Pre-Semester Meetings with My Advisees

As I get out of bed, I can’t help but think on two questions. Two questions that have dominated my mind for the last month or so. What the hell is wrong with me is one, for sure. I’ve made plenty of choices that make me ask myself that. Mostly revolving around him, but that’s for me to worry about some other time. The other question is more easily solvable. But also not for right now. It’s for later today, I guess, but later today is still later. For now, I’ve got some other people to worry about.

Heading out from my apartment at seven, I stop by the coffee shop to get things going with a kick. The kids are going to need some help, no doubt. That was expected. The two last year needed a ton of advice the first year. But what irks me is that the seniors don’t all have their shit together. Too many of them coasted through the four years without preparing for the next step of their life. I use the coffee place’s app to order the coffee as I approach the physical building, and pick it up as I walk through the place without pausing. Starting to drink as I let the door close behind me, I pause, take a breath, and think. For once, at least, Marshall isn’t the problem. Not particularly helpful, but it does mean I should be able to start on time, or reasonably close to on time. I hurry across town and campus to the study room in Dixon that I’ve been assigned for group advisor meetings, hurrying by lengthening my stride slightly rather than moving faster. I don’t want to seem like I’m running late to the townies, that’s a bad look for a professor. Or so I’ve been told. Then again, so is… no. Another time. First things first.

Therese greets me inside the door. “Sierra,” she says.

“Therese,” I reply, “You’re early. And I’m not. Well, not that much anyways.”

“Unimportant,” she says right back, “Pete is currently leaving the Caf, meaning you can’t start your meeting for just under a minute.”

“And I’m meeting with you in fifteen. What do you want?”

“A warning, nothing more. Be careful.”

“Really helpful,” I sigh.

“In a large group and with the knowledge and preconceptions he had, Jason didn’t pick up on the hints. But he has not contacted me today, meaning he will be coming to this sober, or close enough, and there will not be as many buffers.”

“And why are you telling me this?” I press.

Therese smiles slightly, a thin, disturbing smile. “Just a favor,” she says in her rather unsettling manner. Then, she glances at her phone. “Now then, Pete just got here through the side door, you should be on your way.” And with that, Therese moved deeper into the stacks and left me there. A favor, I muse as I head into the study room. For whom?

Inside, Brad and Elizabeth are waiting. I push the whole issue of Therese out of my head for the moment. More important things and whatnot. Brad looks up at me. “So what’s this about?” he asks.

Pete enters the room. “Sorry I’m running later than I should’ve been, the line at the Caf was long,” he spits out in a single breath before even sitting down.

“It is fine,” I say, “And we’re here to talk about next year.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Marshall?” Pete asks.

I smile and shrug. “For once, actually, Marshall isn’t the problem. He’s already somehow convinced a pair of Villae in Eastern Europe to start a bidding war over him. The problem is you two.” I look at Pete and Brad.

“Liz?” Brad asks, somewhere between needing help and curious about why she wasn’t targeted.

“I’ve got a job lined up for next year. That’s what my internships have been about, remember? The one’s I’ve had every summer since Freshman year?”

“Exactly. But you two, you don’t seem to have that at all,” I explain, “And you don’t have anything in yet for the next level of education. So, I go back to, what are you two going to do?”

Pete shrugs. “I’m applying for a couple things, but I was running late with the apps. Um, also a couple summers ago, I made this friend at a party that could help me get a job in the movies, behind the scenes type things. I’ll give him a call, have everything lined up if the real jobs I’m trying for fall through. Maybe, though I don’t know if he’ll even remember me. Hopefully the real jobs don’t fall through.” His voice trails off midway through that last sentence, but I understand the gist of it.

“Great. And Brad?”

“Well, I’m sorry if I don’t have everything planned. I didn’t even figure out how I was going to graduate until last summer. Wait, um, Liz, didn’t Jake say that Tim was talking about how Ric was opening up a new Villa in, like, Morocco or something?”

“Yeah? I think that’s a plan for a year from now or something? I don’t know, though, it was about third or fourth-hand information.”

Brad shrugs. “No matter. I’m still friends with Ric on Facebook. I’ll message him, talk about it. He liked me, and I’m a hard worker, I’m sure he’ll let me be a Magister in his new place, whenever it opens up.”

I sigh. I hope that works out for Brad, but having met Ric exactly once, I’m not entirely confident the recently crowned Great Maestro is unlikely to follow through on starting his Villa for a while, meaning if he brings Brad along, they’ll both be stuck in a holding pattern for a minute setting up the weird logistical details of a newly founded Villa. Unimportant, though.

Marshall walks in. “I’m late, I know. What’s the meeting about?” he asks.

“The future,” Brad says.

I look at the young man. “Have you finally decided?”

“Probably? Greece is, well, Greece, and they’re offering to buy me a house there if I commit to staying there all my Magister time and at least my first year as a Maestro. I’ll let Latvia counter, but I don’t think they’ll give me much more than that, and again I repeat, Greece is Greece, while Latvia is, well.”

I cut him off, “Yeah, yeah, we get it.” Then, turning to Brad and Pete, I explain, “And that is what you could be doing if you’re actually prepared.”

Pete rolls his eyes. Brad shakes his head, then turns to Elizabeth and Marshall. “If I ever actually start using Marshall as a role model, kill me then and there.”

“Deal,” Marshall replies jokingly. Then, to me, he adds, “Anything else.”

“Just some procedural stuff vis-à-vis graduation,” I answer him, and I go through the seven different forms required to actually graduate with degrees that can be useful, as well as be officially promoted to Magister. It’s a fairly basic series of forms, and all very repetitive, but bureaucracy is bureaucracy and they are all needed to leave campus a proper graduate.

By the time I’m finishing my explanations, the next three are already waiting for our next meeting. “Alright, remember all that, if you have questions, ask. Now switch with those crazy kids,” I joke as I wrap up.

“Won’t do,” Marshall replies, always needing the last word, and heads out. The others follow. The three juniors come in, replacing the four seniors.

“I assume this is about our summer internships?” Isaac asks.

“And using Pete and Brad as an example as to why you need to start thinking about next steps now.” I add.

Jason smiles. “Well, um, I’m actually not bad. Going to be working with some friends of my brother in one of those teach-manual-laborers-how-to-code programs this summer. That program and the degree, figure I’ll be able to do a bunch of stuff.”

“Again, you don’t need a plan right now, but you do need to think about one. Jason?”

He stares at me, somehow comforting and yet nervous. “Um, well, Amanda put in a good word with the nearby Villa and I met with her bosses last time. Figure I’ll take an internship there and hang out around the Villa myself some. Already have it lined up and everything. Just need to pull the trigger on everything. I was waiting for them to come back from holiday break.”

“Therese?” I ask. I doubt she actually needs help in this regard. She thinks about the future. Probably too much.

She looks at me. “I have a plan.”

“You need to do some kind of internship over this summer. Really, you should have last summer, too, but I understand the need to take a job like you did last summer.”

“I. Have. A. Plan,” she repeats, slowing it down and pausing between words, as if I didn’t understand her before.

I wait for her to elaborate. She doesn’t. That somehow worries me more. “Is it a plan you have worked out in reality or just in your head? Because most internships are going to be closing in the next month, so you need to get on it.”

“It’s been arranged,” she says. An odd way of phrasing it, but good enough, I suppose. “Anything else?”

“Not really,” I say, “If you have any questions, feel free to see me, but you know what you’re doing, for the most part, and there’s no strange procedural things you need to worry about right now. Just think about your futures, alright.”

Jason looks at his two classmates. “Why do I get the distinct feeling she’s talking to me, specifically?”

“Because she is,” Therese says dryly.

I roll my eyes and sigh. “Alright, get out of here. But, Therese, I would appreciate you elaborating on your summer a tad more, at some point.”

She smiles her uncomfortable, thin smile. “Our first game after I can, I will.”

“Our game?” Isaac questions, but Jason directs him outside. I sigh, and sit down at the table. I could tell. Therese was right to warn me. Jason is a lot more present and aware of subtle cues when he’s not half asleep, high, and tipsy simultaneously. I could tell from his looks. Probably also why she brought up the game. Make my reactions seem for different reasons. Means I probably owe her now, but no matter. For now, I need to relax.

Next up is the sophomores. I don’t need to talk to Irene much, she’s already applied for her major. But Ruth is just going through her general reqs, so she needs to start specializing. Else she’ll end up stumbling into a meaningless major like Brad did. The pair come in just a little early, chatting about some rumor. Irene loves to talk about other people’s business, makes her whole friendship with the silent vault of Therese weird, but they seem to bring out the best in one another. And the worst. As much as I’d love to take credit for her preparedness, I can only really take half credit. Therese had her major declaration in even earlier. I smile. “Alright, this is going to be a really brief meeting, because of reasons you’ll see, but basically, this is the semester. You need to have a major before you think about next year’s classes, which means you need it now. The sooner the better. Ruth, any idea what you’re going to do?” I ask her.

She doesn’t. Not really. But we quickly go through her last couple years, her current classes, and what she’s enjoyed, and in five minutes we have a small list of three. Psychology, High Magic, and Manipulative Magic. She just needs to figure out which of the three to focus on. Honestly, once she’s looked everything up, she could probably with her current courses double major in Psych and Man-Mag without too much extra workload, but I’ll bring that up in the meeting for picking next semester classes, so it doesn’t affect her decision. In case she’s feeling High Magic.

Finally, I just need to check in with my freshmen, and all my pre-semester obligations are done. Charlie, Logan, and Valeria are all pretty solid students, I suppose. I worry Logan is getting depressed by the lack of civilization around, coming from an actual city and not a poor part of it, but hopefully it isn’t too bad. Charlie being as young as he is worries me as well, but I suspect he was assigned to me because Therese and Marshall are both as successful as they are. The worst possible pair of good role models, but good examples nonetheless. Whatever the case, my check in with the kids is in ten minutes. Sipping coffee, I think about what they actually need to worry about for this semester and the summer.