Pick up the change

Round 19: College (Autumn 2009)

Last update: Eliot/Max/Zaria/Wade

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Eliot Novak is 23, Max Nihill is 22, Zaria Royce is 21 and Wade Gottlieb is 19.

Away from their parents for the first time in their lives, Max and Zaria are making the most of their new-found freedom. The hot tub is better than Zaria's parents' bed, anyway.



Although sometimes, it seems that they have Zaria's friend Wade watching them, instead of Zaria's dad.

He's not spying for Leo or anything. He just happens to pick some inopportune moments to strike up a conversation with Zaria.

Max was hoping the rest of his dormmates would be agreeable to having the sports channel on 24/7 and at least one of them is. Eliot and Max share an interest in almost any sport you can name and no one else gets much of a chance to watch the TV with them around.

Eliot is also living at Moretti Hall. Wade and Eliot are cousins but with Wade's family living in Exeter and Eliot's in Sullivan, they never really knew each other all that well while growing up. They have a chance to change that while at Suffolk.

One of the first things Wade did was run out and check the greenhouse. He was disappointed to find it looked like it had been abandoned for several semesters now. Wade has never gardened before, but he's determined to get some greenery happening in there again.

Zaria's not so much into gardening but she is willing to rake up leaves and put them in the compost bin. Wade's claimed the greenhouse as his own anyway, so she probably wouldn't be allowed in there even if she wanted to.

Zaria is more into the pool anyway. The house her parents recently moved into doesn't have a pool and Zaria's not sure if she ever wants to live anywhere else without one.

As fully-fledged young adults, they can now make full use of the local bars and decide to try one out early on in their first semester. Zaria would like a turn on the karaoke machine, once Wade stops hogging it.

They decide to duet instead, while Max and Eliot busy themselves elsewhere.

Eliot is upstairs, doing something that he calls "dancing". And no, he didn't earn the dance scholarship before enrolling at Suffolk, if that wasn't already plainly obvious.

While Eliot is embarrassing himself, Max has stumbled into an awkward situation at the upstairs poker table. Sitting down at the first table he saw, he's found himself in a poker game with Zaria's father, Leo.

Zaria was too busy singing her little heart out downstairs to notice her dad entering. She probably would have insisted on them leaving. How cool can a bar be if your dad is there?

It's doubtful anyone could have dragged Wade away before he was finished anyway - he's having a great time.

The boys seem to have all ditched Zaria so she decides to flip through the DJ's record collection when he steps away.

Now all the boys are upstairs playing poker with her dad!

Zaria has found plenty to keep herself occupied though. The DJ still hasn't returned, so she plays with some knobs and sliders and finds she's not half bad as a DJ. She even gets some tips from clubbers who aren't aware she's not supposed to be there.

Zaria uses her tip money to pay for a few drinks at the bar. She really does try not to be judgemental but should a pregnant woman really be sitting at the bar?

But it turns out Megan was just resting her feet before attempting some karaoke of her own.

The boys have wandered down to the bar by now. Eliot thinks Megan is pretty hot; Max isn't sure what to think of her performance.

He is wondering just how many babies she has in there anyway.

Amelia Moretti isn't a student but one might wonder why she bothered skipping college if she was planning on spending so much time on campus anyway.

Well, the hot tub is tucked away in a corner of the dorm backyard and this is as much privacy as either of them are going to get for the meantime. Amelia lives with her brother and their roommate, Jesse. As the sole female resident, she has her own room but it's still a little awkward.

Eliot was hoping to meet a nice single girl at Suffolk but so far, he's coming up empty. Pets are against the rules in the dorms but a little womrat like Udo will be easy to hide if there's ever an inspection and will give Eliot something else to focus on besides his painful singledom.

Oh, yeah...and they study too. Sometimes, anyway. Freshman year seems to have come quite naturally to Max and he's been able to coast by without doing much study at all. He has become quite adept at bothering the others while they study though.

And that's it for their freshman year!

Grades:
Eliot (sophomore) - 4.0 GPA, major still undeclared.
Max (sophomore) - 4.0 GPA, Philosophy major.
Wade (sophomore) - 2.8 GPA, Political Science major.
Zaria (sophomore) - 3.5 GPA, Political Science major.

Notes:

• Megan is in her second trimester, despite the fact that she looks like she's in her fifth. ;) A combination of that stupid community lot pregnancy bug and the H&M outfits making Sims look a little larger than usual when pregnant.
• I cheated a little with Wade. He missed his final exam in first semester and got on academic probation, so I immediately boosted his grade and sent him to the exam again and caught him up with the other kids. I couldn't figure out if the new calendar is going to make academic probation easier or harder to fit in. So I wrote it out this time but will have to sit down at some point and figure out how to handle it next time.