Faith barges into the study lounge out of breath, like she ran a marathon to get here, and her dejected voice pricks at the surface of my heart. "You began without me?"
I shake my head vigorously and hold my hands up like a burglar who's been caught. "I would never."
She squints her eyes at me, not convinced. "Yeah, okay. You would definitely start ahead."
"Rude," I scoff, pretending to be hurt. She just shrugs. I clear some of the books off the table and replace it with my Physics III materials.
"We'll start with the homework since it's due tomorrow, and I know damn well you haven't started it," I state matter-of-factly.
Faith opens her mouth to protest. "Can I just--"
"Absolutely not. You're gonna pass this class. Better yet, ace it." I removed her hand from the answer key tabbed in the textbook.
"You already finished the problem, though."
"So what? Besides, being able to teach someone a concept is a pretty great way to know if you really mastered the content."
"I guess." She sighs and grabs the strawberry pocky from our now mini pile of snacks in between the books.
Faith furrows her brows, deep in thought as she stares at the diagram and the corresponding problem with the Pocky stick getting shorter as she munches on it little by little. I slightly jump in my seat when I hear a thud. She groans in evident frustration, the sound partially muffled as her face covers the pages. I gently shake her shoulder.
"Faye? Everything good in that head of yours?"
She raises her head a bit, her hair covering her face, and I can just barely make out her mumbling, "Just wonderful," before putting her nose back in the text. I rub my hand behind my neck.
"Alright, how about this. I'll write down an idea to add to our 'theoretical date' jar for every problem you get right. If we can get through this whole sheet, you can choose what we do for the rest of the day. How does that sound?"
Her curious eyes transition to excitement. "Hmmm, okay." Her straightened posture radiates a newfound motivation. She smooths out the pages and takes another stab at finishing to get the final answer. I sneak glances at her as she re-reads the question to herself.
"How fast would water flow out of a 35m tall storage silo, with its top opened and resting at sea level? For full credit, prove your chosen formula in addition to solving for velocity."
"Of course, we have to prove the theorem," she leans back in the chair, arms crossed, a pout forming on her full lips. "Dual active recall?"
She used our call phrase for study sessions.
Faith: 8, Aidan: 11
"Of course. Let's do it." I flip back to my notes to match the problem she's on. Then, I push the chair back, grab a brown Expo marker from the storage utility cup on the whiteboard, and draw a cylinder to represent the silo.
"Okay, let's break this down into what we already know. We're using conservation of energy as the concept. Therefore, gravity is factored into this. I hand her a blue marker. "What's the first equation we need?"
She pushes herself out of her seat and scribbles the equation to the right of the diagram with confidence.
KE = 1/2mv^2
Faith hands me an orange Expo and I write down the potential energy equation on the left side of the diagram.
PE = mgh
YOU ARE READING
The Silicon Valley Connection
RomanceCollege junior Faith Sommers is all about processes--a series of steps followed (sometimes often repeated) in order to yield a certain result. As an aspiring astronaut, the founder of her own tech company, and a full-time engineering student, proced...
