BAD OMENS ✬ luke hemmings

1.5 | new developments

"Hey Aria," Dr. Moore calls out to the girl, catching her before she walks out of the library for lunch. Aria and Michael share a glance, she tells him to wait for her, and he sighs leaning against a bookshelf with a phone in hand.

"Hi," she says, approaching the librarian.

"Do you mind if we sit down? I've made comments on your extended essay. I figured it would be good to go through it now as I'll be swamped with MUN things on Thursday and Friday, and next week is a half week because of break." He explains, the man has been trying to track down his students and give them back their feedback for the four-thousand word essay before they all go off on holiday.

"Oh! Yeah, sure," Aria nods, spinning around to grab Michael's attention and waving him off to leave. The green-haired boy salutes the girl a goodbye then walks off, he doesn't know why the older man couldn't have talked to Aria earlier, considering they've been in the library for the past eighty-minutes.

"Great, I've got it on my table, come on." Dr. Moore says, walking off to his secluded little table in the library with Aria trailing behind him.

The two sit across from each other, and he hands the girl the printed document – a whopping 23 pages including title, table of contents, and work cited – that's sprinkled with red pen and comments. Moore is the girl's supervisor because he was the only one who could understand the motivation of her extended essay question and its context.

To be fair, Jodie Harris was expected to be her supervisor, but after a meeting – that left the girl crying in the bathroom for ten-minutes – it was clear that her English teacher would be of no help.

Nevertheless, Aria flips through the pages and rubric, examining the feedback given. "Okay, so let me talk you through my thought process, and initial thoughts." Dr. Moore says, "I think this is a pretty solid essay and a fun read, considering how untraditional and risky it is for the IB."

Yes, to be fair, analyzing a small fragment of an adult cartoon that explores existential questions about life and death through a sort of postmodern and paradoxical narrative is not classified as conceptual or a usual for a traditionally academic and important piece of writing towards earning her diploma.

"And I thoroughly admire, and enjoy how your voice exhibits itself in your writing." He continues, "You know, I've read a million extended essays, and I've found that women typically have a stronger voice and I feel that's really important in getting whatever point you're trying to make across."

"Oh, that's cool." Aria nods. She doesn't know how to receive feedback, she usually just nods along and asks little questions because it's a simple guide on what she has to do to improve.

"Yeah, isn't it? Anyways, I think the main thing you need to focus on when revisiting this essay and editing are the narrative sentences, you should stay away from describing scenes – yes, you need some description, but don't overdo it." He explains, "And the scenes are a bit confusing; maybe list them at the start? And refer to your methodology more."

The girl hums, nodding along. "Yeah, I get that. I can change it," she points to a paragraph, "I can probably shorten this down and make it simpler." Looking back at it, the essay is a real mess, she wrote most of it three days before the deadline and practically rushed her conclusion on a Tuesday night.

That doesn't mean she doesn't love her essay any less, considering how long she procrastinated on it and how it was August – a month before the due date with no words or solid guiding question – and her sister, Riley, practically planned out the whole thing for her at one in the morning using a dented whiteboard.

"And there's also simple changes you need to make as well," Dr Moore says, "like to avoid contractions, signposting, and general sentence structure improvements. And as of now, you're predicted a B. Other than that, how do you feel?"