Trina had to find a seat by a plug. That was fine, she’d had a lecture in this room last spring term. There was at least one under the fourth row of chairs, where the old projector used to be plugged in – the “flimsy flipper” type. New digital one – now caged – was hanging from the ceiling.
She plugged in and booted up, plugged in her external mic. If asked, she recorded the class, and was testing voice dictation algorithm. Really, Rose’s code had been a long high school project, only dusted off this summer – her mind was dying in her internship. She needed something to work on, and she realized even if she needed to totally rewrite the code base, she had had some decent ideas about a continuously training model back then. As long as she could keep it all under 512 mb of ram.
Of course, she had started as OCR software, but handling audio seemed a fine extension – though Trina would still need to correct words every so often. Up until now most of it had been off the 10 pm news.
She hoped she could continue to work on it as her thesis project. But that really depended on requirements – which the syllabus clearly stated were to be announced that day. Presumably so people would not have been working on projects for months already – which was why she hoped the work might be relevant. She hadn’t had any classes with this professor, so his whims were… an unknown unknown.
The chairs filled up, the Professor set up in front, Pulling out the syllabus, passing out stacks to rows – on fluorescent yellow paper.
She tried to pay attention to what he was saying, but half her attention was what was typed on the laptop’s screen as he said it.
She didn’t even realize the theme had been announced until the pregnant silence after. She woke up to “Organic Motion from off the shelf inorganic components”
What.
She was going to figure out how to automate filling pot-stickers reliably. She was going to invent the replacement to bike chains. Or something.
The point of repetitive mechanical motion was it was more efficient than organic limitations. She was supposed to make intentionally bad machines?
The professor continued. Students had to submit their proposals in the next week by email – his office would be open during this period, and during normal hours, but approvals would be given in writing, and rejections would be putting off important design work – so don’t think wearing him down wit low effort proposals would get anyone a passing grade. At the end of the term, Students could sign up to present early – but not presenting guaranteed failure.
~
The man had to have some angle. “Organic motion” sounded something a Phd student would announce they were studying in a paper. What even counted as inorganic here? Carbonless? Were the banned from using potentiometers? Plastic? Or off the shelf? Could she not cut sheet metal? Maybe… Maybe she could hook Rose up to text to speech tonight. There had to be some projects out there. Have her go through the parameters again.
If she went to office hours, who knew what kind of runaround she would get.
~
She wandered the campus in the failing light. There certainly was text to speech, but the quality… sucked. It was a great momentary diversion. The phoneme research she had done over the summer for machine transcription was still fresh in her head – could she use a logic tree in this case, or would she be stuck with the same IPA dictionary other projects used? There had to be something more conductive for English pronunciation.
Slowly, though the cool air pulled her out of it. The commuting students disappeared, the night classes found their lecture halls, and she was left with a cool wind.
The separation of leaf stems from tree branches was organic. Triggered by… what, moisture content? That did not seem useful for industry. Pin it.
She came to one of many bulletin boards – all the terms new postings were up – work study, fraternities, planned events. Planned events were big in the early fall term – keeping freshmen occupied and entertained long enough that refund deadlines would pass with minimal indecents.
One piece did stick out. A small color poster – as apposed to the many photocopies on colored paper – advertised a circus tour. She saw the dates – they were trying to get a hail mary in student interest on this one, their “univerity night” was the last before they packed up for another city – and tomorrow. A majority of the term’s students would barely have been on campus by tomorrow.
The had a budget if they were printing in color, at least, compared to the University events. It looked like a smaller group – no animals – but no “cirque” makeup either.
Yeah. Yeah – research. She had a small budget of her own tuition money for her thesis project. Seeing dicks and boobs flapping around definitely counted as organic. Depending how bad attendance was, she might even be able to get pictures of that research.
~
The bus wasn’t crowded tuesday night. That was good, right? There hadn’t been a website url for tickets, or to see who was doing what – so it was a ticket at the front door. Like an old movie theater – or where old folks go to see travelogues, or a community talent show. A stage, slightest bit of decoration. She didn’t expect to recognize any attendees – and boy didn’t she. The clientèle that showed up couldn’t decide if it were upscale or just old – no, there was at least one group loud enough to be freshmen, probably preserved form a high school clique.
Trina was dressed up like it was a job interview. She was wearing heels.
And as a three piece band started up – she understood nothing. And continued to understand nothing. Had she missed a program? Had they sold out of programs? Nobody was announced. Some guy was singing opera. There were clowns – painted white, baggy clothes – but it looked more like they were playing dance dance revolution than anything funny. People hopped around, some guy may or may not have stripped on stage…
The freshmen screamed at points, but she was not sure at what. If there were any pauses for applause, then everyone missed them, not just her. Trina had to wonder if University Night was a fill time and have fun thing.
There were two exceptions – the was a trampoline act for a while. That seemed controlled merely for the fact if it were not, people would be crashing into each other mid air. The second – wasn’t acrobatic at all. A woman – a black haired Asian of some sort, was bending across the stage. She stood on her hands, she sat on her head, splits and twists – but everything lined up with the music. She didn’t seem to stand up straight once in however long her act took – and for once, Trina was engaged enough that she wasn’t glancing at the clock on her phone.
~
She had to get some footage of that woman. Pictures, at least. This was documented proof that organic and mechanical were not at odds. That human and mechanical were not at odds. She could use this to justify whatever mechanical system she wanted to build.
~
It wasn’t a long meeting.
It was completely possible that the Asian woman had a less obvious role in other acts – the final act were everyone came out was not a huge group, and the contortionist was back out in the same outfit again – being given a moment to do something like a cartwheel in place – but stretching out limbs in opposite directions and folding in half multiple times before taking a bow.
After the band called it quits, the old people packed up, and it looked like the freshman group was truing to solicit circus members to go get drinks.
The Asian woman kept to the edge of the stage, though, sitting down, catching her breath – giving a few high fives to other members. The drinking group cleared out – and Trica saw her chance, coming up past the first row seating as the woman started to rise from her seat
“Hi – that was incredible – Uh. Do you know English?”
The performer’s eyes bulged for a moment, then tilted her head at the girl that had just approached her.
“…Francais?” Trina tried.
She didn’t notice the woman stifling a laugh. At all.
With the most mild of grins, the performer pointed at Trina, mimed writing on her palm, then pushed her eyebrows up.
Trina took a moment. “Oh, a signature! Yes, I’d love one-” She reached into her fairly large purse (still the smallest purse she owned) and, remembering there was no program, pulled out the poster she had pulled from the bulletin board at the university, neatly folded, and a thick sharpie. “And, is it possible I could get a picture too?” She had pulled a small camera out as well, miming and pointing back a the woman.
The woman looked at her a little befuddled before her face snapped into a mischievous smile. She held out her hands – while not moving from the stage.
Trina, letting her camera power up, quickly looked for a way up onto the stage, unbothered by the requirement… though not the most confident running in heels. She handed to partially unfolded poster and the sharpie, not sure of what else to do.
She contortionist unfolded the poster on the ground in front of her, and made a grand gesture of uncapping the sharpie as she folded in half backward – reaching down to the floor and through her legs to the poster, pulling shoulders in between them and grandly signing “Тархангийн Энэбиш” by the composited picture of her with a foot raised in an overextended split. Trina quickly tried to kneel down to take a picture, precariously teetering on unfamiliar heels. Poster signed, the sharpie was quickly capped off, and Enbush pushed higher and further into the backbend, pulling her self up her right thigh with the right arm, trying to make the squint in the camera’s flash awkward as she could make it. the Trina lowered the camera, Enbish handed her back the marker and poster with a smile –
“Thank you! Is… Is this russian?”
Enbish had to work to maintain her smile, “Монгол хэл.”
“mon-go-kel,” Trina failed to repeat, tucking away the poster and pen, not sure how to continue.
Enbish didn’t rise. In fact she raised her left arm to match her right, looking the slightest bit like a school child that didn’t quite know how to put a backpack on.
Trina took another picture. Her knees were starting to shake.
Enbish made small adjustments, getting ready to push a little farther if need be – and Trina toppled over.
Enbish allowed herself a laugh, and uncurled to standing, offering the student a hand up just as she reoriented herself to stand – and easily lifting the smaller woman to her feet – and almost completely off them.
“Selfie?” She asked, trying to apply as thick an accent as she could to the question.
“Ok?” Trina was deposited against the wall at the edge of the stage, finding she had not been the one to pick up her camera.
“Say Cheese!”, the pose Enbish adopted was a derivative of kabedon – with her back to Trina, her face to the camera, and her leg raised high in an oversplit, framing in the other side of Trina’s head.
“Cheese” It was pure chance she glanced at the camera at the right moment over staring at the leg, or trying to get a view of how things connected.
After this, the camera was returned, Trina was given a formal sounding “Сайн яваарай”, along with a bow of the head, and found herself alone on the stage.
At least she had the sense to call it a night.
~
It should be noted the 20 years later the poster – along with prints of three photos – currently hangs in [Rose]’s room, aka the robotics room. [Rose] made the connection with the contortion coach downstairs years ago. Trina did not.
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