2013-02-22 Basic Tech Lessons

It's morning, a little bit before breakfast time, and Jocelyn found herself with the rare bit of morning free time. The redheaded teenager has found herself sitting on the couch in the lounge, fiddling with this new 'smartphone' that she's gotten. An old portable CD player is sitting in her lap. She looks like she's comparing the two. She's dressed in a blue tank top, black yoga pants, and sneakers with a light blue jacket. Her long hair is tied back in a ponytail as she fiddles with buttons on her phone. The lounge is otherwise empty at this time of day, as most kids are either just getting up or getting ready for the day.
"Okay. You're supposed to be able to put music from this onto this thing," she says to herself with a frown. "But how are you supposed to do that? None of the cables will connect". Stupid technology.
After his morning run, Vic often came into the lounge. Today was no different- smiling as he notices another in the early morning hours. "Good morning, Jocelyn!" the green skinned young man offered as he took a bit of a look at the girl struggling over the CD player. "You'll have to burn the music onto a computer, first." he offered- managing to catch her frustrated words as he stepped in
Yep. The crazy people who get up early for exercise. It was a long-standing habit of Jocelyn's, and she hadn't broken it yet, except for when she was basically in bed sick when she first got here. Her route must miss Vic's. "Good morning Vic," the teenager responds. She looks at the CD player and then over at a computer. "You mean I have to use one of those things?" A couple unpleasent words are muttered under her breath. "I don't suppose you'd mind showing me how? The librarian already banned me from the research computers because I almost reformatted one of them when searching for a book. Nobody told me what that means, but I get the impression that isn't very good". How she managed to nearly break such a machine is probably a mystery, and more people would probably be upset if she reformatted a lounge computer - those had all the awesome games on them!
"Sure, its pretty easy." Vic offered as he moved towards one of the computers to boot it up. "You just stick the disk you want to copy in, get all the music off it- then your phone should have a little cord that can connect into the PC. We'll just take the music, and put it on your phone." Vic smiles, a patient thing really. He seemed like the helpful and friendly sort, even with that green scaled skin that made him all Lizardy. "So, what do you listen to?"
"Well, I literally just started building up a collection. Jazz and Rock are the only real types I own right now. Anything with a good beat though," Jocelyn explains. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the USB cord. "This cord, right? I brought it with on my run, but couldn't figure out how to get this into the CD player". She stands up and walks up alongside Vic, setting both devices down. Then she grabs a random sheet of paper from the printer and a pen. "Hold on, let me write this down," she adds, starting to write out the steps.
The CD in the player right now is a John Coltrane CD in it right now. "So you don't connect it to the CD player at all then?" she asks.
"Nope, the PC has a cd-player in it to read the music." Vic explains, as he takes the Coltrane CD from its home in the player and plops it in the disk-reader for the computer. The machine closes with a little tap, and the music burning program pops up and open. "Okay, see- just put the disk in there, and the music appears on the screen." He moves the mouse pointer to begin copying the music into MP3 format. "Then you click the copy button."
Jocelyn continues writing her notes down about this. It looks so much simpler when doing it. "Okay. Copy, so that copies the music, right?" Computers were tricky for her. "Thanks," she adds. She falls quiet as she watches. "So, you're up early. Most kids don't seem to be up this early, but I've seen you up at this time a few times now," she points out casually. Once was just random, but twice usually meant a possible pattern. "You an early riser too?"
"I like to go running in the morning." Vic answers, smiling up. "Anyways, I like to get the best choice of breakfast by getting in there a bit early." He continues, now plugging Jocelyn's phone into one of the ports. "Then we plug in your phone here." The phone appears on the screen, and Vic drags the copied music to the 'music' folder in the phone. "And now we just wait for it all to copy."
"We must have different routes or timing or something. I haven't seen you when I'm running yet," Jocelyn replies. She makes more notes about it and nods about breakfast. "Yeah, getting breakfast early seems to have it's advantages, with the number of people here. Reminds me of when I was younger and the fights over who got what breakfast at home. Mind, it was all the same thing, but first was important". Because to a young kid, first is best, no matter what! "So, it'll all copy onto the phone then. That was embarrassingly easy". She smirks a little at that. "I'm really no good with computers, if you couldn't tell".
"Its alright, a lot of kids here aren't too familiar with computers. Particularly when you consider some of them can talk to computers as if they were people and make them do whatever they want." Vic grinned, "I can just copy music and send emails. All I've ever needed." The CD is retrieved, and put back into Jocelyn's player. The phone unhooked, and Vic presses the music program- Coltrane began to play from the little speaker. "And presto-change-o you've got music on the phone!" Vic grins, "Well, some of those guys can put away a ton of food. Literally. Its best to get there early to have the best selection, I've found. Particularly on pancake or waffle days. Very popular, those meals."
"Well, if they can talk to the computers, I suspect that they don't need to do things the same way as the rest of us," Jocelyn replies. Then the speaker starts to play some Jazz. "Sweet!" the girl exclaims, picking up the player. "Now I can actually have music in the gym without worrying about stepping on the CD player or something". That'll be helpful, and some of the others won't make fun of her for her lack of basic computer skills. Well, maybe the latter is wishful thinking. "I don't think I've seen any of them do it literally, though I'll admit I do squirrel some food for later. It's too long between meals sometimes," Jocelyn points out. You expect her to sit all the way through math without sneaking a bite of something to eat? Fat chance of that! "I don't envy the job of the cooks, feeding everyone here".
"Well, given how everyone here is a mutant- I wouldn't be surprised if there was some power going into making all that food. Then again, they could just be /really/ good cooks." Food was often on the mind of a teenager. Vic was no different. "Well, I usually do a big breakfast to hold through to lunch, and if they've got like cookies for dessert- I'm always grabbing a few." No judgment from Vic, "Anyways, if you really want you can always raid the kitchen or something. I think they even leave things out for us to do that, like its a bit of a game." One wouldn't go hungry at Xavier's, that was for certain. "What's your favorite meal here, anyways? Most people say pizza night. I'm more fond of the hamburgers and hotdogs."
"That's true," Jocelyn says, thinking that over. How to use mutant powers to cook food more efficiently? "What power would you even need to help with that? Ultimate time management?" she quips as she shuts the music down, making it easier to talk. "I might have to avail myself of that. I did the first night I got here, but I figured it was just Kwabena taking pity on a very obviously tired and stressed out new student". Sneaking in and stealing food? That was something she was good at.
At the question about her favorite meal, Jocelyn thinks for a minute. "Well, the night they served fish, or when there was steak, those were pretty great, but most of the food has been pretty good," the teenager offers. She did previously live next to one of the Great Lakes, so seafood was high on her list.
"Oh, everyone has done it once. Its pretty easy when you can disappear." Vic said with a wink and half-grin edging his lips. "Any meat dish is good for me, honestly. Just a fan of meat." he grins over towards the girl. "So. Ready for breakfast?" he wondered, as he looked at his watch. "They're just about open."
"Yeah, I'm ready," Jocelyn says, gathering her gear. She slips her jacket on and pulls on a pair of gloves. There are a few too many people at breakfast, and people get bumped into. She didn't like to shock them by mistake. "I can't disappear, but I think I can manage to move about unnoticed enough to grab a snack".
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