Your POV-

Hello again! Welcome to a glimpse of my boring week.

Let me give you a quick run down of my Mondays and Wednesdays since those are the days I get to see Mark

So usually for this course since it's a Credit or No credit course nothing is officially graded but of course that doesn't mean you can't fail the course as the professor requires us to complete our weekly workshop assignments which are posted into discussion boards.

Within the first few weeks of the quarter nothing seemed so intense that I needed to go into the professor/TA's office hours so unfortunately I never got to talk to Mark again in a while.

But that doesn't mean he's been off my radar completely, as I go through his VSCO and Instagram account on a daily just to see what he's up to.

Turns out he's planning on applying to Graduate school which happens to be at a University in New York and not anywhere near our school.

Along with the fact that he adores Pikachu like the rest of us:

All I could do at this point was stare at his screen every class with hoping that he'll smile at my work during my presentations in breakout rooms which he was in charge of monitoring.

He would occassionally give me feedback but that was about it of course, since him talking casually wouldn't be allowed.

Trust me when I say that I've tried messaging him on Instagram and every other social media account he had and he shut me down on all of them. Telling me that he wanted to keep things professional.

It wasn't until around week 5 when I knew that I needed help with my project since I was still new with using Photoshop and Aftereffects

So I decided to listen to his wishes and keep things professional during these appointments. (By professional we just mean that I'm not allowed to hit on him and tell him how hot he is)

Here's how the appointment went if you're curious:

(You)-Hi professor! I was actually wondering if I could get some assistance with using Aftereffects.

(Professor)-Yeah no problem, Mark will meet with you in the breakout room in just a second since I'm currently still helping another student.

He then assigned you into a breakout room and turns out that you ended up having to wait about 30 minutes for Mark to show up

You ended up having to attend another class and left before you could even talk to him. Which made you question how seriously he was taking his job, if he wasn't even coming into his scheduled office hours.

2 days later

To your surprise Mark has sent you a DM on Instagram: Blue is Mark, Green is you

-Hey I'm so sorry for not showing up to my office hours last week, I didn't mean to leave you hanging, if you still need help I'm willing to meet with you today at 3pm. Let me know if that works for you.

-Oh so now you want to do your job, also what happened to keeping things professional? you could've just sent me an email. But yeah I still need help so I'll see you at 3

-Haha I deserve that, I'll make it up to you by increasing our session of 30 mins to 40 instead. Will you accept my apology then?

-Yeah I guess so but I don't think we'll have much to talk about 

-Those 10 mins are just in case you have questions at the end but I'll be happy to make it back to 30 then if that's what you want

-In the future just email me instead, I wouldn't want to ruin your reputation as a TA

-Yes Ma'am

This time you decided to leave him on read and went into your zoom session at 3pm and guess what? He showed up on time! What a miracle!

(You)-Hi it's you

(Mark)-Yes it's me, now tell me what you need help with (Y/N)-ah

(You)-It's actually something simple but I was wondering on how I can make the text fade in Aftereffects if you don't mind showing me

(Mark)-Yeah for sure, go ahead and share your screen so I can see what you're working on

(You)-Are you able to see it? (I say while playing my edit on Aftereffects)

(Mark)-Yes so I'm going to try to annotate on your screen so let me know if you're able to see an arrow

(You)-Yes I can see it now

(Mark)-Great so what you want to do is click on the text box icon and then click on the transform arrow under that, from here click on opacity. 

(You)-Got it what's next?

(Mark)-Once you click on Opacity you'll see these key frames on the screen right? Move one of them to the end and add another one towards the beginning. From here you can play around with the settings but essentially one key frame should either be at 0% and the other should be at 100% and vice versa. 

(You)-Ohh I see (you say while trying out the setting according to his instructions)

Let's fastforward to the end of the session when the two of us got a little off topic

(Mark)-So other than Aftereffects do you need help with anything else? I know this class can be tough especially with the Midterm and Final portfolio.

(You)-Well if you must know I have been stressed with this class, especially since the professor goes over the tutorial on how to mashup two gifs together pretty quickly and I'm not always able to follow along right away. But I hope with the help I'm receiving I won't fail this class. So that's where I'm at.

(Mark)-(says nothing at first and looks at you with warm eyes)-"I'll try to help out as much as I can so don't worry too much okay?"

(You)-Well thank you so much for your help today, I'll see you during class then on Wednesday

(Mark)-Hey I know we decided to keep things professional but could I still DM you from time to time as friends?

(You)-Sure, but remember to not cross the line (you said jokingly)

With that the two of you left the zoom session smiling.
How will being friends with Mark go?

To be continued