In some kind of German immersion IT classroom that seemed closer to being highschool than college. All of us sat in front of a school computer, of which there were maybe 30 along the walls of the classroom and more along the island in the middle of the room. The teacher also had a desk in the corner, a projector sticking out from the ceiling, and the corresponding projector screen.
Weirdly enough, I happened to sit next to a girl I used to be in multiple high school classes with. That was of course until my computer crashed, and I needed to move to another computer to the right of the classroom. Over here were people I recognized, but that I couldn't quite put names to the faces for.
We were working on primarily introductory power points. The prompts were more academic and specifically school related, rather than focused on hobbies. I wasn't quite sure if the project should be in English or German even after a few students had already shared their slideshow presentations.
While having some time to work on the PowerPoint, the teacher was nice enough to have apparently had a few loaves of chocolate that we could cut a piece of for ourselves when we wanted. I found out about it's existence right when there was barely any left, though.
We had a nap time shortly after.
Not something to complain about- I happily went along with having the break. With the overhead lights and monitor screens off, I managed to get some rest curled up on the floor.
It was nice to just take a break and close my eyes; too bad that immediately after we started to present the introductory PowerPoints again. I was convinced they were worth many more points than they were, that and I still wasn't sure of the criteria. It was almost lunch time and I hadn't been asked to present yet.
"Is there anyone who hasn't shared their's yet?" the teacher called out.
With that, just me and a different girl sitting nearby raised our hands. She went first. There wasn't much on her slides, similar to mine. The previous power points had had music embedded and looked too nearly polished for the time we had to work on them. Her's had neither, and being the one to come before mine was somewhat of a relief even if mine would be comparatively scuffed.
Finally on my turn, I stood at an angle I was self conscious of, not wanting to face away from the audience, but also needing to read the slides to be able to get through this. It began with a picture that looked like it could have been from the later end of an elementary school math classroom. I described that and which elementary school I went to, a couple things following that, liking animals and Zoology, and lastly Pokemon.
Although, before it could get to a Pokemon slide, the screen froze on a transition slide with a gif of a My Little Pony character with a speech bubble with something like "and up next, we have:" or "and now for the fun part" for an uncomfortably long 3 or 4 seconds as I fumbled around with the remote, desperate for anything else to be displayed on the screen.
Post class presentation embarrassment, there was at least the mercy of the class ending to go have lunch.
I zoomed out of whichever section of the school we were in, in a speed walk B-lining for the cafeteria. I made sure not to be in the closest section of the multistory eating space. Climbing up the stairs, I finally eased my tensed body slightly as I looked at some food options.
Settling on a single slice of decent looking pepperoni pizza, I gave the poor worker a look, somewhat of an unintentional scowl, when he said the single slice would be 10 dollars. Putting my debit card back, I decided to pay in cash instead, if only to use the $10 bill in my wallet.
That also didn't quite work out because the cafeteria worker just rounded up from eight-something dollars and didn't bother mentioning that before hand.
Exasperated, I just took the change and pizza slice, and strode off again. Now in the hall upstairs outside of the cafeteria, I looked at the dollar bill he had given me along with the singular quarter and Penny. It had a "1" on it, but that "1" was followed by two zeros!
He'd given me a one hundred dollar bill by mistake!
Deciding that the encounter had already played out and that the money was now mine, it got stashed away in my wallet.
Nearly skipping, I took a stroll around the school before finding my way back to the cafeteria to finish off my slice of pizza. Never resting or stopping to sit, I ate as I walked, combing through the rows of tables in search of someone I already knew and wouldn't mind talking too.
Eventually, I found a classmate from the class I enjoyed in the previous semester. I stopped by to talk for barely a minute before continuing on, munching on my pizza as I went.
