. She did well in literature… she was better at mathematics and science though, but she got that from her dad, she guessed, since that was definitely his forte, being a doctor and all. But if any of the people who wrote the papers he was marking were anything like some of the people she went to school with… well then she definitely pitied him for having to read them all.
“Anyway, I should probably let you get back to what you were doing or you’re not going to get anything done,” Liv said, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet as she spoke… yeah, she should probably go before she started to look borderline crazy stalker or something.
tagged nem
words 364
notes maybee they should meet up again at the barn or something? idk xD
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