Pairs

Emma & Tayika
Tori & Marcus
Marcus Doan & Alto
Dallas & Elizabeth
Wei & Scott
Matthew & Alyssa
Jean & Michelle

G'day mates! It's the third day of school, hooray! Aren't you all excited to be students? Learning is so fun and important. However, it has come to my attention that students do need to have time to socialize. Yay!

Anyways, the rules and regulations of the project are simple: you are to stay in contact with your partner throughout the entire year and log your conversations in a journal. At the very end of the year, your journal and a final feedback sheet will be submitted as your final grade for the entire year.

Ahem! Please pay attention to this: A student will receive a zero if he or she does not stay in contact with his or her partner or even worse -- if said student or their partner break the rule of anonymity. Students are required to use a screen name and fake alias when talking to their partner that must be used at all times. This means that you can be paired with your brother, your best friend, your girlfriend or your worst enemy without even knowing about it -- the possibilities are endless! And so are the potential romances, drama and so on.

This project is intended to be used as therapeutic use, with hopes of self-discovery and possible inspiration!

Enjoy!

Cut.

In every English class going on in Wellbridge high-school right now, students are being handed a form sheet. The English teachers happily drone on about the positive effects this project is bound to have. Some of you are probably happy, some of you are not. There's not much the students can say about it though. After all, you are just kids. The teachers remind their students that the first assignment is to be completed over the weekend: E-mail your partner over the weekend and start your journal. With that, the teachers patiently wait for the students to complete the form and turn it in so they can start pairing people up.

T-t-t-triple kill

Emma Byrnes excitedly buzzed in her seat as her English teacher began to tell the details of the project. She quickly filled out the form and literally stuffed the form into the teacher's hands before running back to her seat. Everything about this place was unfamiliar. After all, she was the 'new kid in town'. She wasn't deterred, however. Emma would make friends soon enough, and this project would make it easier for her to converse with others.

So she started jabbering to a quiet girl next to her, her face bright and lips stretched into a broad groan.

[NO FRESHMENS? LOSERS. EMBRACE THE FRESH MEAT.]

Being a new person at a school...again, Marcus decided to fill out the form without taking too much time, seeing how everything was pretty simple and basic. Eventually, he handed that to the teacher before pulling out a binder covered in musical notes and instruments and pull out a blank music sheet. Humming to himself, he would be putting a few notes down, erasing one or two, hum again, and kept the process up for a while, but this resulted in him getting lost in his own project while until the teacher cleared his throat next to his desk, "Mr. Dunlap, can you please stop humming and pay attention. This project will count as a final grade." Needless to say, he turned a little bit on the red side before saying, "Yes, Sir..." and putting the binder and sheet music away. Or at least he THOUGHT he put it away, but sadly it actually slid out and was underneath one of his classmate's desks.

"Damn, a project already?" Jean thought as he began filling in the sheet in front of him. He answered all the questions as truthfully as he could, while cursing having to write in pen when he unconsciously snarked and had to cross the line out. Finishing the sheet quickly, Jean pulled out his book, a collection of Chekov's short stories.

When School ended, Jean dropped by the nearby elementry school to pick up his younger siblings. When the school ended half an hour later, he was quickly tackled by the two children. He picked both of his siblings up and pulled them into a hug, laughing with them as they began giggling uncontrollably. Bringing them back home ,he sat the two chidren down at the dinner table. Bringing out the pitcher of milk and his "secret" stash of cookies, which his mother knew of but he acted like it was a secret with the kids, he began chatting with the kids about their day. Eventually, both of his mother and Uncle returned home and Jean disappeared into the garage to continue working on the old Mustang. "This is gonna be an interesting year." he thought as propped up the hood of the car.

In the corner of the classroom, to the back, sat Tayika. His chin propped in his hands, he took the paper passed down the rows and scanned through the questions. Name, gender, pastimes and a self-analytical paragraph were required of him. Boring. Then, he frowned. "The Dear Anonymous Project" was printed across the top of the form. He could not recall what the project was about. He had either chosen to erase it from his mind in the interests of space-conservation, or simply been absent when the briefing had been made. He could not remember which, and could not care less. It was no less tiresome and no more interesting for Tayika to fill out the form in spidery handwriting, answering the questions with biting candour, and making a few passing requests at the end. He put down his pen and waved the form in the air until the teacher came down the aisle to collect it, keeping his head down to scratch out a chemical equation he wished to test out.

It will be an explosive reaction...or a violent one, he thought, satisfied, when he raised his head and noticed that most of the class had already deserted the almost-empty room. Tayika packed his bag, fingers flying over his desk to drop belongings haphazardly into his bag. Swinging his bag over his shoulder, he loped out of the classroom with an easy gait, streaming into the corridor.

"Hmmm..." Alto said, putting his pen down. He regarded his work thoughtfully, he didn't find any flaws. But still... "This isn't sarcastic enough." He decided. He realized it now, but he'd been a bit more serious about it than he would usually have been. Last time he'd done this he'd roleplayed as a vampire, but this time he'd done it as himself.

"Whatever, this'll be good enough I suppose." He walked over and submitted his form and left the room.

---

A few minutes later...

Alto was set up and ready to go. He was in the back of the library, where even the teachers feared to tread. There would be nothing to disturb him now... except the bell. He tapped out a string of characters on his keyboard and he was in.

"Welcome back RoflsMazoy..." His laptop spouted. He pounded the volume down button and the sound faded. He quickly poked his head out of his hiding spot to check if anyone heard it, but he was clear.

This was what he did most days, he brought his modem-stick thing from home and played MMOs. He had enough experience talking to strangers online so this project wasn't going to be a problem.

"Whatever," He sighed, slumping a little, "Doesn't look like anything's going to change."

Matthew huffed gently to himself as the for was slid onto his desk. This was, to put it lightly, a total waste of his time. With as little effort as humanly possible, he lifted up his pen and scrawled out a series of half-assed answers before dropping in on the teacher's desk as he sauntered out of the room and towards the lunch hall. If there was one thing Matthew hated, it was being told what to do and this entire project was just a way for his teachers to force him to 'interact more' or whatever. Of course, he still intended to pass the assignment, he just intended to do so with the absolute minimal amount of effort from his end. It was pretty simple, he'd let his partner do all the talking and sit back and relax for the year. He didn't really care about his English grades anyway.

Matthew found a table near the back of the hall that was totally deserted and slumped down in a chair, before taking his wonderfully over-priced headphones and flipping them over his sandy mess of hair. He was working on mixing a song by a couple of songs by Scottish bands that he had recently discovered. They both sang depressing songs about sex and love and other sad stuff, but Matthew didn't really care about the themes. He liked the accent, the way they sounded and just wanted to know how they would sound together. As he listened, he ate from a lunch his Dad had prepared this morning, and dashed notes and ideas down in a notebook he carried around entitled 'We Were Promised Terrified Bunnies', the name of his latest mix ideas. With his headphones turned up to the volume they were, he could totally tune out the rest of the world and sit in his corner, totally isolated and totally okay with it.

Marcus Doan did not like the idea of this project one bit. It just seemed annoying and like a waste of time. He was so annoyed that he barely caught himself writing down a swear word on the official project sheet. He just scratched it out, which didn't help make it look any more professional, but he couldn't care less. As long as he passed, he was going to do the least amount of work and effort possible. It would mean much less stress on him, something he wanted for his last year in high school.

When he finished filling out the sheet, he turned it in and immediately headed off to lunch once the period bell rang. Once he got his food, he mentally debated over whether to sit with his (loud) friends or opt for a more quiet and peaceful lunch at the gym bleachers. Bleachers won. A couple minutes later, he found himself sitting at said bleachers. As he ate his lunch, his mind drifted back to the English project. Overall, he thought it was dumb. He wondered though what kind of partner he'd get. He never really talked with other kids outside of his group of friends, and though he considered himself chill and easygoing, there was something about being forced to talk to someone he'd never met before, that kind of intimidated him.

He hoped his partner wasn't a total dick, at the very least.
___

Alyssa Gabin fared a bit better attitude-wise. Though she was a bit skeptical that the project would be as amazing as the teachers kept saying it would be, she figured she might as well do her best and try to enjoy the ride. This kind of project was new to her, and she was admittedly intrigued in how this would all play out. She filled out her form as best she could, and turned it in.

Lunch soon came, and she was spending it with her small group of friends. Most were talking about the project they'd all been given, but Alyssa didn't have much to say, and just gave occasional nods during the conversation unless any of it was directed to her, only then would she reply. But again, she really didn't have much to say at all.

Wei glanced down at the form she had to fill out and sighed. It was only the third day of school and they already had a project? A year-long one too, nonetheless. She filled it out with simple answers and hoped that it was enough to satisfy her teacher. She quickly turned it in and waited for the period to end.

After class, she went to meet up with her friends. Wait, just kidding, she didn't have any friends to hang out with. It didn't really make any difference to her though. After she graduates, she's going to go to college, graduate there, get a good-paying job, and live the rest of her life not needing anything from anyone. What an empty existence but it's worth trying to talk to or get along with other people. Maybe this project may have some values to it like the teacher tried to explain while her entire moronic classmates kept interrupting her. She doubted it though but maybe somewhere in her cold, apathetic heart, she hoped that maybe she might get to talk to someone who wasn't a complete idiot and she could have a nice conversation with someone that wasn't in her family.

Upon hearing of this project, Elizabeth had been unimpressed by the whole endeavor. The thought of being forced to engage in extended correspondence with one of her peers only resulted in her cringing. She couldn't help but observe a lack of any meaningful original thought being expressed among these cultural plebians. However, it was not as if she had much choice in the matter. Indeed, she had none at all. She filled out the form with an earnestness and a impetuousness that surprised herself.

Elizabeth quickly turned in the form. This project was going to occupy a great deal of her own time, time which Elizabeth would instead prefer to dedicated to her own writings. In a purely hypothetical scenario, Elizabeth would not so greatly be burdened by a collection of correspondence with someone who possessed as much wit and erudition as herself. Sadly, wallowing in her own intellect, Elizabeth had been utterly disappointed with the status of her classmates' minds. Elizabeth hoped that this would be worth her time at least a little bit, but she figured there was a scant chance of that to ever happen. She simply returned to her desk. Her peers felt an intense dislike of Elizabeth, on which I could clearly trace to their negative reaction to my acerbic snark. Elizabeth saw a definite in that she would remain alone here if I simply remained. Thus, I decided that I would take my sandwich and leave. It was, after all, preferable to wander outside than to shiftlessly remain here with a bored expression.

Chad listened as the teacher explained the assignment. He smiled, English, it was always his favorite subject. Socializing though, not so much. Chad was a shy kid and doesn't like to leave his comfort zone. This assignment was defiantly out of his comfort zone.

Tapping his pencil on his desk he began to think. Man, it feels like I've done this before. Nah. I don't think so. He shrugged and chuckled to himself.

The pencil, the greatest writing tool. Chad always loves a pencil over anything else. Pens make him feel rushed and you can't erase them. Pump pencils may be easy to write letters with but with one wrong angle *crack!* the led is gone. Plus if you use to much eraser you can't put led in the right way. A pencil, a nice wooden pencil, is nicely weighted though. It slows a person down while writing, doesn't break easily, and you can sharpen it rather than getting a new one or buying more led.

Chad finished the paper and turned it in on the desk. He wasn't really sure what to do with it. Standing up he pushed his chair in, walked up the isle of desks, placed the paper on the teacher's desk, and went back. There he waitied.

Tori

It was bad enough that Tori was stuck in a school where she knew nobody but now she had to do a project where she is talking to a complete stranger. On a rating of 1 to Hell, this was Hell for Tori. If she didn't keep in contact with this stranger than she would fail the class and so would the other person. This meant that she couldn't just flake it off like every other project she had ever been assigned in her classes since she started high school. Tori began to wonder why she even filled out that stupid paper her teacher had given her. She had written practically the entire last year of her life on the paper for a bunch of teachers who didn't truly know her. Hell, she'd even told them about her Father's not so secret affairs.

Tori finished rather early compared to everybody else who was writing the paper but sat still. She would have hated having to walk up to the teacher's desk only to have to sit down again and wait till the bell allowed her to leave. So, she waited till the bell rang and slipped the paper onto the desk as she walked by. She strode through the halls with her guitar case strapped over her left shoulder and a small satchel hanging from her right shoulder. Though new to the school, it was easy for Tori to find her way to the cafeteria where she bought a burger and salad before leaving to sit outside. The school's front lawn was lit by the bright and the only shade was near the school or underneath a tree. Tori chose to sit under a large oak tree where she quickly ate her salad and tuned her guitar. Her burger would have to wait until she was done with the song which she wanted to play. It took only a few seconds for Tori to decide on playing Maroon 5's Sugar. It was song she had recently learned but she knew the lyrics and chords well enough to be able to play it and sing. She just hoped nobody would come by and hear her sing. Tori wanted to be known as a guitarist not a singer. That was one stereotype she wanted to fit into.

The Next Day:
When the students arrived in their English class the next day, they were all given an email account provided by the school. The accounts were all generic so no one could try to guess who they were messaging while the students themselves can change their screen names to whatever they wanted as long as it did not hint at or reveal their identities. The password for each student was the first letter of their last name and their birth date. Once they had logged onto their accounts, they would find they only had one contact, Student123 (would be one of the names provided), unless their partner had already changed their screen names. From there, they were expected to start emailing their partners over the weekend. What happens next? Well that depends on the student, doesn't it?

"Please log onto your accounts right now, and if you have any problems please let me know," all of the English teachers were required to say to the class. Each student had a laptop in front of them, though they were well-spaced so no one could try to look at another's screen. The project was already finally getting started.

Once inside of his English class, he had given up on finding his music sheet, thankful that he hadn't done too much on it. However, he was still upset that he lost it as he was thinking he was going to get somewhere nice with it, but it allowed him to focus on the assignment as he started to sign into the email, humming a tune as he typed it in. Once inside of it, he started to look in his address book to see 'JesusReborn1999' as his assigned partner, causing him to roll his eyes, "Great...a thumper, like I didn't have enough of them down South..." However, he decided to go ahead and start off the e-mail:

From: LifeRocker
To: JesusReborn1999

Well, before we get this ball going, I am going to warn ya. I might wind up moving, but I'm sure the school would work some shit out for that. Regardless, I'm not going to listen to that religious junk that you're going to push on me with a handle like that, so lets just cut to chase: I write music, take photos, and draw in my spare time and I am a senior. This is my...8th school since I started high school, and I don't want to shit from that. Now then, cutting the religious crap out, what do you want tell me about yourself.

He took a quick look over the email before nodding to himself, it might have sounded a little cut and dry, and maybe a little harsh, but he figured it's better than nothing. Once he got the email plugged into his phone, he started to close the laptop and pull out a miniature sketchpad, doodling a knight. However, instead of a sword and shield it was holding a treble clef as a shield and a quarter note as a sword, only to get caught, once again, by the teacher, but this time his made sure to put it back in his pocket, glaring at one of the people in the class that laughed. Eventually, he just waited for a real assignment or for his phone or computer to beep.

Tayika Craig

"Please log onto your accounts right now, and if you have any problems please let me know," the 12th grade English teacher said. Tayika already had his laptop flipped open, the screen alit with the account profile page spread over it. From where he slouched in the back corner of the classroom, he could see a blonde boy shutting his computer, and resorting to doodling. Tayika's own fingers flew over the keyboard, thrumming away as he set his account name to something more befitting than Student385.


Tayika typed as much before his fingers stilled over the keys. The cursor pulsed at him, inviting him to continue. Tayika's eyes flicked upwards, at the blonde who had been caught in his drawing act by the teacher. He growled at the screen, willing it to give him a clue on what to say. How did the school expect Tayika to approach a student whom he knew nothing of, who had chosen to be known by a movie title, of all things? He did not recall the plot - something or other concerning a tiger - and trying to find common ground over a film he was stranger to would not bear fruition. It was a hypothesis he needed not prove.

Common ground. Tayika needed only to tread on more familiar territory. If he must grin and bear this correspondence, then he might as well make the topics enjoyable. He pondered for a few more beats, before resuming his typing.


Satisfied, Tayika hit send.

@RainbowReindeer
Elizabeth heard the teacher say "blah, blah, blah, I'm an imbecile, now go log in." Elizabeth was none to happy to be working on this superfluous English project, but it was at least to be worked on inside the encompassment of the classroom. That was the end of its conciliatory elements, however. Elizabeth logged herself on to this laptop. It would have been no great deal to just ignore the project altogether, what with the intense secrecy creating a bulwarkish locale, and deal with another thing, but Elizabeth judged that it would be preferable to simply finish up this loathsome bore of an assignment.

So with dawdling efficiency she greatly thrusted down upon the keys with all the determination of that speedy animal, the sloth. Having successfully logged in, she would have to do something about that randomly generated username. Using that alias she had conjured up on the form, Elizabeth focused herself on her "partner," Screenname1. Apparently, someone else was less than excited as well on this project.

From: Montaigne
To: Screenname1

A send to you a thousand obligatory salutations. The situation being as it is, I can surmise that the only thing either of us could possibly share is our mutual abhorrence for the assignment. Be that as it may, I don't see much that the two of us could talk about. I am in doubt that you have in your possession enough wit to impress me, but perhaps you could elucidate on the matter, if you so wish, but I doubt that is on the agenda.

Elizabeth was satisfied with that, and sent the e-mail. Perhaps she was rubbing off the wrong way. That wouldn't matter none in the end, anyway. That unfortunate soul had been unlucky enough to come into contact with this Virginian snob.

Marcus and Alyssa both set up their accounts like the teacher asked, and soon they were ready to send their first emails. However, neither of them were too sure about what to write. How exactly do you even introduce yourself to a completely anonymous stranger? Marcus ended up half-assing it, but Alyssa at least tried to be sociable.

From: bruh73
To: RoflsMazoy

ayy so, i have no idea what im doing here and i dont really care about this project so like, don't judge me too hard if i seem like im not all that into this. this assignment just seems really dumb and i have no idea what to say. im kinda just repeating myself but dont worry its just because im trying to make the email seem long for the teachers since i dont think theyll even be reading these. theres way too many fucking kids and emails theyd have to go through if they did. hey maybe we can even fake this entire project out all year long by sending a bunch of gibberish bs to each other.

---

From: Coolbreeze123
To: Ka-ching

Hello there! It's nice to meet you. My real name has to be a secret, but if you want to call me by a name then you can just call me Al or CB instead of my username. I'm not too sure what else to say to be honest...how are you?

featuring @LowKey123

Chad finished his paper long ago and now began his first email to his partner. It stated:

From: InvariantName
To: Scrubs
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hey, so this project is kinda dumb. I hate it. I'd so much rather talk in person. It'd make me feel so much better. I guess I can't tell you my name or anything, but I'm really glad to meet you. Meeting new people is always fun I suppose, as long as they aren't really creep haha. I hope your day so far is treating you really well. I also hope school this year is fun. Of course school gets boring sometimes, that's why I just skip school work and read books, play instruments, do nerdy things like Dungeons & Dragons. Yeah, I'm a huge nerd. I'm also pretty shy. I don't have a lot to say. I hope I don't annoy you to much this year. I hope we become friends :D

Wei had set up her account as mentioned, though she only changed her screen name to: ScreenName1. There was no point in putting any thought to it. As she logged on, she found out that her partner had already sent her a message, and it wasn't very friendly. Well it was better than some happy-go-lucky person who would probably spam her and annoy her in trying to be friends, taking the assignment too seriously.

From: Montaigne
To: Screenname1

A send to you a thousand obligatory salutations. The situation being as it is, I can surmise that the only thing either of us could possibly share is our mutual abhorrence for the assignment. Be that as it may, I don't see much that the two of us could talk about. I am in doubt that you have in your possession enough wit to impress me, but perhaps you could elucidate on the matter, if you so wish, but I doubt that is on the agenda.

From: Screenname1
To: Montaigne
Hello, it is me. Yes, we do have that in common, though I don't understand why you have to use such large, weird words. I'm sorry to say this but English was not my first language, and I really do not want to have to bring out a dictionary every time we correspond with each other. So if you would, please? Also, I am not going to try to impress you, since I probably won't be able to. Let's just try to get through this assignment without wanting to kill ourselves in the process. Just tell me about your day, and I will tell you about mine.

Wei read back on what she wrote and hope that the grammar wasn't too bad. Whoever she was exchanging emails with seemed pretentious so she might actually have to put some effort into it. Actually, never mind. Let whoever she is writing to be frustrated or bored or whatever. It didn't matter to her whether she was liked or not. She clicked the sent button and relaxed into her seat. Well, she was done with this weekend's assignment, much to her delight.