Computers, Basketball and Love

Chapter 2

The next morning after having breakfast with her roommates and Cody she had one class. It was her elective. The one she had chosen as her elective was a history class. After computers, history was the most interesting thing to learn about.

Once she was done with class she didn't have any other classes or studying that she had to do for the next few days. When she got back to her room she sat down at her desk and got her laptop started up so that she could log into her game.

While the game was loading she pulled out her phone and decided to check out the school forum. She liked to keep up on the news and gossip at the school. It didn't take long for her to find a post with a link for the school's beauty contest. First people would vote within the departments. Once there was a winner for each department people would then vote from them which one they wanted to win.

Cora had never been interested in being a part of beauty contests, despite the fact that she had been told many many times how pretty she was. It was probably a product of being a tomboy and hanging around mostly guys while growing up. Even though she was a tomboy she still liked to dress feminine a good portion of the time. She may be beautiful but she doesn't seem to know it. In high school when guys started to show interest in her Cody would scare them off. If Cora had shown interest in any of them Cody wouldn't have done that but she had never been interested in anyone.

Out of curiosity she clicked on the link to see who all had entered the contest. She wanted to see if there were people she was acquainted with who entered the contest. After looking at the other department girls that were entered she finally looked at the computer science department. To her shock she saw her picture among the girls from her department.

As if they had timed it, the other 3 girls she roomed with came back with food for lunch. The three who just came in the door greeted Cora as they set the food on the table that they ate at. Once they set the food down they all turned to look at Cora because she hadn't replied to them yet.

They took one look at Cora and froze. They could tell they were about to be in big trouble. While Cora was typically a nice person she could also be very intimidating too.

Nicole was cursing in her head but was the only one brave enough to say anything. "Is there something wrong? You look upset."

With fire in her eyes Cora said very calmly, "Yeah you could say I'm upset." She paused for a minute before asking, "Can you tell me why I'm upset? We have known each other for 4 years. By now you should be able to know what I would be upset over."

"You went to look at the forum and the contest huh?" Nicole said with a cringe. She had hoped it would take longer for her friend to go look at it. Luck was not on her side. "Please don't be mad at me. I know you don't care about entering those kinds of contests. I just thought it would help the girls in our department."

"How would entering me in a beauty contest help the girls in our department?"

"All I ever hear about girls in our department is how all computer science girls are all ugly and nerdy looking. And that certainly isn't true. I know we all get tired of being stereotyped like that," Nicole said with emotion in her voice. "I would have entered myself but we both know that I am too close to fitting into the stereotype. However you are probably the prettiest girl on campus. At least I think you are. This could help stop people from saying those things about us. Please don't be mad at me," she said with a pouty face hoping it would help bring Cora around.

Cora sighed and gave in, "Fine. I understand why you did it but I don't like it. You know I don't like all that attention."

Since Cora was calmed down some the other two had more courage. "Just think if you manage to make a popular and successful game like you dream of doing you could become famous. If that happens you winning the contest could help prepare you for that," Hannah chimed in.