Bitches Lovve WWhales

[KamiKaze]

So, English class was boring.

Well, to be fair, it wasn't like the teacher was trying to make it boring. But it was kind of dull, sitting here at the desk listening to the teacher talk about Moby Dick and what each thing represented. Plus, you know. It did seem interesting, actually. Carol liked the idea behind the adventure story. It's just that it took a long time for things to actually... you know... happen. It'd be a lot better if they cut out a lot of stuff that wasn't necessary!

As the teacher scrawled information about the book on the board, Carol tried her best to pay attention and take notes where it needed to. It... was difficult, though. She wasn't even sure if the whale symbolized anything. It was just a whale, right? A big, white sperm whale, sure, but just a whale. It seemed strange to her, though, that the captain was so obsessed with it. Sure, it took his leg, but... well, it's a whale. And while she knew that it was an actual thing whales had in their heads, well... she couldn't help but snicker a bit each time they mentioned "sperm". Obviously, it lead to a lot of jokes among her classmates.

Carol briefly glanced up at the clock.

Half an hour before school was out.

Eh, wasn't that long. But you know. Once they were done with Moby Dick, it was going to take a while for her to hear the word "whale" and not blank out. But at least it wasn't that bad a book. Just... one that was really long, apparently full of symbolism, and was easy to make jokes about whenever they talked about "sperm". She just hoped she would be able to pass the test on it coming up soon.

Did she write enough notes?

Carol glanced down. She had ended up doodling a picture of, for some reason, a goat before class. She didn't even know why a goat. She hadn't even been thinking about goats recently. Goats seemed like nice animals, though.

But notes? Alongside the goat on the top of the page, there were a few. But not enough.

Better get back to writing those notes!

[Courtography]

Nick was seriously bored with English class right now. Sure, there were the normal jokes in it. They were reading Moby Dick right now. Moby Dick. Of course everyone laughed. He laughed even. Normally he kept quiet in general, except for around a few people. But dick jokes were enough to let him laugh with everyone else.

Right, but they had notes. Okay fine, he would write down a few things and then space off. It would maintain his B average without too much effort. Way to go Nick.

Okay, so it was a whale. And it was white, and it bit off that guy's leg. Wow, great story. And now the guy wanted revenge. Great, doesn't he like have anything he has to pay for? Or is he just like super loaded, y'know big mansion, would have like six Ferrari's, well if he lived today. Nick supposed he wasn't your Average Joe, going out to work a living like the people in his neighborhood.

There's some on welfare.

True, but not many. Okay back to notes on Rich Man Whale Hunter.

[Brackie]

Notes?

Oh, right, those things.

Is that what Anna was supposed to be doing? She'd stopped paying attention when everyone started snorting at an immature penis joke. She could have sworn she was in a class with seventeen-year-olds, not seven-year-olds. Of course, if she'd shared a class with them, it could probably be nap time, and she'd be at the top of the class with that. She really could go for a nap right now. Would the teacher honestly mind? She looked the strict type. What was her name again? It had to be something fantastical and English-y like "Sheilds", or "Smith", or "Pranzmanistan". Wait, Pranz? No one would be cruel enough to keep that name for themselves, they'd probably hate themselves. Did she hate herself enough to give herself a name like that? She didn't look too hateful. Kinda boring. Maybe she was boring because she hated herself?

This was all about Moby-Dick. Yes, that was how it was spelt, everyone with a brain knew it had a hyphon in it. Good-old Snowboarder Penis-Joke. The Big White Sperm Whale, oh now she was making them herself? That wasn't going to do. Besides, everyone she knew knew it was just baloney. It wasn't deep. She'd seen the whaling page on Wikipedia have less about the triumphs and downfalls of whaling than this book. She'd read it, of course. First night, as always. Every loving word, full of homoerotic imagery and outdated terms which would make a etymologist cringe and even pages upon pages about food. Chowder. The clam, the cod? Both?

Anna's eyes lazily fluttered up and watched her classmates, some head-down, others head-cloud. Just like her. There were some pretty interesting people in here she'd never spoken to. Like that boy-whoops, girl, sitting right over there. And that other guy. And another one, and the other one, and some other ones right over there. It was a great spot, back of the class, she could see everyone and the teacher could look at everything and she still couldn't be anything less than lazy.

She could barely remember what she was doing. This was class, right? The teacher may have stopped talking a while ago. Maybe she did hate herself.

God, Anna felt like a nap right now.

It could wait though. Moby-Dick held her in such rivets.

[KamiKaze]

The lecture just went on and on.

Seriously. The book had this much symbolism? She always thought it was about a whale, nothing more or less. And it was just a book that would have been a lot more interesting if they cut a lot of things that weren't necessary to know. But apparently, Moby Dick could symbolize God or the force of nature? And Ahab might under this interpretation be a blasphemer? And the whale could also symbolize Ahab's inner struggle? Huh? Carol could only tilt her head to the side. She... wasn't good with symbolism. The only symbolism she managed to get was the phallic and sperm references, and even then! Everyone got that one, and she wasn't even sure if it was intentional. What's worse was, they had to write a paper about this. A paper! What was she supposed to do, write it about the homoerotic imagery? Okay, that would actually be funny, but she wasn't sure if that was what was in mind. "Oh yeah, it's totally about gay sex! Moby Dick represents an actual dick!"

Carol giggled to herself. It wasn't like the book wasn't asking for it, though. The thing was about a guy desperately hunting a big white phallic object containing "sperm" called Moby Dick. The relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael and that entire chapter on chowder? Only made it worse. Again, book was asking for-

"Carol."

She snapped out of her thoughts.

"Yes?"

"Is there something about whale hunting that you find funny?"

Carol's smile dropped. Oh dang. She noticed that she kind of giggled a bit to herself.

"Uh, no! Just... something I remembered!" Carol forced another smile on.

The teacher frowned. "Just go back to writing. Now, Queequeg's coffin is quite significant in the story, as some of you may have guessed..."

She went back to writing on the board, and Carol went back to trying to take notes and not think about... that. Trying, though, was the key word here. Seriously.

To make matters even worse, all this talk of Starbuck was just making her crave coffee. Specifically, iced frappuccino. Damn it. Now her thoughts were wandering again!

[Lord_Shadow]

((PREGAME: JENNIFER STEINMAN START))

To say the lecture was boring was an understatement, the biggest of the century, but Jennifer paid attention and made her notes because dammit just because it was boring and probably stupid didn't mean she was going to just not do this. Normally English class wasn't this boring. There were a lot of fun books to read and plenty of symbolism that just made sense and didn't seem to be stretched like a lot of what she was hearing. Shakespeare, one of her favorites, that she could get into.

But Moby Dick? Apart from the immature, and still admittedly chuckle-worthy, jokes to be made the whole thing was basically a whaling expedition. She was not going to give that book the satisfaction of calling itself, or being called, an adventure. Symbolism be damned. Of course, it was there somewhere, but she didn't think to the extent that you could fill an entire class period with a lecture on it.

She just mentally sighed and continued scribbling her notes. Might as well get them down and do the report as quick as possible. That way she could get to things that were really fun and not stupid.

Someone giggled, a little more audibly than everyone else, but that was to be expected. Teach called the girl out on it, and just as quickly went back to not caring and being boring.

For the love of God, when was this class going to end?

Jen hadn't noticed that she had been pressing her pencil a little too hard against the page with that last thought and the lead snapped. "Dammit." She took another one from the four in front of her. That made the seventh just in this classroom.

Jennifer frowned at realizing that she was so bored she thought that was noteworthy.

She scribbled on the margin of her page with the new pencil: Invent time machine, tell this guy to write a better book.

[Slam]

Amber Whimsy was not setting the margin for work that day as the lesson continued falling on deaf ears. If a novel managed to catch the young journalist’s interest then that was one thing, but Moby Dick was just a story about a guy who went nuts over a whale biting his leg or something. Whoop dee doo. It could have worked too if the author had just bothered to spice it up a little, rather than put in all this symbolism that was getting shoved in her face. Her pencil rapping against the edge of her nearly blank sheet of paper was the only sound she was listening to, not even a crude stick figure doodled due to the black hole of enthusiasm that was this novel that all the penis jokes in the world couldn’t save now.

Amber had a perfect view of her friend Carol’s own interpretation of the story, a smile creeping onto her face as she was called out on in front of the class. At this point she was willing to take anything for a laugh, no matter how simple it might have been it was still better than this book. Plus it was always funny when teachers got annoyed and getting to see the different faces they could make. Some more of that was just what this lesson called for, she decided.

“Hey! Hey Carol!” she whispered, trying to catch her friend's attention. She had to be careful not to make a noise now that their teacher was on full alert, so either Carol didn't hear her or she was just ignoring her. Scribbling out a note and ripping the sheet out the page as carefully as possible, the minute sounds of tearing barely heard over the fortieth mention of the word ‘symbolic’ that lesson, she folded it into easily passed compact square. This time she opted to jab Carol in the back with the rubber end of her pencil, holding up the folded piece of paper for her to grab before the two were spotted and she got into trouble over it instead.

She was the one giggling now as she waited for the reaction Carol would give when she looked what was on her little note. It was going to be hilarious though, that was pretty much guaranteed.

[Courtography]

Oh nice, a girl that sat closer to the front of the room, Nick had decided to sit in the back, had gotten called out for laughing. Nice, can't hold it in? Of course it was funny. Laughing about obvious jokes shouldn't piss off the teacher so much.

Well he didn't think so, teachers should expect that sort of thing at this point. After all they were students once, right? Or were they just lame people who had no fun? Of course, that left the question of why go back to high school?

Nick shook his head and went back to his notes.

[Brackie]

Anna couldn't help but crack a smile at the broken monotony. Someone had obviously read the line about squeezing the sperm, and gotten a little giggly. Of course, they were all teenagers, even she laughed aloud a few times after reading about the captain and his harpooners marriage. Herman Melville really needed to just at least proofread his work. Cause come on, seriously, Shakespeare, a work so heavily inspirational to Moby-Dick, wasn't even this homoerotic. She'd even seen Skins, there was the tension those two guys, the guy with glasses and the sociopathic twatter, that stuff was bloody intentional and it wasn't as overblown and homoerotic as between the captain and the harpooner. And worse yet, it was boring.

T-T-T-T-Tap.

T-T-T-T-Tap.

T-Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap.

Her nails made an excellent sound against the desk, not too loud and obtrusive, and yet such a groove and mellow sound. She'd long since given up any pretence of actually writing down these notes. How could she? Everything else in this classroom was such a better story. Like, well, the girl sitting up near the front who giggled. She confused her for a boy at first, but it was the giggle that gave her agay-AWAY. So why was it cut such? And green? She didn't look much like a girl anyway, so did she really want to be a boy or something?

T-T-T-T-Tap.

And then, there was another girl who caught her eye. Well it was her hair, really, it kinda bounced whenever she moved, did she know that? Imagine not knowing that everywhere you went, something bounced. Up and down, up and down, and people were staring at it all day, wondering how it bounced so. Did she maintain it? Was it real? People did have those hair extensions things these days, you know, those things they attach onto their scalps to make them seem more fuller and richer and stuff, you know? They must be expensive, it's not like you can just shove a fur cap on there and it'll look real, you'd need actual hair from actual people. Maybe dead people? Cause you wouldn't have to pay much to get hair from a dead person, didn't their hair just keep on growing after they died? Anna could have sworn she read that in Ripleys once, about this woman who died and after her coffin was opened up or something it was full of her hair which had kept growing. Or was that fingernails?

T-T-T-T-Tap.

And then there was the guy next to her, sitting right in the same row as her, only an empty desk between them. He had nice hair too, nice and long and blonde.

T-T-T-T-Tap.

Why would a heterosexual guy grow his hair long? I mean, you had like a bazillion other things you'd want long if you were a guy, why the hair? Was he like a metalhead? Nah, a blonde metalhead? You'd rather be a blue-haired Hannah-Montanna fan, you know?

T-T-T-T-Tap.

Blonde was such a lady-like colour, you don't wanna show off your good old lady-like hair? It'd make you a laughing stock, not that this place was a bad school to begin with. There used to be a lot of fights around here, didn't there? People must have got their shit-

"Miss Kateridge."

"Hmm?"

Anna's eyes shot back to the teacher, and boy did she look annoyed. Wow, it really was such a ridiculous move to actually draw attention to the fact you weren't all that fussed about class, and instead leaning your head in your hand and staring at anything but the whiteboard. Really, why didn't she just take out her iPod and start up the beats? And then, bring out a bottle of Jack Daniels and really get the party started? Hell, even just invite the rest of the girls in here and get a full-blown rave on?

"Oh, uh, sorry Miss Hall."

"It's 'Mrs", Kateridge, as we've established many times before."

"Oh, okay, righty Mrs Hall."

She'd gone and forgotten about the teacher she'd been being teached by again, a sentence so incorrect if her teacher had the power to break the fourth wall she'd probably weep into her dress. It wasn't like Mrs Hall, one of the only teachers at Highland who could control her students, was an enemy in the student-teacher way of Anna's, it was merely just that said teacher could see potential in Anna, and she merely gave zero fucks about doing well.

But anyway, back to her wandering.

T-tap.

Steady girl. Her eyes flickered back to the long-haired guy on her row. Did he know she'd been staring at him for a while?

[KamiKaze]

Whale whale whale. Whale whale whale? SYMBOLIC. Whale symbol whale whale sperm whale whale whale...

Carol glanced at the clock again. Honestly, class couldn't get out any faster. Still a ways to go. She couldn't laugh at the sperm and penis jokes, either, since she had already been called out on it. She just wanted to go out and do things, not listen to the teacher talk about the irony of Queequeg's coffin being a life preserver! It wasn't like Ms. Hall was trying to make it boring, or that it could be interesting to the right person. But to the average high school student? Boring and set-up to penis jokes, to be frank. Come on minute hand, complete that journey!

A hiss came from behind her. Amber? Yes, Amber. Carol soon afterwards felt a pencil being jabbed into her back playfully. Okay, it was probably a good idea to see what she wanted. What exactly did she want?

Carol turned around and saw that she was holding out a note. Carol hesitated, and then reached out to grab it...

She jumped as the teacher focused her attention on a student again. No, it wasn't her, but it wasn't like it didn't scare her for a second. After all, she and Amber could have been caught passing notes! Carol stared behind her at the girl who had been called on, seemingly for strumming her fingers. And, taking the opportunity of the teacher being distracted with Anna Kateridge (that was her name, wasn't it?), she took Amber's note and turned back around when the teacher went back to the board.

Okay, this had better be good. She had already been in enough hot water for laugh-

The note read something completely innocent and mature.

Namely, in gigantic letters?

"Penis!". The note's entire contents, in huge lettering.

Carol covered her mouth in an attempt to suppress further giggling. It shouldn't have made her laugh as much as it should. But at least she knew Amber had caught on. Okay, time to keep quiet and not have the teacher call her out on it again. Just hope class ends quickly.

[Super Llama*]

Meanwhile, in the back corner, Lyn was doodling random shapes in the margins of her notebook. The lecture had pretty much become a blur at that point, and whenever her focus was brought back to the teacher and she remembered that she was saying actual words that she was supposed to be writing down, she scrawled a couple lines of shorthand notes and then returned to doodling.

There was plenty of stifled laughter all throughout the classroom, and Lyn was starting to feel a little annoyed. Seriously, penis jokes stopped being funny in grade school. And all the over-analyzation didn't help, either. It was pretty obvious what the book was about. Guy wants revenge. Guy tries to get revenge. Guy is destroyed by revenge. It's a pretty straightforward story, and the only reason people they were in class trying to find deeper meanings is because the book is more than 50 years old, because apparently everything that was ever written over 50 years ago is this deep, multi-faceted masterpiece that deserves people analyzing it and analyzing it and analyzing it some more to make themselves feel smarter.

T-T-T-T-Tap.

The hell?

Lyn looked up from her doodles, trying to pinpoint where that noise was coming from, looking around at the other people in her class. She didn't really know any of them beyond a name and a face, and she'd be surprised if anyone here knew more than that about her.

The noise seemed to stop, so she returned to her notes and-

T-T-T-T-Tap.

Okay, seriously. Where the hell is that coming from? She looked up again, giving each individual person within her eyesight a once-over. But the noise stopped again, so sh-

T-T-T-T-Tap.

Oh goddamni-

"Miss Kateridge."

Oh, okay.

The teacher called out the person responsible, so the problem appeared to be solved. She returned to her notes (again) and returned to doodling some more shap-

T-tap.

...

[CondorTalon]

Moby Dick.

Dick.

Dick jokes.

It was inevitable that they were going to be made.

So, English was boring. Karl had been writing down notes half-diligently, more out of an obligation than anything. He had been waiting for class to end for about half an hour now, absent-mindedly copying down what was on the board. Moby Dick. Apparently the book had tons of symbolism but Karl wasn't getting it. It was a revenge story, what more was there? Sure, one could say it was deeper than that, but Karl didn't really care. Whatever. He could hear a couple of people snickering, trying to hold back laughter. Moby Dick. Yeah, good job acting your own age people.

He'd been idly glancing around the classroom when he noticed the girl, one desk ahead and to the right, pass up something to the girl in front of her. Oy. He leaned forward.

"Hey, no notes in class!" he hissed, loud enough for the girl to hear but quiet enough to not attract Mrs. Hall's attention. She was already busy enough with the lecture.

And besides, Mrs. Hall wouldn't call him out. Not him.

[Courtography]

(Feel free to keep RPing, but I'm having Nick leave, yah)

Nick slacked off on his notes in the last few minutes of class. The clock was almost there, then he could leave. Yeah, leave stupid English. Go home, put on some kickass Nirvana or Pearl Jam, and just lay around for a bit. Then there was stupid homework, but that wouldn't be a problem, not for long anyway.

(Nick Simmons continued in The Rocky Horror Picture Show)

[Slam]

((Kay rolling past post order here in the name of progress))

Hehe, penis. Amber giggled along with Carol at the joke, distracting her from the boredom of Moby Dick for a brief moment.

"Hey, no notes in class!"

She yelped, jumping in her seat. Karl Chalmers was telling her off she realized, responding straight at him with a fearsome glare. “Hey shut up!” she snapped back at him, her hand clenching around her pencil. “Mind you own business, jerk!”

“Miss Whimsy, is there something you’d like to share with us?” came the stern voice of Mrs Hall from the front of the class. Amber gulped, realizing that she hadn’t been whispering like she had probably meant to.
“Karl started it!” she replied, pointing her pencil at Karl whilst the patience left her teacher’s face by the second. Great, now he had gotten her in trouble! He was going to get such a blogging when she got home! ‘Karl Chalmers Expose: 25 reasons why he sucks!’ she imagined, the article writing itself. Yeah, that or something like ’Ten things that aren’t as bad as this guy!’

“Miss Whimsy, are you listening?” Mrs Hall asked, dragging her attention back to reality and out of headlines. She looked at her with a blank face, trying her very best to think of a tactful and appropriate response. Then she pointed at Karl again. “He started it!”

[Lord_Shadow]

((Moving Jen out. Don't mind me, feel free to RP! Yay that rhymes.))

Class was pretty much over, even if there were enough minutes left for Mrs. Hall to stall till the end. But Jennifer was done with this class, done with pointless symbolism, done with it all. English classed sucked. She never got to sit next to her friends, even the ones she really didn't like but was nice to on the outside. So she just decided to zone out till the end. Screw English class. Friendless pain of a class.

((Jennifer Steinman continued in Lab Day))

[Brackie]

Oh, what's this now? This situation was most perplexing. There seemed to be some sort of ruckus down at the front of the classroom. Someone must have been passing notes. Ooh, this was most fun. She hadn't seen anyone get caught for that in almost a decade. Of course, she was sure the punishment here was going to be rather different. You can't punish a kid in Secondary School like you could in the Second Grade. Although, if that did happen, it would be something a step aside from the normal.

Bah, that was fruitless anyway. Who was passing notes anyway? Was it that girl? The girl who Mrs Hall spoke to before? You just wouldn't do that, that was kind of silly. If the teacher was already glaring at you behind her papers, then why would you upset her some more? Passing notes, honestly. Was this not the technological age? What ever happened to text messaging and emails and that stuff? Did she not have any? But...wait, not everyone can afford text messaging and emails and all that rot like Anna could. It would be kind of pointless to send silly little notes around by phone when you do have paper and pen right there, which is free by the way.

Anna turned her attention away from the guy in the corner who seemed to be lacking an attention span and looked around the lug in front of her for a better view of what seemed to be a sort of "he-said-she-said" contest growing. This was looking rather fun. It would also distract the teacher from the fact she hadn't taken any notes.