Monday, March 3, 2008

jamie and eric-6 7/8-coming to that awkward point

“Or co-evolution.” Jamie added.

“huh?” Bridgett’s free-hand was frozen mid-gesture.

“What types of information co-evolve. Like in war when each side tries to produce more advanced weaponry.”

“Oh, yeah.” Bridgett’s pace slowed as she was thinking. Jamie obliged her, being physically connected to her pace by hooked arms, knowing that the coffee shop wasn’t far off. And they didn’t really seem to be in any hurry to do anything. “Well I had kind of thought of that. But I want to examine mechanisms of information transfer as a proxy of cultural acceptance and a possible method for expanding that acceptance. I mean if you could implement a large scale educational program that had- Well I mean if you could pass beneficial information from one culture to another with that tag-line of this benefit in your life came from so and so, then that could open the gate.”

“The problem isn’t in the educational system.” Jamie commented. “Educated individuals value knowledge based on its intrinsic qualities. They’ll seek out cross-cultural information if only to prove it wrong.”

“But that’s the problem! To prove it wrong. There has to be a way to erase or mitigate the negative connotation associated with outside information.”

Bridgett fell silent as they reached the coffee shop. Acknowledging the impossibleness of her self-set task. She released Jamie as he opened the door for her. The coffee shop was pleasantly busy. Several shelves of snacks and school supplies sat next to the baristas station. Beyond comfy seating and tables hosted a variety of socializing and studying students.

After ordering their drinks, Jamie didn’t drink coffee, the pair found a couch near the window, where they were mostly sheltered from the noise of the television.

“I don’t think you’re being fair Jamie.” Bridgett rekindled their previous conversation. “I mean your focusing on Academia. The world you live in. But I mean just basic everyday customs. Cooking and land practices. And basic education. You know that having required basic education is rather unique. I mean in my homeland everyone, well I can’t say everyone—almost everyone, undertakes a rather high level of education, but that’s because of the shame associated with being uneducated. The assumption is that even the basest farmer could discuss philosophy. But in some countries, education means you learn how to do a job.”


“There’s nothing wrong with that.” Jamie reminded her. “But you’re right. I was assuming academia. It seems like you would want to avoid academia altogether then.”

“Maybe.” Bridgett took a sip of her sweetened coffee. “I think I might need to narrow my thesis more.”

“You have a good place to start from.” Jamie reassured her. “I still feel like I’m doing exploratory surgery.”

Bridgett grimaced at the comparison. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“Before the accident it was just going to be a simple review paper on what we know about bonds, but… well I guess I’m still focusing on that. I have nothing else to focus on. So much of the research on bonded pairs has been done in Alsonkarpa where they don’t focus nearly as congruently on general magic principles. So I spend most of my time teaching myself Alsonkarpian theory and trying to match it up to the well developed general magic base developed here.”

“Why don’t you go to Alsonkarpa? I’m sure it would be easier to study there.” Bridgett suggested and quickly amended, “not that I’m trying to get rid of you.”

“I guess I should. Really.” Jamie admitted. “I just don’t want to.” Jamie dipped his finger into the hot chocolate to scoop up the foam and lick it off his finger.

“Weren’t you running experiments before?”

“Yeah,” Jamie said softly, “I still have all the data. Doesn’t really help.”

“Why not?” Bridgett was confused.

“I haven’t been able to find strongly enough bonded test pairs to find significant trends in the data. I’ve been trying to recreate key experiments done in Alsonkarpa holding variables they didn’t account for constant. So far it’s been a wash.”

“Did it seem like it was working before?” Bridgett was starting to feel like she was pulling teeth. Jamie had this habit of becoming quiet when he didn’t want to say something. Instead of outright admitting he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Before I was using myself and Eric as a case study and surveying other bonded pairs to see if the results I got on us were mirrored by the general trend… Eric hasn’t been able to help me.”

Jamie’s words almost faltered, but came out steady. Still Bridgett understood and changed the subject.

* * *

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