Chapter 3 This is the start

Josh sat beside Katie as Liam made himself comfortable on the other side of him. Phil pushed himself in between Liam and me, dragging his chair which was beside Betts before. Then he immediately started chattering away with Liam. Betts and I eyed him angrily as I moved my chair a bit to give him space.

As I moved near Betts, I checked my watch. It was almost 3 pm. Shit, I had to go to Professor Griffith's sociology lecture today. He would definitely flip out if I don't attend it. I was working as his teaching assistant and had to collect students' assignment from today's class and sort them out.

As I was about to curse out, lecturer Tim announced the end of the class for today.

"Finally!" I let out a sign of relief as I started to pack my bag.

"Why the rush?" Betts asked watching me frantically pack my bag.

"Gotta go to sociology class. Have to collect the assignments," I replied to her.

"But we have to plan about the group work for this class-Sophie- hey-hey, don't run, Sophie! SOPHIE!!" Phil yelled after me as I made my way towards the door.

"Text me the plan," I answered him back as I ran out of the class. Damn, I only had five minutes to make it to the class.

Why do they have to make the buildings so far apart. I cursed at whoever designed the area as I ran like crazy. 3 minutes left and I have to climb two floors up.

"Fuck-" I cursed as I started to climb the stairs.

I somehow made it. When I reached level 2, I saw the students in Professor Griffith's class were just entering the class.

Thank god, I was not too late. I mixed in with the students and made my way into the lecture hall. Because it was a theatre style lecture hall, I could easily find myself a seat at the front. The students rather preferred to walk up the stairs and sit at the back. I had to sit at front since I was responsible to assist the professor with the teaching materials and such. On the downside, I sometimes had to try hard to not fall asleep.

Luckily for me today, the lecture topic was interesting. It was about social norms and values. And since we had planned to incorporate the same concept for our project, I gave it my full attention. Professor Griffith really made the lecture interesting. He had a very interactive class with the students.

It was a three hour long lecture with two 10 minutes break after every 50 minutes. And fifteen minutes before the end of the tutorial, he asked the students to be ready with the assignments.

I stood from my seat with a paper including the students' name on my hand. As the students made their way towards me, I slowly collected the assignments from them, ticking their name on the list as I receive the document from them. Some students were asking Professor Griffith questions regarding the topic that were taught today.

When all the students had submitted the assignments, a remaining student volunteered to help me carry the assignments to the professor's office. I thanked him as we both followed the professor towards his office.

The student's name was Nathan. I have seen him participating in the professor's class so often. I knew he did some sort of sports, even representing the university at a national level tournament. But today was my first time talking to him. He was nice and easy going. And he definitely had a sense of humour.

We reached the professor's office. I was lucky that he had provided a small desk and chair in his office for me to complete any teaching assistant work I do for him. This way, I didn't have to take work home. I put the assignments on a cupboard near my desk and locked it. After putting the keys in my bag, I told the professor that I will finish the work by the weekend and send him the report. Nathan and I then said goodbye to the professor and walked out of the office.

"Thanks for your help, Nathan. See you next week!" I waved at Nathan and took a left turn while Nathan said bye and took the other way.

It was already 15 minutes pass six. I took my phone to check for any missed messages or calls. I saw that Phil had texted me.

"Meet us at Grill & Bar at 6," I read his message.

How come he asked me to meet at 6? I cursed at him. He knew my class ended at 6! Asshole!

Whatever, I was already hungry anyway. And Grill & Bar was just around the University. It was our hangout place for discussing any assignments or plan.

It was 6:35 pm when I reached Grill & Bar. I ran into some people I knew on the way and so was a bit late. The place was packed. Usually when the semester was going, many students would fill this place.

"Sophie, here," I heard Phil and looked towards the voice. I saw them at the corner table. As I walked towards them I saw that Josh and Liam were there as well. Katie was sitting between Betts and Josh and they had their backs towards me. As I walked, they turned towards me to wave. I nodded and walked towards the table. Liam and Phil were sitting opposite to them. Phil slide a little bit to make a space for me to sit.

I could already see that they had started the food and drink before me.

"Damn you guys started without me!!" I cursed at all of them.

"Just eat," Betts and Phil said at the same time.

I was too hungry to argue with them. So I started with the stir fried chicken that was in front of me. The guys continued to talk. They were discussing about the plans we had before Josh and Liam joined us. I did not join the conversation but signalled a waitress to bring me a class of Kraft beer. In few minutes she was back with the beer.

"Cheers," I said to no one in particular before I gulped down half glass of the beer.

I put the glass down and finally looked at them.

"So? What's the plan?" I asked.

"We are doing the same work as how we discussed before," Katie explained. "But now we are diving the workload. This whole project is worth 180 credit points for each of us. So, we thought we need to make it more detailed."

All of them nodded their head.

"Now, what we are going to do is- pair up the work," she looked at me. Seeing my confused face, she went on to explain. "We have divided the project into two stage- first and second," she continued. "First stage will be the first two months before we go on a holiday break. We will do initial research on the topic we have selected in pairs. Then we will all comeback and brainstorm what we have found. Second stage- we will select the cases that we want to focus and then leave the rest of time to collect data and complete the project. For the second stage, we will form a different pair."

There was a silence when she finished explaining.

"Sounds like a good plan," I said to her. "But why select a different pair for the second stage?" I was confused. Why waste the time and energy?

"We thought it would be a good idea to work with different people rather than just the same person," Josh added.

"Yeah, we are new to your group and it will give us a chance to get to know each of you better," Liam said.

"Then why just two months for the first pair and so many months for the second pair?" I asked again.

"Idiot," it was Phil who answered me. I looked at home angrily. He did not have any right to call me idiot!! This crazy dog!! "It is because after the break, when we come back, we will have many other assignments and will not have time to change the pair again."

I was still not sold for the idea but did not really wanted to argue. As long as we were all pairs from the same group, it did not matter.

"So, how are we going to select the pairs?" I asked them helping myself with the rest of the beer.

"That one is sorted," Phil said in an excited voice. Then he took out a small box from his bag along with six small pieces of papers with each of our name. "Who wants to draw the names for the first pair?" He asked all of us.

I didn't know what he had planned but I wanted to go first. Katie, Phil and I raised our hands at the same time while Betts, Liam and Josh did not raise their hand.

"This is good!" Phil exclaimed. I was taken back. How was this good?

"Now I am going to put Betts', Liam's and Josh's name in the box," Phil explained as he folded the pieces of paper with their name into the box. "Katie, Sophie and I will draw the names from the box. Whichever name we pick will be our pair for the first two months. Then I will fold Katie's, Sophie's and my name and then the rest of you will pick the pair for the second stage. How does that sound?" He asked us.

It sounded pretty interesting. We all agreed.

Katie went first and picked a name from the box. Then I did and then finally Phil did. We decided to open at the same time.

"One, two three!" Betts counted and we opened the piece of paper on our hand when she finished counting.

I picked Liam's name, Katie picked Josh's while Phil picked Betts'.

"Okay! That's good". Everyone was smiling and giving hi-fi to their pairs.

"Now for the second pair." Phil folded the papers with Katie's, his and mine name and put them in the box. We repeated the same process but this time it was Betts, Liam and Phil who drew the papers.

"One….two….three!" Phil counted and the three of them opened the piece of paper at the same time.

Josh had picked my name while Betts picked Katie's and Liam picked Phil's. Katie took out her note book to write the names of all the pairs.

First stage pairs:

Sophie & Liam

Betts & Phil

Katie & Josh

Second stage pairs:

Sophie & Josh

Betts & Katie

Phil & Liam

"So, that's it. I will send a note with the details in an email. Just make sure you all remember the pairs," Katie instructed as she put the notebook back in her bag as Phil ordered five more glasses of beer.

"Why five?" I asked him in confusion.

"Josh is not drinking," he replied. "He is going to drop us back to our places on his car."

"Ohhh…lucky you," I mouthed and looked at Josh. "Good one!" I told him as he smiled at me.

The waitress got our glasses quickly.

"So, here's for our new start," Phil gave his usual celebratory speech as we all raised and clashed our beer glasses as a toast.

"This is the start…" I said as I finished the whole glass in one shot!