They, Us

Hairina

please give comments on my writing on this sci-fi novel. It is not completed just yet. plenty of grammatical and spelling errors to be corrected. please do give any critics or ideas ya.. tq

They, us

14:05, Lecture hall 4, University of Malaya, MY

Her heavy footsteps can be heard clucking loudly and clearly towards the lecture hall's entrance door. Her presence marks a cheerful and yet a serious tone inside, packed with students. She closes the door and greet a few during her walk to the small podium. "Dr, you look so classy la today" said one of the male student. 'la' is the slang which the malaysian uses to note a casual and friendly conversation. The whole class goes into a giggly laugh and strangely to most people but the students, Dr Hairina laughs and smiles with them, the kind of laugh you would hear from a small kid receiving their first Sony Playstation 4 and a 50 inch LED tv on boxing day. A very loud, high pitched, but unmistakably cheerful laugh. She is anything but classy and her fellow students know about this very well. For the past 6 months they have built a mutual relationship with her, the kind of relationship a 9 years old boy would have with his 15 years old sister, only that the sister is a well known lecturer with plenty of award winning researches, and the boy was, you know, only a boy... To them, this particular 'cool' lecturer is like a friend, at least before she starts lecturing. She ocationally exchanges jokes with them, but when it comes to educate and lecturing, she can be very strict, but not too strict to a point the students despise her. She is definitely not that kind of lecturer who demands authority and seems to be in a terrible mood every single day, looking dull and very much tired all day long like they were 'spent' or worse not satisfied with the 'bed action' the night before, so to speak.

"Well, you too are looking strangely dashing today la, Arman" Dr Hairina replies with a very sarcastic tone. "... and because of that, you will be my model for the class session, come up and be a good lad" She asked Arman to come up and stand right in the middle of the stage. Holding what seems to be two small planets and a sun scale model on both of her hands, she marches her way to the stage and give the sun like model to arman while she holds the earth and the other planet model. "Well class, can anybody tell me what is the name of the space that earth is occupying right now?" Her right hand is slightly raised holding the earth scale model just a few feet from Arman. The class goes silent for a solid 15 seconds since no one seems to know the answer. "Well anybody, please answer, my knees are killin me" Arman said, trying to be the class clown. They laughs and then one of the student stands up and answers "The void" which is not correct. Dr Hairina jokes that even her 10 years old brother would know the answer if she would have asked him.

"It is called the Habitable Zone and are also famously known as the Goldilocks Zone,a metaphor of the children's fairy tale of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", please tell me someone in this class knows about the story, anyone?". One of the student who is sitting on the second row raises her hand. "I think it is about a small girl who went inside a bear's family hut and ravaged through their foods, beds and uhhhhhhh.... chairs right?". Dr Hairina smiles and ask her to sit down. "You are absolutely correct Syada, but there is a meaning and a connection between the story and the Goldilocks Zone". "Yes! Yes!Yes! I remember now!" Syada spring up from her seat and shouts. "Now I remember that the little girl chooses from the sets of three items, ignoring the ones that are too extreme (large or small, hot or cold, etc.), and settling on the one in the middle, which is 'just right'". The whole class burst into a synchronized "Wooooooooo...", a tone to acknowledge awe. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Syada, you got it right! The small girl chooses the best of the best from all those goods, too hot and she would burn her tongue sipping on the bears' porridge, too small and she would break the wee bears' chair, and too stiff she would injure her back sleeping on the papa bears' bed" Hairina explains enthusiastically and then continues. " So eventually she settled on the best of the best of those three items which gave her most comfort and which is the safest of them all". The students take notes shile she's speaking and the whole room echoes with pencil writings and typing sounds. She resumes, "earth is the luckiest of all the planet in our solar system, it is like a protected child or in the goldilocks' story, earth is like the small girl, only that it doesn't get to choose the condition it wants to live in, it was given the right place, the right condition, and the right temperature to thrive in and evolve into a planet teeming with life". some of the students stop taking notes and watch as Hairina closes her eyes and breath a very long air and let it out with an "aahhhhhhhhhh" like she in in some ways, performing breathing exercise. "Earth is truly a magical place, and we are truly lucky to live on it" she smiles and stares at the earth like model. "Guys, i need you to do an assignment and submit to me on our next class, please do some 'googling' and research on this topic...", she walks down from the stage and Arman follows her and returns to his seat. "I need you to find out if there are any other planets in our observable universe that has the condition mirroring earth in some ways or another or at least can be speculated to be able to support life" she pauses for a second while reaching for something inside her bag pack and find out that the thing was missing, then she resumes, " I need you to complete this task and submit to me via email before we start our next session ya, and oh! Syada, please help me to take the portable projector from inside my office, I forgot to bring with me this morning, here's the key"

Syada grabs the key from the side table and walks up the stairs to the exit and then suddenly... a thunderous and sudden knock on one of the three doors of main hall 4 stops her. Six person can be seen rushing inside the main hall. Four of them wear a complete army attires, with one of them sporting a pallette of what seems to be the largest service bar she has ever seen clipped proudly on his left chest. This tall and handsome officer bares a name tag 'Fatih' on his right chest. The other three army guys don't have the service bar as much as he does, but they are certainly much taller and more muscularly built than their superior. She recognizes two of the other non-armies, one is the university staff and the other one is Professor Ariff, the university dean.