Chapter 42: A Fool In Heat

Wednesday | February 7th, 2024 | 2:03 PM

"You forgot a semicolon," I murmured as I read the code on the computer screen. A disappointed groan came from my left. Park Minju sighed and rested her face against the desk, the thud making the row in front of us flinch.

"Are you serious?" She mumbled, her voice muffled.

"Yep, right here," I pointed out, pointing to the spot on the screen. Minju raised her head and squinted at the code, her eyebrows scrunched up. "Oh." The poor girl simply replied.

I chuckled and passed her back her laptop. Right when I entered class today, Minju threw her laptop down, begging for me to help her. Out of the kindness of my heart and the fact that she helps me get through class by bothering me, I did her an overdue favor. 

"I was up last night trying to finish the assignment, but I just couldn't think at all. I didn't get to play ranked last night," She pouted. "Thanks for the help," She added.

"Anytime," I shrugged. Minju turned back to her laptop, fixing her mistake, and I turned back to my laptop. We were partners for what our professor called a "coding workshop", essentially it was just assignments after assignments that we would work on together to hammer in our "foundations" and "core dependencies".

Our class was pretty much just the two of us working together on assignments and learning to program. Our teacher was young and cool, but he kind of just left us alone in the classroom. The extent of his teaching was telling us to watch links to videos that explained the lesson. He's not a great teacher, but we did get a lot of independent study.

I wasn't complaining, it meant that the class was easy, and we were allowed to do whatever and work on our own stuff. Minju and I had become pretty close, the girl warmed up to me pretty quick and started most of the conversations unlike another introvert that I knew. We would talk about computers, hardware, and gaming. Even if I wasn't as much of a gamer myself, the topic was still fun to talk about, especially for Minju.

She was passionate about it and whenever she talked about it, her eyes lit up and her excitement was contagious. When it came to talking about the assignments and programming, I'd usually have the lead in those conversations. Video games and the next funny trend of the week, that was all her.

"Did you hear about the new Fortnite skins?" Minju asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. Looking back over, the girl was grinning from ear to ear with her laptop already off of class and onto other things.

"Not really, no," I shook my head. She pouted and turned her laptop towards me, "Look, this is such a cute skin!"

My eyes landed on the image on the screen, the cartoonish character was posing. I nodded, "Looks pretty cool, yeah."

"I'm thinking about getting the battle pass this season. I'm still on the edge though. I'm not sure if I'll play enough Fortnite to make it worth it. I'll probably be too busy playing League," Minju sighed, resting her chin on her hand.

"Hmm, if you ask me, it seems like a waste. I'm with you, I don't think you'll have time to grind out the battle pass,"

"Yeah, that's the problem," She sighed, "But the skin's so cute."

"I've never been the type to spend money on games," I shook my head.

"Really?" Minju gasped, turning to me, her eyebrows raised, "I think I've spent over 500,000 won on League alone!"

"I personally think I’d find skills a lot more admirable than a skin. But hey, it's your money," I laughed. Minju giggled, "That's true." Her laugh trailed off as her eyes fell to the ground, her expression suddenly turning concerned.

"Oh my gosh, what happened to your legs?" She gasped. I winced at the mention and followed her gaze at my legs, covered from my shins to my knees in white gauze and bandages. 

After trailing blood up into my dorms and hiding in my bedroom, I ended up having to wash and dress the wounds myself. Cleaning all of the mess revealed a large abrasion and deep scrapes, which explained the constant stinging pain. Not only that, there was definitely some internal bruising because I was barely able to walk without limping the next day.

"I, uh, fell," I muttered. It was partially the truth.

"You fell? You must have fallen down a whole cliff," Minju gasped, "That looks painful, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," I nodded, waving her concern away, "It's just some scrapes and cuts, it'll heal eventually."

"Wow, I'm surprised you're even here today. Your knees and shins are completely covered, that has to hurt," Her eyes never leaving the gauze, her eyebrows scrunched together in concern.

"Like a bitch, yeah," I laughed, rubbing the back of my neck.

"Why are you so calm? Is it hurting right now?" She asked, her eyebrows raised.

"I'm trying to ignore it," I said, shrugging my shoulders, "If I don't pay attention, then it doesn't hurt."

"I'd die," She groaned, shaking her head, "I hate the sight of blood, I'd faint if I was ever bleeding."

"You'd hate to be there when I fell then," I joked, trying to turn the subject lighthearted.

"Ooh, ew, no thanks," She cringed, a shudder running through her body.

Our conversation was interrupted when our professor grabbed our attention, standing up. We stopped talking and gave him our full attention. "Today, because this is a data structures and algorithms class, the assignments I've been assigning have been warming you into using the various different structures you'd often find out in the real world."

"However, now that we've gotten through those, I'll assign your first practical project. Before that, I'd like to know whether or not these past assignments have actually taught you something. Who can give me an example of a data structure and the real world applications?" He asked, looking around the room.

I leaned back in my chair, the question was easy enough, and I knew the answer, but it's not like I'd want to speak up. Someone in the front spoke up for us, "Well, there's a queue, for instance, a grocery line. The first instance of data that comes in will be the first that goes out and so on."

"Very good, can anyone else give another example?"

"Arrays," a girl spoke up.

"Very good, yes. And what are some applications of arrays?"

"Inventory lists and contacts, for example,"

"Yes, good. Although arrays are very simple and not the best singular tool for the job, but yes. Those are common applications of data structures in the real world. When I say arrays are not the best singular tool for a job, I'm trying to say in a practical program or application of the real world, you won't see one true best data structure used. Every structure has its own pros and cons. Instead, it's a combination of data structures."

"What one structure may lack in a feature, another may prevail and vice versa. So for this project, I would like you and your partner to create a simple program of your choice. It's an exercise to familiarize you with various data structures and algorithms, and also learn about their usage. I'd be expecting at the very minimum three different data structures."

"Your program could be anything, a calculator, a game, or something that could prove useful. Just make sure it's a functioning program, and try to take advantage of the many data structures out there."

"I'll be sending an email later tonight, and you'll be given an opportunity to propose a topic, but the specifics of the project and your roles are left to your discretion. Feel free to get started, thank you."

The professor turned around and went back to his laptop. There was a moment of silence, and the room filled with murmurs and chatter. Minju turned to me, her eyes bright.

"This sounds like fun! Finally, we get to make something of our own!" Minju grinned. I nodded, "Yeah, what are you thinking about? What do you want to do?"

Minju thought for a second before a wide smile spread across her lips.

"I've got an idea." She started typing on her laptop before turning it back to me, showing me a familiar streaming website, "What if we made a Netflix-like streaming service. Not exactly the same, but a similar interface, but the media can be anything. Video, image, music, whatever,"

"I see," I nodded, the gears turning in my mind, "We have the makings of a queue, to stream like a playlist of videos. We can use arrays and hashmaps, to link videos and whatnot."

"Yes!" Minju grinned. Her face locked up, like she was thinking about something, before shaking her head, "Oh my gosh, I have a great idea. What if I use my gaming clips as the videos?"

"That'd be fun," I laughed.

She smiled, "Oh, this is going to be so cool. You have no idea how excited I am."