~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She cleared her throat. "I think most of us had a chance to finish or at least get most of the reduction done. No worries if you did not finish." The interpretation was more important than the calculation process anyhow. "I saw most of you reducing the first down to 7 from 43; the second reduced to 1 from 19 and 10; the third reduced to 8 from 26."

Then she noticed Aditya's hand was raised and called on him. "Correct, Mister Rehman. Most arithmancers would suggest changing the second number. And since two karmic debts were involved, yes, the debt is that much stronger." An astute observation, that was. "I will say that some people view having karmic debts as a challenge to overcome, hoping to somehow redeem the character of the structure. Just food for thought," she finished.

"Now I saw Mister Rogers had some good conclusions written down. I'll put them up for you.." A fluid motion of her wand erased the board, and a strange wiggling motion made Zeke's notes appear.

So it was time to reveal the locations. "The first number is for the British Museum, one of the best museums and research centers on the planet. The second is for the White House, the residence of the American president. The third is for the Sydney Opera House, which I would say hits more of the latter adjectives in the description."

Then he had a question. "Very intense. The highest seat of government, abusing power? Surely you jest!" she said with a wink, clearly indicating sarcasm. "And given that America's president changes every 4 or 8 years, I think the changing nature of the debts makes perfect sense here, yes."

Tiara checked her watch. Yes, they were out of time for her portion if Moxley was going to get her activity in. "So we are out of time for the Arithmancy part. I know a lot of you looked interested in the karmic debts. We will be looking into those later, so never fear!" Hopefully they would have time by the end of term. If not, there was always next year. "So now I turn it over to the capable hands of Professor Moxley!"

Oh, right, her turn! Moxley had been wandering about the classroom, looking over shoulders and considering the work being done. Not that she was doing much helping. Probably the best thing considering she was rubbish with this numbers junk. Just ask her husband! He was always reminding her about it, considering how much money she spent on her muggle artifacts. Heh. Anyway…With a sheepish smile, the brunette headed back to the front of the room and gave Professor Tanner a big old Moxley grin! ”Pretty interesting stuff, Tiara! You lot with phones at home might want to check up on your own numbers some time, eh?” Was she making them nervous? Hehe. She quite liked doing that.

”Moving on, I’d like to take a moment to remind you of what we discussed in my last lesson. Alexander Graham Bell was the dude who patented the telephone in 1876. It also seemed that many of you realized that the landline phones I had you working with were pretty ancient looking but they still represented that type of phone quite nicely!” So no dissing her phone choice, people! Those were the best models and she quite liked the vintage feel of them! They were classic!

” Let’s keep in mind that landline phones are ones that are tethered to a telephone line. That means they need to stay within a small area. Cellular phones, however, are quite different. Let’s take a look at this picture.”



”Can anyone tell me anything you know about a cellular phone? It can be something you’ve heard, something you notice from the picture, or something you’ve read.”

All of the numbers were muggle telephone numbers? They had learned about telephones in muggle studies. Penelope copied down the numbers and began her calculations.

SPOILER!!: notes

Karmic Debts: 10, 13, 14, 16, 19

73238299
7+3=10
2+3+8=13
2+9+9=20
10+13+20=43
4+3=7
7

7: Analysis, research, solitude, wisdom, spiritual focus, investigative, mysticism, magic

4561111
4+5=9
6+1+1+1+1=10
10+9=19
1+9=10
1+0=1
1

2 karmic debts, not a good number

19: Reworking karmic abuse of power through learning to show compassion and sacred use of cosmic wisdom for the greater good
10: Renewal rebirth, karmic completion, mastery, beginning again with consciousness
1:Beginning, independence, innovation, leadership

92507111
9+2+5+0=16
7+1+1+1=10
16+10=26
2+6=8
8

8: Authority, finances, business, success, material wealth, self-mastery, complex thought/reasoning, fluidity, movement

Penelope looked over her work to check for mistakes. Everything looked good to her. The second number had two karmic debt numbers in it. That was not a good sign. Anyone who had two karmic debt numbers in their phone number should get a new number. What were they doing for the muggle studies portion of the lesson?

Well, this Arithmancy thing wasn't so hard after all, was it? Kate seemed to be getting most of the answers right, save for that guess about the Ministry of Magic from earlier. What would she suggest to the owners of those houses, though? Kate nodded toward the professor, dipped her quill in ink, and added a little to her parchment.

I'd say the first and third house would be a pretty good buy. That second house, though? Whoever is wanting to buy that should just steer clear. With the two Karmic Debt numbers, I think it's too much of a gamble.

Kate listened as the professor told them the locations relating to the three numbers. She didn't live in America, but if she did, she'd tell everybody she knew not to run for president. Mmkay, so Muggle Studies now. Kate turned her attention from Tanner to Moxley and waited.



Kate wasn't at school for the first lesson, so she just took the professor's word for all of that. She looked toward the cell phone, an object she'd seen and knew all about but never owned. Raising her hand, she said, "There's a lot of features on that phone that help Muggles do things that we can do with magic," she said. "For example, they can send a text message to each other, which is about the same as an owl message or howler."

Adi nodded at Tanner. Yep, she had cleared that up for him. Double Karmic numbers were baaaaaad. But then imagine if there happaened to be a third Karmic number there O__O Gosh! Anyway, he scribbled down some more notes and added the names of the places where the telephone numbers belonged. The Sydney Opera House was the coolest, by the way.

And off they went to Moxley!

Adi chuckled a bit. Yeah, he had totally been concentrating on making a mental note to calculate his future house's number that he forgot about his current house's and personal cell phone, the one he mainly used to stay in touch with AJ over the summer.

He turned his attention to the phone in the picture. Oh, hey! It was one similar to his! The Hufflepuff raised his hand. "We can store a ton of music on them, Professor. Other stuff can be stored too like pictures, soft copies of books either on the phones itself or in a chip called the Micro SD chip.'' Adi's own phone held mostly music and pictures and he had to get this chip with a great deal of storage because of that. Hehe.

Norah paused before leaning over her notes again to send a grin in Sophie's direction. Every time she thought Sophie Brown had proven she was the smartest person in the history of the universe, she just got even smarter. She wasn't even entirely sure where the sixth year even KEPT all that knowledge. Maybe her head was considerably roomier inside or something 'cause there was no way her brain could the same size as Norah's. That wouldn't make any sense at all.

By the time she'd finished a) admiring Sophie Brown and b) writing down all the new information, the fourth year noticed she'd fallen behind in the calculations. Uh. OOPS. Flipping quickly to the correct page in the textbook, she began to scribble some reductions on her parchment, brow furrowed.

SPOILER!!: calculations

Karmic Debts: 10, 13, 14, 16, 19

7323 8299
7+3+2+3+8+2+9+9 = 43
4+3 = 7
No karmic debt. This number is a-okay

456 1111
4+5+6+1+1+1+1 = 19 <- KARMIC DEBT
1 + 9 = 10 <- KARMIC DEBT
1+0 = 1
Two karmic debts. This number totally stinks

9250 7111
9+2+5+0+7+1+1+1 = 26
2+6 = 8
No karmic debt. This number is also a-okay

She frowned at her parchment once she'd finished the calculations, tilting her head to the side because that couldn't be right, could it? TWO karmic debts? She came to the conclusion that she must've done something wrong, but before she could try to work out what it was Professor Moxley was already moving on. Oh. COOL. Norah turned her attention enthusiastically to the image being shown, ignoring the possible arithmancy issue completely because they were moving ooooon, HUZZAH!

A cellular phone. She'd seen those before, uh huh. This was the bestest part about the subject (besides the professor, DUH). She had actually seen the stuff being taught as opposed to Runes or something that nobody has seen in a million billion years. Putting a hand in the air, she gave the professor a big smile. "some cellular phones have cameras on them, but not the film kind" They'd learned about the film kind in muggle studies one time but she'd forgotten what year it was. Whatever. That was what her dad would call a thoroughly useless piece of information which Norah didn't think was very fair because who was he to judge what's useful or not? That was just mean to the words. Ahem. What was she talking about? "And you can take lots of pictures of stuff and see them right away! Emphasis on LOTS of pictures. Heheehhe. Heh.

Whoops. It was hard to concentrate when there was tacos on the brain. Really, the fourth year could go for just about anything other than veggies. Just throwing that out there. A floating piece of parchment did not go unnoticed. Nope. What was that all about?

Before she worried too much about that, she needed to finish her work before she very really behind.



They were moving on to Muggle Studies now. Oh, this was going to be fun. Moxley would make sure of it. Ohhhh... cellphones. AJ knew loads about them because she had one of her own.

People were saying some cool things about them, but AJ still had something else to add. "There's apps where you can see each other WHILE you talk." Pretty cool, eh? Unless you were talking to someone you didn't particularly like. Wouldn't want them seeing your eye rolls and ugly faces. Or maybe that would just make the little conversation interesting. AJ was a glass half full kind of girl.

Oh. She was supposed to elaborate further? Lux had assumed it was enough to merely write that the Karmic Debts existed. Oops. Sorry, Professor. Nodding, she jotted down more information in her notes:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux's Notes

The first and third house seem to be okay to purchase, but I would avoid the second one. Since there are two Karmic Numbers, the effect is even stronger.

There.

As Professor Tanner wrapped up her portion, Lux listened carefully. Then it was Moxley's turn. They were going to talk about cellphones. Awesome. They were much more modern then the ancient phones they had worked with for the homework.

Raising her hand, she said, "You can choose the ringtone on a cell phone so that it plays the song you want it to when someone calls you!" Pretty cool in her opinion.

Caleb didn't know a whole lot about cell phones other than the fact that kids seemed to use them for anything BUT making calls. Still, he raised his hand, ready to contribute something to the conversation.

"Cell phones use satellites up in space to make calls. And do anything, really - if the satellites were ever to go down the whole world would come to a standstill," he explained.

Janelle smiled when Professor Tanner compared her to Jasmine. Having an overachieving big sister was a blessing and a curse. Her sister was definitely a hard act to follow. Anytime Janelle could live up to her high standards, it was a good thing.

And, finally the location of the phone numbers was revealed. It was the White House. Janelle had guessed right. Now she was anxious to reduce her home phone number to see if it was OK. Hopefully there was some positive karmic vibe attached to it.

Before Janelle knew it, Arithmancy was over and it was time for Muggle Studies. The first question had to do with a muggle cell phone. She listened to the answers given by her classmates and raised her hand.

"You can send and receive email from a cell phone." That was handy as another way to communicate with others. If you couldn't talk to a person and your message was too long to text, you could send them an email........from anywhere......with your cell phone.

Right on the money, Miss Brown. The words were like music to her ears and Sophie simply smiled gratefully in reply to the compliment - AND Norah's smile got returned, too. Zeke's notes WERE awfully good AND right on the money, too, with his guesses. His synopsis was pretty impressive, and Sophie was surprised the Gryffindor didn't get points for how well thought-out his guesses were and how nicely they correlated with the places those numbers actually represented.

Gryffindors, though. They didn't need extra points anyhow. Tanner knew which house needed the help, and Soph was thankful for that.

Moving on to Muggle Studies, though, hm? The sixth year was a little disappointed, as the topic of karmic debts was actually quite fascinating - but CELLULAR PHONES. Sophie's WHOLE demeanor changed - her eyes grew big, a smile spread across her face, and she straightened up in her chair considerably before shooting Tobes a MASSIVE grin. She knew all about these because of HIM.

Raising a hand, Sophie offered cheekily, "Instead of buttons and stuff, there's a SCREEN where you press the GLASS ITSELF and it senses your touch and THAT'S how you make it work, that's how it's different from the kinda phone you had us working on before. BUT not all cell phones were always like that, 'cause I know there are some that do have actual buttons that you press, too. But on one like that," the one on the board, "there are no buttons besides ones on like the side, and it's super cool."

Boom. Nailed it. THANKS, TOBES.

Toby always always always loved it when people found the positives in stuff, because that was what HE liked to do and all. He smiled at Professor Tanner when she remarked on his work, even though he'd made a mistake... because he'd caught the mistake. It took a lot of effort and hard work for him to be extra careful, and it always made him happy when his professors appreciated that. "Thank you, Professor," he replied, the smile remaining on his face even when Tanner moved onto check Soph's work next.

There was more talk about... other things for a few minutes. All that sort of brainy stuff that always had Toby slightly confused when it came to this lesson. He tried to listen to what was being said, but mostly the information just sort of washed over him. That... was going on the ever-growing list of things he'd need to do extra reading about later.

Oh, NEWT study. It haunted him.

BUT!!! They were moving on, and as difficult as Toby found Arithmancy, he was always pretty confident in Muggle Studies on account of his upbringing. And as soon as Moxley's part of the lesson started, he was relieved to discover that they would be talking about something he at least knew a little bit about. He raised his hand to contribute.

"Those phones, smart phones they're usually called 'cause they can do a load of smart stuff, well... they can do almost anything. It's like holding the entire world in your hand," Toby said twirling his quill as he spoke, suddenly very animated. "You can do all sorts with them, so like... it's like phone calls aren't really the main function for them anymore, but they're still called a phone and everything. You can get internet on them, which is this whole thing, which means that wherever you are, as long as you have a phone and the internet, you can look up almost any information or pictures or whatever and you'll usually find it. The world in your hand, y'know?" And MUCH MORE, but... Toby managed to control himself and shut up after that, so there were things left for other people to say and all.

Desiree understood Arithmancy. Numbers, order, patterns, all that. Just as she was beginning to get into Karmic numbers and enjoy the simple satisfaction of writing down the problems and doing the calculations (however basic they may be) it was time to move on.

Right, this was a joint lesson. Muggle Studies, hence the muggle phone numbers. And the picture of a cell phone professor Moxley was showing the class. Desiree was pretty familiar with it, her parents had a few muggle friends after all and communicating by owl wasn't exaclty an option. If they wanted to keep those friends, at least.

Really, cell phones were more practical than owls for a lot of reasons.. text messages and calls were instant, owls have to fly however long you've sent them, 'then' fly back to see what they've replied. Also cell phones are never temperamental and don't pester you for treats.. She loved her owl though, really. And of course letters had a certain charm to them.

Most of it had been covered but she raised her hand anyway, she'd been a little too quiet this class, "Besides being able to communicate instantly there are probably thousands of apps you can put on your phone to do almost anything, games, music, weather, there's even a built in compass" which she won't need if she ends up getting the moving tattoo she's been thinking about.. "that's what most of those squares represent on the screen." a little obvious maybe, but some people might not know. Her parents had been baffled by it; her dad was too proud to ask for help and just silently struggled along. Even now he only uses it to take calls and play chess. Wizard chess makes him anxious in his old age, or so he says. Her mom graciously accepted defeat at the muggle technology and Desiree had been happy to assist.

Ummm.

Eden was doing her best. She thought it was pretty cool about the phone numbers. She'd have to check her cell phone number AND her mother's number, because she was so curious about it! And then...Eden squinted up at the picture.

Heh.

She raised her hand. "Well...cell phones work with like...waves. In the air, I think. or something like that. Radio waves?" She had no honest-to-God idea, lulz, but she thought she'd read that somewhere. Science. Science was interesting, but SO not Eden's thing, much like NUMBERS.

SPOILER!!: Professor Tanner

Quote:

Originally Posted by hpluvr037

[Textcut="Replies"]
She cleared her throat. "I think most of us had a chance to finish or at least get most of the reduction done. No worries if you did not finish." The interpretation was more important than the calculation process anyhow. "I saw most of you reducing the first down to 7 from 43; the second reduced to 1 from 19 and 10; the third reduced to 8 from 26."

"Now I saw Mister Rogers had some good conclusions written down. I'll put them up for you.." A fluid motion of her wand erased the board, and a strange wiggling motion made Zeke's notes appear.

SPOILER!!: Zeke's notes

7: Analysis, research, solitude, wisdom, spiritual focus, investigative, mysticism, magic
Conclusion: SMART place. Research centre? University? Gallery?

19: Reworking karmic abuse of power through learning to show compassion and sacred use of cosmic wisdom for the greater good
10: Renewal rebirth, karmic completion, mastery, beginning again with consciousness
Conclusion: Things keep changing? It's messy. Lots of newness.

8: Authority, finances, business, success, material wealth, self-mastery, complex thought/reasoning, fluidity, movement
Conclusion: Another BOSS/ROYAL/COMPANY type place that does things and may be specialised and things?

So it was time to reveal the locations. "The first number is for the British Museum, one of the best museums and research centers on the planet. The second is for the White House, the residence of the American president. The third is for the Sydney Opera House, which I would say hits more of the latter adjectives in the description."



Then he had a question. "Very intense. The highest seat of government, abusing power? Surely you jest!" she said with a wink, clearly indicating sarcasm. "And given that America's president changes every 4 or 8 years, I think the changing nature of the debts makes perfect sense here, yes."

Tiara checked her watch. Yes, they were out of time for her portion if Moxley was going to get her activity in. "So we are out of time for the Arithmancy part. I know a lot of you looked interested in the karmic debts. We will be looking into those later, so never fear!" Hopefully they would have time by the end of term. If not, there was always next year. "So now I turn it over to the capable hands of Professor Moxley!"

Zeke payed close attention, first to the answer to Adi's question, secondly to their locations - which he scribbled down quickly but neatly enough so that he could read it later, and then... there was that.

HIS WORK WAS GOING ON THE BOARD?

...

He may have been blushing. Meaning, that his face had a very definite tinge of red to his cheeks. Those were HIS answers... did people have to see them? Did they? The only comfort he found in this action was that the Professor wouldn't have put up his answers if they had been incorrect. Right? RIGHT?

And actually, the whole CHANGE thing, and the abuse of power thing too made so much sense now that he knew it was he American Presidency place. Neat. Numbers really could tell you EVERYTHING.

SPOILER!!: Professor Moxley

Quote:

Originally Posted by TakemetotheBurrow

Oh, right, her turn! Moxley had been wandering about the classroom, looking over shoulders and considering the work being done. Not that she was doing much helping. Probably the best thing considering she was rubbish with this numbers junk. Just ask her husband! He was always reminding her about it, considering how much money she spent on her muggle artifacts. Heh. Anyway…With a sheepish smile, the brunette headed back to the front of the room and gave Professor Tanner a big old Moxley grin! ”Pretty interesting stuff, Tiara! You lot with phones at home might want to check up on your own numbers some time, eh?” Was she making them nervous? Hehe. She quite liked doing that.

”Moving on, I’d like to take a moment to remind you of what we discussed in my last lesson. Alexander Graham Bell was the dude who patented the telephone in 1876. It also seemed that many of you realized that the landline phones I had you working with were pretty ancient looking but they still represented that type of phone quite nicely!” So no dissing her phone choice, people! Those were the best models and she quite liked the vintage feel of them! They were classic!

” Let’s keep in mind that landline phones are ones that are tethered to a telephone line. That means they need to stay within a small area. Cellular phones, however, are quite different. Let’s take a look at this picture.”



”Can anyone tell me anything you know about a cellular phone? It can be something you’ve heard, something you notice from the picture, or something you’ve read.”

And now they were back to phones. HE SAW THE CONNECTION!

...

And smart phones, he'd seen them, heard of them, but never held one... he wondered what that would be like.

Hand up, he added his two knuts. "Professor, I heard that there was a function where you could give it voice commands or ask it questions and it would do things for you and talk back... and ... it has maps, and can tell you where to go, but that's a different function." Similar, but not.

Zhenya's face smoothed out from concentration as Professor Moxley took the stage. Zhenya didn't have a telephone at home though, thank Merlin. She could barely use the telephone for the Muggle Studies homework, how would she be able to use one at home without instructions?

Yes, she remembered Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone. Although she still didn't think the telephones they did their homework on were ancient. They looked very high tech, which she would have thought only technical minded people could use them without the instructions. Thank Merlin for the instructions Professor Moxley had given them. Landline, she knew that meant within the home. But what was a cellular phone? Zhenya had a look at the photo Professor Moxley put up, and her mind was blank. Cellular... cellular... Zhenya raised her hand rather sheepishly, "Err... a cellular phone contains cells?" she guessed.

Okay so his answer to the possible owner of the number may have been close and accepted by the professor, but that didn't mean he didn't become lost as things went on. It was cool however to realize who the given number really was connected to. The muggle minister....who would have thought? Then the numbers started to swim, especially as he worked on reductions, so he opted to remain quiet at the moment. Too many things to think of at one time. And to make matters more complicated they were switching to the muggle studies portion of the class.

Yep...Benny was just going to sit here quietly and listen.

Listen and take notes.

Seemed the safe thing to do for the time being.

Sensing touch? Apps? The whole world would come to a standstill...cells? Were these types of phones alive somehow? They sounded at least semi-sentient to Cutty.

Semi-sentient. These things seemed to be part wand, part owl, part chess board, and partly protean charmed. They were like little distraction boxes and he began to wonder the nature of the muggle mind. It must have been scattered or in constant need. Or else the phones probably demanded much of them. In fact, they probably... "Professor, due to the sheer amount of distraction these...things provide, they probably require careful attention to use whilst doing anything important. Like flyin' on yer broom or in yer cars if yer muggle."

Cutty hadn't put away his Arithmancy book. it was soothing to him.

He already knew it but now he knew for sure. Arithmancy was not his thing. He gave AJ a quick thank you for helping him out earlier and then pretended to work on the next questions. Finally, luckily, the Muggle Studies Professor began to speak and he let out a sigh of relief because that meant Arithmancy was over. His expression changed completely. At first he looked unsure and tried to make himself small which wouldn’t work because he was pretty tall. But now he looked more confident and sat upright on his chair.

A picture of a cellphone appeared and Yoongi stopped making notes to look at it. “There are no buttons” he said

Once all the answers were in, Moxley stopped her bouncing and grinned at the class as a whole. She was pretty pleased with the responses, did they know? ”Excellent job, you guys! You were spot-on with your answers and I’d like to touch on a few of those in a bit more details. First off, how cell phones work.” Moxley paused, allowing anyone who was taking notes to get ready or flip to a fresh page.

Cellular phones, which are phones that allow you to make phone calls outside your home, turn your voice into a kind of electricity. This electricity is something called an RF wave and this wave carries your voice in the air and to something called a cell tower.” Moxley paused, not wanting to rush through this so everyone could get a clear picture of the process. ”Once your voice reaches the cell tower, the tower is able to send your voice, and the wave carrying it, to the person you’re calling.” That was the simplified version, anyway. ”Cell phones work much better when they’re near cell towers, for obvious reasons. The farther away you are from a cell tower, the harder it is to make your call.” Nodnod. ”Unless you’re using a satellite phone, like Mr. Newell mentioned.”

Okay, they could take a moment or two to finish with notes and while they did, Moxley drew a picture on the board to show what she meant. Some people were visual learners, after all.



"Now Mr. Fuller-Thompson made a good point when he said that these days, having a cell phone is like having the world in your hands. There is a wealth of information you can get right from your phone, a phone you keep with you wherever you are, most likely. That is certainly exciting, as you can do research, play games, listen to music, and stay connected to others!" Brilliant, right? Only there were some drawbacks. "However as Mr. Mordaunt pointed out, having all these things at your fingertips all the time can be a huge distraction." They got that, yes? Moxley paused again, allowing adequate time for notes and knowledge absorption.

"With this in mind, can anyone tell me some of the negatives of using a cell phone as your main source of communication?" Perhaps landline phones weren't so bad after all, hm?

Huzzaaahhh! He was winning.

And then there was all the other discussions and talks of towers and things like that. He knew how they worked, more or less, and thankfully that was all he was expected to understand. There was none of that intricate detail that only an engineer would know. Nope, this is reasonable.

And what were the negatives of cell phones?

Welllllll.... there were many.

Hand raised, he answered with ONE of his many many ideas. "You need to keep it charged, Professor. Because once the battery goes flat then it's dead and you can't use it anymore. And the more you use it the quicker it runs out."

Yeah, she was so not taking notes because she came from an all muggle family, duh! All of this info was stored right in her handy dandy brain. Okay, even she had to admit that she didn't know about those RF waves, but that was just technical mumbo jumbo that nobody really cared about. She got the gist of things and that was what mattered.

Negative things about cellphones? Hmm... that was kind of tough because AJ thought they were really awesome. "You can get mad addicted to some of the cool stuff on there and next thing you know you are walking into poles because you just can't tear yourself away." That was a serious problem.

*blink*

HAHAHAHAHA! Zhneya's answer though! Adi didn't laugh right out loud but a little bit did escape. Was his friend being funny on purpose? He knew she didn't know much about Muggles but still... it was hilarious, yo! Anwhooo, Moxley did appreciate his answer so he happily bent his head to make notes. Not that he needed to make much because he knew a ton about this stuff.

Next question! The Puffer raised his hand again. "They can be difficult to maintain financially. So the more dependent you are on them, the more you'll have to pay to buy data or minutes or text messages.'' Er... that sounded like him over the summer except he never really cared how many dollars he had to spend because his phone was never used any other time of year.

OOOOH Caleb totally knew the answer to this. It was the biggest glaring problem in the whole world, in his mind, mainly because people who had no social skills were a huge pet peeve of his. He raised his hand eagerly.

"Because people can text instead of call, people literally have NO idea how to talk on the phone. Or to people in general. I've seen kids who send emails and stuff to PROFESSIONALS and they spell "your" like "UR" and it's just sad," he explained. "Basically, kids are missing that step where they learn important social skills because it's less work and effort to just send a text." He could really go on for a while with this. IT DROVE HIM NUTS.

It didn't take someone with excellent observation skills to see the way that Tobias sat up a little straighter in his seat and even puffed his chest out a little bit at Moxley's response to his answer. It felt good, the praise. Even better when she mentioned his answer again when addressing the entire class.

Ego boost. Mood boost. Yes yes yes.

... No. Because now they were talking about the NEGATIVES and Toby DID NOT DO NEGATIVITY SO???????????????

He deflated visibly, and twirled his quill around his fingers a couple of times while he chewed at his lip. Eventually, though, Toby did raise his hand.

"They're fragile. Sometimes they break super easily at the slightest drop, or the screens smash, or water gets to them... something like that, y'know?" That was the best he could do without going all super negative. Now they could move back on to positive things again, yes?