genessia | [Action - OTA] Office Hours

WHO: Lorna Dane - open to anyone who may want to talk to her, even if it's not class related
WHAT: New professor ~~doesn't actually want to deal with students~~ holds office hours
WHEN: Tuesday, Oct 2 between 3 and 5 pm
WHERE: Attleton University, Physics Dept

Several weeks into the semester, Lorna grudgingly added office hours to her official schedule. Her three courses - only one undergrad, thanks be - were pleasingly grouped from mid-morning to late afternoon and left her plenty of time to spend in the lab or volunteering at the Research Institute in unearthing the mysteries of this parallel dimension. But her students had been asking for time outside of class and she was running out of excuses.

Choosing office hours was a delicate thing. You wanted to be sure to avoid having to interrupt any real work while still picking a time at which you'd have to spend as little extra time as possible in the office. Avoiding meal times was key, but rushing around campus to classes was also to be minimized.

So it was that from 3 to 5 on alternate Tuesdays and Wednesdays, she committed to being found in her office. To discourage anyone from actually taking her up on it, she kept the lights off in her office, choosing instead to rely on natural light through her window, and, as often as she could get away with it, the hallway lights as well.

On her door, just below the placard with Dr Lorna Dane, Geophysics was a listing of her courses:

Physics 105B: Introductory Electromagnetism, Waves, and Optics
Geophys 310A: Electromagnetism and Optics
Geophys 254: Isotopic Geochemistry

Below that was a sign: No, you can't have an extension.

It wasn't that Lorna didn't want to help her students to succeed. She just wanted them to do it without bothering her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Erik wondered for a moment if he should even take advantage of this opportunity. He'd only signed up for the class on a whim, after all, as an excuse to attempt to find out something about Lorna without making her suspicious. It's not like he really needs to know the science behind magnetism to use it, and it's not exactly the same kind of magnetism as his anyway.

But he is curious, both about electromagnetism and about the professor, which is why there's a man who's somewhat older than the typical university student knocking on her office door.

"Dr. Dane?" He might understand the sentiment behind her attempting to seem like she's not there, but he came all this way, and he knows she's in there.

Lorna stifled a sigh, but took a moment or two too long to drag her attention away from the laptop screen with her research data. She plastered a smile on her face - the usual one she used when she was being polite but distant - and gestured a 'come in'. "Yes. Can I help you?"

He looked familiar. One of her students, she imagined. Her mind flipped through the list and landed on one that had stuck out at the time because it had been disturbingly familiar. Still, she'd dismissed the connection. The Lehnsherr she knew would never have gone by that name. Too proud. Too mutant. She was currently chalking it up to an ugly coincidence. "Mr. Lehnsherr?

"Yes. You can call me Erik if you prefer." Not because it's strange to hear his daughter call him 'Mr. Lehnsherr.' Because it's strange to hear anyone call him that.

Now that he's here, and she has figured out who he is, he realizes that he doesn't really have an excuse for being there. He had hoped that maybe he would have a few more seconds to figure that out while introducing himself.

He'll just have to stall some other way. "I had a question about the homework."

Lorna raised an eyebrow at his entirely unnecessary permission. Did he think that because she was young she was going to be one of those 'we're all pals' professors? God, she hoped not. "Have a seat, Mr. Lehnsherr. Unless it's about an extension, in which case the answer is no."

The homework shouldn't have required that much explanation. It was a matter of simply establishing the mathematics to be used in the course and a few examples to work through.

He pulls out a chair -- the normal way, for now -- and settles his tall frame into it. "I don't need an extension. It's already finished." He's not saying it to be boastful, or get in good with the professor. He's simply saying it to assure her that that's not why he's here.

"I was simply wondering about the application of the mathematics to situations other than the one set out in the assignment."

An actual question. Lorna approved. "Of course? Anything in particular? We'll be covering seismology and Snell's Law in our next lab and this math will necessarily underlie that work."

She liked seismology and had considered making it the focus of her work. Natural for a California native, she supposed. Geomagnetic forces had won out in the end.

"Will the seismology cover how an earthquake can be felt in central Poland when there are no fault lines?" It's rhetorical, of course. He's not expecting an actual answer to how that could have happened.

But maybe there is one.

Lorna smiled, visibly invigorated by this line of questioning. She loved science like this, the weird stuff that was still being developed. "Absolutely. In fact, intraplate seismic events are some of the most interesting and little understood in the entire field. We know they happen, but we still aren't sure why? It doesn't help of course, that they're rare and many that we're aware of are too far back for accurate information to have been recorded. The most notable one in recent memory was the Gujarat quake in 2001 with a magnitude of 7.7. That one, they think had to do with an undiscovered fault, but given that it's several hundred kilometers from the plate edge, we don't know why. Folding, perhaps or fluid movement beneath the crust. Before India, though, I don't think there'd been a notable event since the Charleston quake in South Carolina more than a century ago."

She didn't have access to nearly the level of research here that she needed to be certain of that. It chafed.

"I wasn't expecting an answer to that, and yet I've already learned something I didn't know before." Which was the point of signing up for the class in the first place. Well, partly.

"Have there been experiments to attempt to figure out why it happens?"

"Absolutely. There's been a good deal of recent work around the New Madrid intraplate activity in recent years. However," and here Lorna gestured in an annoyed fashion at her computer, "we don't seem to be in Kansas anymore and the AGU library didn't come along with me to Narnia." She was mixing her fictional metaphors but didn't really care.

"The theory is all here. The actual case studies are not. As much as possible, I intended to direct my higher level students toward building a comparable database for this world." She was coming perilously close to ranting. She took a deep breath and smiled at him. "A few years down the line for you, probably."

"Probably," he acknowledges with a nod. He doesn't know if he'll still be here in a few years, or if he'll still be taking these classes. He hadn't signed up specifically for that purpose, but maybe he'll end up taking the chance while he's got it.

"AGU. Is that where you taught before you came here?"

"Hm? Oh, no. AGU is the American Geology Union. They publish several of the most respected journals in the field. Before I came here I was in a, uh, research position." Technically true. All of her work had involved research. Some of it had even been in her field. "But I did my fieldwork through UC Berkeley."

"California. I never made it there." Mainly because his target had never been there, as far as he knew. Or at least, no leads had directed him there. After that, well, he'd mostly run out of opportunities to do much traveling.

"What sort of research did you do?"

There was at least one person in this parallel dimension who wouldn't be deterred by a subtly pissy sign and a refusal to use lights. And he happened to be free from his busy schedule at the moment. He also had her favorite coffee beverage--a four-shot red-eye black coffee--in his hand, so even if she felt like biting a visitor, he was safe.

"Dr. Dane?" Okay, he was pushing it a bit with that. But he was crazy about her and it was time to stop being a chicken about it. Sure. Because pulling her pigtails was very bold.

Lorna turned toward the door, her mouth curling into a smirk. "Hello, Mr. Winchester." Her eyes dropped to the travel coffee mug and lit up. "Is that for me?"

"That depends. How many cups have you had already and how important is sleep?" He echoed her smirk with his own and pushed the door wide enough for him to walk through.

Tossing a quick glance behind him, he suggested, "And whether you plan to help me with my lab project. Should I shut the door?" with an uplifted eyebrow.

[Action - OTA] Office Hours

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