xp_logs | Madelyn and Kitty chatting at Boiler Beach

backdated to Monday

'The hippocampus is a part of the brain that is called that because it looks like a hippotamus...' Madelyn snorted in amusement and shook her head a little, wielding the red pen with a little too much glee. Marking. The teacher's bane and a source of endless frustrated amusement. Although the fact she was conducting said marking sitting in a deckchair with the papers on a clipboard on her knee made it more amusing than frustrating - it was practically impossible to be grumpy at Boiler Beach. Except perhaps if you got too much sun - adjusting the broad-brimmed hat she'd stolen from Moira, Madelyn took a sip from her glass of lemonade (Lorna had gone crazy with the summery foods and drinks) and went onto the next question, which earnestly was trying to tell her that the cerebral cortex was actually the part of the brain that made people think they were lizards.

Ignored, a black laptop had been left on one of the other deckchairs with a sign proped up on it - Touch this laptop and not only will I kill you, but I'll make you redo my my six weeks worth of experimentation first. It had been left alone and mostly ignored, but now it suddenly started beeping. It was a quiet beep, and something that could almost be ignored. Almost.

The almost was important. Madelyn looked over at the laptop with a curious look. "That had better not be the destruct sequence beginning," she told it. It continued beeping softly. "And don't beep at me in that tone of voice. What would your motherboard say?" Okay, Scott wasn't the only one who got silly on sunlight, although the sugar-packed lemonade might have had something to do with it.

Less than four minutes after it had started, Kitty appeared, hurrying over to the machine. "Oh... you'd better really be done, this time, cause I do not want to go through my formulas again."

"It sounded like the quiet beep of triumph to me," Madelyn said with a grin, tipping the hat back a little so she could actually _see_ Kitty. "Is that that last project of yours, Kitty? The quantum physics one?"

Kitty started slightly, not having realized anyone was in here. Glancing over she spotted Dr. Bartlett and grinned. "Oh, hey. Yeah, but sometimes I think it feels triumphant when it defeats me, so I never trust that. And yep, this is pretty much the end of the term for me. Certainly the last of the really large things. What are you up to?" As she talked she flipped the laptop open and started scanning down over the results.

"Marking Anatomy papers," Madelyn said with a tone that combined woe and amusement rather impossibly. "I've learned many, many new things today. None of which are proved by actual reality, but it's been amusing. Not to mention the setting makes things a lot easier on the brain..."

"I can imagine," Kitty said. "It's why I've been working down here so much, for sure. And it's nice to run into a teacher marking papers and for once have no fear. Mind, if I'd taken Anatomy I'd be terrified of you, cause me and biology don't do so well, but as it is I am free from terror."

Madelyn chuckled. "The same with me and Physics - the scary calculations are out to get me."

"Ah, well then, we'll just have to agree not to torment each other with the results of our work." Kitty grinned, tucking a hair behind her ear. "And this is looking good. I think the sunlamps agree with my laptop just as much as they agree with me. Which is patently not true, but hey, my data makes sense so I don't have to." She quickly typed in a few notes and saved everything before powering down the laptop. "That just leaves the write-up, and that's the easy bit."

"Maybe the laptop's picking up on the happy vibes of its owner?" suggested Madelyn, totalling the marks for the paper she'd been marking and noting down the grade. Ugh, someone had obviously not been listening in class. Or possibly not attending class at all. At least only in body and not in brain. She set the clipboard aside with a sigh and reached for the lemonade. Fortification was needed after that. "It was funny, at one point Scott was promising the medlab crew a vacation and I made jokes about a tropical island - I never thought someone would bring the island to me." She wriggled her toes in the sand happily. "Jamie is a genius. I know I keep saying that, but he is."

"He is, he really is. My own personal genius boy for when I get tired of being clever." Kitty laughed, leaving the computer and settling onto another one of the beach chairs. "The eternal conundrum has come upon me. To nap, or not to nap, that is the question."

"Ah, the eternal conundrum. I find the question tends to answer itself if I sit her long enough," Madelyn chuckled. "Something about the warm and the soothing sea noises. Then I wake up to that scene with the fudgsicle..." She nodded at the screen which was currently playing montages from "Gidget" movies. "And think I'm having a horrible nightmare."

"It really is disturbing, I'll grant you," Kitty said with a giggle. "But what's really disturbing is that people keep saying he looks like Jamie. I just don't see it." Swinging her legs up on the chair, Kitty settled back, sighing. "Well, I didn't sleep much last night..." she said.

"So I saw." Madelyn was amused. "Four lattes, huh? Before you know it, you'll be fighting over Moira's coffee with the rest of us. It's nasty, nasty stuff, but it does tend to give you that caffiene buzz. Or rather, that caffiene electroshock."

"Heh. I think if I ever get that bad either my taste buds will revolt or Jamie will have me committed. It wasn't like they were four lattes at once... I was just working and, to take breaks and wake myself up I'd go downstairs and play with the esspresso maker in the kitchen. By the end of the paper the coffee had really kicked in."

"It tends to do that - coffee is cumulative. Sneaks up on you without you realising." Madelyn snickered. "Which would explain those 'end of night shift' posts of mine. Coffee and too many donuts does bad things to my sense of humour."

"Or good things, depending on who you ask, I'm sure." Kitty grinned, then stretched out. "I could have used the donuts last night... Only then I never would have fallen asleep."

"Considering some of the posts you were making, I think the lack of donuts was a very good thing," Madelyn said with a grin. "At least for you the day after."

"It's entirely possible," Kitty said, nodding. "And, actually, I remember something about chocolate, too, although I'm not sure what that was about..."

"Honestly? I don't think we were really sure what it was about either. There was a lot of bouncing around. At least you didn't get your hands on any chocolate, or you'd probably be vibrating still."

Kitty chuckled. "You're probably right. I ought to check my cookie stash, though, just to be sure. But... later," she said, letting her eyes drift shut.

"Definitely later," Madelyn agreed.