Morning Has Broken

The birds sing their sweet birdsong, and you wake up, roll out of bed, and stub your toe. Shit! You hobble to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

A couple minutes later, and you’ve packed your bag for the day, and head out of East Hall for the dining hall. As you head in, a familiar looking Indian guy waves you over.

“Hey, how’s it going Alex?” he asks. He’s pretty sloppily dressed, wearing an untucked shirt a size too big. “The homework was pretty easy right?”

“Uh, where do I know you from?” you ask. “Sorry, I’ve just met so many people these past few days.”

“I’m Vignesh, from math?” he says.

“Oh, I think remember now…” you say. “Wait… you found the math homework easy? This new stuff took me so long to figure out—I’m not even done with it yet!”

“No, I think it was pretty easy,” Vignesh says, getting a large heaping of waffles on his plate. He seems a little socially awkward, but well intentioned.

“Man, you sure you belong in this class, and not in some grad class?” you say. “I know a girl Dani who—“

“Oh, you know Dani too! She’s awesome isn’t she?” he says. “I met her at the MOP last year, we had a blast there.”

“Mop?” you ask. You’ve heard of Morp, like a reverse prom, but you’re pretty sure you heard mop…

“The Mathematical Olympiad Program,” Vignesh says, setting aside his waffles and waving his hands excitedly. “It’s like, you know the AMC?”

“You mean the American Math Competition, not the theaters, right?”

“Obviously I meant the math competition. So if you do well on the AMC, you qualify for the AIME, which is the American Invitational Mathematics Examination, and if you do well on that, you can take the USAMO, which is the USA Math Olympiad, and if you do well on that, you qualify for the MOP, which is like a math camp to prepare for the international olympiad!”

“Okay… so basically, what you’re saying is that you and Dani are super-geniuses,” you say. “What the fuck are you doing in my math class?”

“Yeah, I think they told me I could place out of a bunch of math classes, but I kinda got lazy and forgot to register for classes properly, so this is what I’m stuck with.”

“You’re kidding me,” you say. “This class better not be curved.”

“No, no, I checked, you’re good,” Vignesh says, laughing. “But anyways, I talked to the department head, and he said I could move straight to grad analysis starting next week.”

“Analysis?”

“Uh… yeah, analysis, that’s what I said right?” Vignesh says.

“No, what does analysis mean?”

“Oh, it’s like proving stuff about calculus, and functions, and infinite series, and limits, and metric spaces, and… it’s like… basically everything you’ve heard of in math, probably,” Vignesh says. “Geometry excepted, of course.”

“Okay,” you say, not really sure of where Vignesh is going with this. “So, you coming to class today?”

“Yeah,” he says, shifting uncomfortably. He looks at you, and then glances away.

“What is it?” you ask.

“Nothing… it’s just…” Vignesh falls silent for a bit. “It’s just… can you not tell anyone else about this? I got really embarrassed in high school back when—“

“Yeah, I got you,” you say, cutting him off before he says something that’ll make you regret your decision.

“So the actual reason that I’ve stayed in this class is because of a… girl.” Ah, now things are starting to add up. “She… I kinda quite fancy her, but I don’t know… anyways, you seem pretty cool, and maybe you could help me?”

“Man, you’re overselling me a ton,” you laugh. “But yeah, I guess I could try my best. Who is she?”

{if Ruby > 0}”It’s Ruby,{else}“It’s Ruby, the smart red-headed girl,{endif} but I don’t know if… if she likes me, or… you know, what I can do…”

“I see,” you say. “Yeah, I think I can make something work. Let’s head to class yeah?”

Vignesh nods and sputters his thanks, and the two of you walk to class together.

Vignesh +10