Homework Away from Home (Dani)

[Bolin & Chonglin Zhou]

Libraries were definitely not one of Lin's favorite places to be, let along spend part of their weekend in. They would much rather be out and about having fun. But no. They sat alone at a table in a boring quiet library. What's worse, they were stuck doing homework. Math homework. Their copy of the geometry text book was lying open in between them with a few sheets of graph paper scattered out in front of them. As far as the twins were concerned, proofs were evil.

"So… If these two angles are congruent then the triangles are congruent by"

"Angle Side Side…" Chonglin started jotting down the reason then stopped. "Wait…"

"Right, wǒ can't use ASS as a reason." A moan came from Bolin. How else were they supposed to prove the stupid triangles were congruent? Last time they tried "because I said so" they were scolded and given a very clear warning not to write that again. Chonglin leaned down with his cheek against the paper. It felt cool on his skin, and there would be no surprise if there turned out to be a little ink on his face afterwards.

"What do wǒ do now?" Bolin glared over at his brother. He knew well that Bolin didn't know. Neither were good at math. It was just good that they actually tried to start their homework on their own. Silently they agreed it was time to give up, and they just sat there lazily with nothing to do.

[Danielle Cooper]

Dani skimmed a hand along a line of books as she walked down an aisle. She was on her way to check out a book on cinematography for some light reading and possible inspiration for her next project. As she turned to make her way to the next aisle, however, she caught a rare sight indeed. The Zhou twins. In the library. With a book open, even! At what point did hell freeze over last night? Dani couldn’t stop a little grin from tugging at the corners of her lips. From the looks of it though, it seems like they had given up after determining that you can’t use angle-side-side as a reason for congruency.

Dani quietly snuck up behind them, and gently put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Hello, boys,” Dani said, grin growing, “Are you lost?”

Without another word, Dani turned her attention to their textbook and scattered sheets of graph paper. Ah, geometry. How fun! Dani actually loved math, quite a bit. It was just nice to see a system that, no matter how complicated; always followed a set of rules. It just made sense in her head.

“I wasn’t even sure that you knew we had a library at this school,” she teased lightly. Without another word, she pulled up a chair to the table and sat down. “If you use ASS you’ll make an ass out of yourselves.”

[Bolin & Chonglin Zhou]

Only Chonglin had to look up for the two of them to realize that Dani was behind them with a grin across her face. Without looking up Bolin shook his head. "Nope."

"Wǒ know exactly where we are." It wasn't every day that the two were found in the library. Especially with homework out. Most of the times they've tried to do it was locked away in their dorm with a couple of confused looks pasted onto their faces. Even then they quickly gave up once they got stuck on a problem. It was annoying to both them and their teachers that they were the kind of kid who stayed on the problem they got stuck on rather than skipping it then coming back.

Lin rolled all four of his eyes at their friend. They knew she was joking so they weren't going to take the comment seriously. "Wǒ know."

"That's why wǒ'm stuck." Chonglin sighed while his brother glared at the god awful textbook. "Proofs are evil…"

"Care to lend a hand, oh smart one?"

[Danielle Cooper]

Aww, they were at least trying. So that gave points to them, or at least in Dani’s opinion, regardless of if they were about to give up or not.

As she was asked to lend a hand, Dani pulled out a mechanical pencil from her pocket (yes, she always kept either a pen or pencil handy), and snagged a piece of graph paper without a word. She drew out three triangles: two of which were identical, and one that was different. She finished up marking several spots on the last triangle before looking up at the twins, a spark of excitement in her eyes. Yeah. She thought this was fun.

“One of these does not belong.” Dani stated simply, grinning at the pair. Well, of course one didn't belong. Dani had a habit of pointing out the obvious at times, but at least she was genuinely trying to help. “Yet they all share the same angle-side-side.” She pointed to the parts where each triangle shares the same parts. “So that’s why you can’t do angle-side-side. Does that make sense?” Although Dani did love trying to help out with homework, she was a little self conscious of her teaching skills.

[Bolin & Chonglin Zhou]

The two boys watch in surprise as a pencil appeared from Dani's pocket. Her fricken pocket! Didn't she ever stab herself accidentally with that thing?! Still their eyes followed the lines she drew on the paper, three triangles in all. Tick marks were put on them to show congruent parts.

"Well duh."

"So, how do we prove they are congruent?" Chonglin pointed to the two triangles in the diagram from the book. They already learned the HL postulate, the only problem was that the two were most definitely not right triangles. Obtuse? Yes. But not 90 degrees at one vertex. The two triangles had the vertex angle congruent, and a leg and base congruent. There were a couple of parallel lines that the shapes sat on as well.

They didn't mind having Dani help them out with homework. She was helpful. They knew she wasn't going to do it for them, but if they got stuck she could hand them a couple of shovels to dig themselves out. Lin just looked at her to see if she could explain. As far as they were aware, the parallel lines meant nothing significant to the answer.

((OOC: If it helps I can link a picture of the two triangles.))