Connected

Round 32: March 2036 (Autumn)

last updates: Noah/Adelaide/the rest
next updates: Edward and Chris/the rest

Edward Lachance and Chris Draper are both 21, Anthony and Veronica Moretti are both 19 and Adelaide Sitko and Noah Gottlieb are both 18.
(Lucy is 21, Sebastian and Oliver are both 20 and Jessica is 16)

Narrated by Noah Gottlieb

I was looking forward to some lazy mornings when I finally started my classes but no luck. My classes start every morning at 9am.

I’m a physics major but at this stage, I still have some flexibility to choose my classes, so I’m taking an astronomy course as well.

I’m enjoying the classes, which is great because I'm planning on studying for a long time yet. I hope to eventually earn a PhD. That’s years away but I’m already pretty certain that’s the direction I want to go in.

Anthony is a year ahead of me and he still doesn’t know what he wants to do. He’s majoring in economics but if you ask him what he’s going to do for a living, he just says whatever will make him a lot of money.

Anthony’s not too motivated to figure out the details. He knows he has a virtual goldmine waiting for him in a trust fund, so he doesn’t feel like he’s in any rush to make any decisions about the future.

He does study though and seeing we’re roommates, I’d know if he didn’t. We’ve both done plenty of all-night cram sessions.

Anthony has a girlfriend now, Joanne and they’ve been pretty considerate about not occupying the room when I need or want to be in there.

Anthony is a pretty decent roommate. I've never shared a room with anyone before but we’ve both got a decent amount of space for our own things.

I know people don’t always have it so easy. Anthony’s sister has the worst roommate ever.

Janette is loud, obnoxious and inconsiderate. She even brings "guests" into the room while Veronica is trying to sleep.

Veronica is trying to convince Adelaide to swap places with Janette but Adelaide's not biting. I wouldn't either, if I were her!

Adelaide's room is the same size as the one I share with Anthony, except she has it all to herself. It's a seriously awesome set-up.

Adelaide is majoring in political science but doesn't really know what she wants to do with it. Her boyfriend Sebastian is trying to convince her to do the same as him. Sebastian is an art/music major and he has ideas of being a rock star once he finishes college.

She has no interest in playing music for a living though, not to mention the distinct lack of talent.

Adelaide is more sporty than musical.

She’s outside on the basketball court more often than she is anywhere else.

But she does like the idea of following Sebastian around the world, while he plays shows and she does…I don’t know what.

I don’t think either of them have really thought it through. It’s pretty unlikely Sebastian will be famous enough to travel the world in the two years between his graduation and Adelaide’s.

Sebastian’s twin brother is his polar opposite. He has a solid plan for after university and according to Anthony, it’s been the same plan since he was 12 - finish his political science degree and then head right into the SCIA after graduation.

Anthony knows him better than I do, because Oliver and Veronica have been dating for several years now. But I've talked to him a little and he seems like a pretty good guy to me.

Veronica doesn’t seem so enthusiastic about him a lot of the time though. Sometimes she seems like she’s more into Edward…

…or Chris, more recently.

And the next day, she’s being all lovey-dovey with Oliver again.

Apparently, this is an improvement over the way she was last year. Last year, she wasn’t much into Oliver at all but something has reignited her interest, I guess.

Chris is definitely interested in Veronica but he’s not looking for anything serious. I’ve been here three months and I’ve seen him with more than one girl.

I’m not sure what they see in him. He can definitely be kind of a jerk when he wants to be.

Chris says there’s only one time in your life you can be so free of responsibility and commitment and now is that time.

He doesn't understand why I'm still "bothering" with Jessica, instead of focusing on all the girls around campus.

I don’t how many there are left that Chris hasn’t been with but I’m not really interested in breaking up with Jessica anyway.

I wonder if he says that kind of thing to Edward as well, or if he doesn’t bother.

He and Lucy have been separated for much longer than me and Jessica and they seem to make it work.

They’re planning on getting a place together next year, so they obviously don’t have any plans to break up any time soon.

I think they’d rather get their own place but Chris will be tagging along too, mainly for financial reasons. A 2 bedroom place for three people should be quite affordable.

I’m pretty impressed Edward and Lucy have stuck it out for this long. It’s been more than three years and it’ll be four by the time he graduates. That’s a long time.

Suffolk isn’t that far from Sullivan but it’s far enough. University life is so different from school or going to work every day as well.

I’m definitely finding that a challenge with Jessica. I would like to see her more often than I do but it’s hard to see her even this often.

I can go out whenever I want but Jessica still has a curfew on school nights. By the time she finishes her after-school job, it doesn’t leave us much time to spend together before she’s due home.

Jessica's parents are quite relaxed but her grandmother watches her like a hawk. Jessica doesn't want to risk getting grounded, so we always make sure we stick to the curfew, as much as it sucks.

We try to hang out for longer on weekends, when we can. I still love her and we always have fun together.

It’s just hard when she talks about school sometimes - it already seems like that kind of thing was so long ago for me and I only finished a few months ago.

And I think she feels similarly disconnected when I talk about the dorms and classes.

Jessica is so excited about starting college and she’s full of questions about it but it’s so far away for her.

Two years really does feel like forever at the moment but I’m going to stick it out and hope for the best.

Extra:
So Janette is possibly a bit of a skank. She's currently getting it on with all three of the dormies in this picture and she brings them all back to the room she shares with Veronica. And yet, in a picture I unfortunately lost, she turned down Chris! They seem like they'd be two peas in a pod but she's not into him!

Notes:

• Title is from Connected by Stereo MCs.
• Anthony's money comes from the $50,000 he won as a result of the ROS he rolled last round. It's really racking up the interest!
• Last year, Veronica was all about Edward and couldn't care less about Oliver. This time, she rolled wants for Oliver but also Edward (again!) and now Chris as well. So she's interested in her actual boyfriend at least but her eye is definitely wandering, which is a concern!
• It's really hard to go by wants with Jessica and Noah at the moment because even on dates, teen-adult couples don't ever roll romantic wants. So I'm just feeling it out as I go and am not really sure how things will turn out for them yet.
• This session took me an extraordinarily long time to play and I actually still haven't done the second semester. I plan to speed them through that, so there won't be an extra update on them or anything but these are their GPAs after the first semester: Chris 4.0, Edward 4.0, Anthony 3.7, Veronica 3.6, Noah, 4.0 and Adelaide 3.0. Edward has already done his term paper for his second semester and he's all skilled up, so he will almost definitely graduate summa cum laude, which is the most likely outcome for Chris as well.