A dork amongst dorks

Stacey stumbled in disheveld and confused. Had she just walked into a bar? Why were there so many people here on a Thursday night? Apparently this is the night to study and drink coffee and eat donuts. As she looked around, Stacey did not spot Javier. She assumed he was taking his sweet time as always. She did spot the lone open table and headed towards it. It was a small circular table but maybe it would be big enough for her and Javier. As she got closer she realized that there was a strange kid sitting in the table immediatly adjacent to the empty one. Maybe she didn't want to sit near the strange kid. Also, the table seemed a lot smaller when she was closer to it. Hm.. would she and Javier be able to share this table seeing that they both had jimungous laptops? As she pondered the possibilities two highschoolers swept in and sat at the table. Damn kids! Stacey thought.. I'm getting old. Stacey tried to play it off as if two younger kids hadn't stolen the only table left at the donut shop. She walked over to the counter to purchase a small coffee. As she waited for the cashier to shuffle over to the register she looked around to see if she had missed another table. OH! There was Javier, as apparent as day. She wonderd how she could have missed him he first time - a 6'5 guy who was P-rican and loud. He was talking to an older med student and looked settled in. He had gotten there much earlier than she did. I guess I'm the one who took my sweet time she thought.

Stacey filled her small coffee cup with her favorite, Hazelnut Blend. Javier had spotted her and joined her at the register. "Oh my goood can you believe all these high school kids?' Javier whispered (or tried to whisper.. Javier was never good at being quiet). "I know!" Stacey whispered, or exclaimed, she wasn't good at being quiet either. Maybe this is why she and Javier were friends. "They should really be home studying with their parents" Javier continued. "Yeah man what the hell is this? They look so hardcore. Well I guess thats how they get into Stanford. Although I got in and I wasn't this hardcore." Javier gave Stacey a "yeah right" look. Stacey tried to remember if she was ever that hardcore. She did study somewhat in high school but never in groups, and never on any surface other than her bed. Clearly she was not hardcore. Javier interrupted her thought process, "I'm going to go ask that girl if she can move over so we can sit together." "Ok!" Stacey replied as she finished adding a quarter cup of half-&-half to her coffee and 4 packets of Equal. "This can't be healthy" she whispered to herself.

Stacey walked over to the table. The girl had agreed to move. Javier introduced Stacey to the med student he was talking to earlier. "This is John," Javier announced, "he's a third year MSTP student. And this is his girlfriend [blank], she is a pre-med student at San Jose State." Stacey cringed when she heard "pre-med" student. Maybe that's why she didn't catch the girl's name. She wanted to yell "Don't do it! Save your life and time, go into something else!" But after further inspection of John's girlfriend, Stacey decided that the girlfriend looked enough like a pre-med student that she might actually enjoy the sacrifice. Instead, Stacey smiled and blurted out "fuuuun!" and sat down. Stacey was impressed that John and his girlfriend, two Native Americans interested in medicine, had found each other and fallen in love. Cute, heart warming, maybe they should cast Brad Pitt in their future made for TV movie. He was in last of the Moheekans right?

Stacey emptied the contents of her bag. Tonight she was studying dev bio, "fuuuun" she thought. She reached for her computer bag. "Uuh, did you bring the mouse I bought you?" Javier asked with a concerned facial expression. "No," Stacey replied. "Well then you're not allowed to use your loud ass computer. I got you the mouse for a reason." Stacey smiled as she recalled Javier and Dan making fun of her computer's keyboard mouse.

Dan: "Wait, who am I? Who am I? CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!"
Javier: "Oh hi Stacey!"
Dan: "Yeah!"

"Fine. I didn't need my laptop anyway. I just brought it in case."

As Stacey began to read, she realized something, she could actually focus! Usually Stacey stayed away from shops - coffee shops, donut shops, soy latte shops. She needed absolute quiet to study.. usually. But tonight she was able to filter out all of the noise. She figured she must be on her way to becoming a good doctor - filter out all that is not important - including the patient's bitching and whining.

After 20 minutes of reading Stacey sighed and looked up. In the corner to her left were four high school students arguing over a calculus problem set. Ick. To the right of them were 3 other students working on what seemed to be the same problem set since there was considerable amounts of talk going back and forth. Stacey noticed the asian girl at the table. She stuck out like a sore thumb for two reasons - 1 she was really pretty, too pretty to be studying calculus with this dorks, Stacey thought. And 2 - she was drinking chocolate milk - I thought Asians were as lactose intolerant as Nigerians. Maybe not. Stacey went back to reading.

"UNLIKE IN MALES, IN FEMALES FUNCTIONAL OVA ARE NECESSARY TO MAINTAIN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GONADS"

Fascinating, Stacey thought. She looked up again, now one of the math dorks was reading his text book,
listening to an ipod that must have been playing classical music since he was playing the air piano. OMG it doesnt get any dorkier than that! "Was I really that much of a dork in high school???" Well it really didn't matter now Stacey concluded. All the possible witnesses of her dorkiness were on another coast. Furthermore, even if she was a dork, she was amongst hundreds of them now at med school and she definetly wasn't the dorkiest.

She looked up with a smile and in the process caught John's gaze. His head movement stuttered as he looked down at the papers he was grading, then back up at Stacey, then back down. Stacey remembered why she didn't smile so much, especially at men. A female smile, to the wrong target, sends the wrong message. Stacey sighed again and began reading where she had left off...