"That's right. This way."

The class is Intro to Telecommunications and they are talking about wifi today.

He's visibly anxious at the crowd of students and the frisson of attention he gets, but makes his crest feathers lie flat again.

-Should I sit in a corner or what- 

"Yeah, how about back here out of the way -"

When they're settled in the instructor delivers a lecture on how wifi works and what makes it do various useful things.

Oh wow, this is so much more informative than attempting to decipher Summary Bank. He holds stock-still (except for his tail) and pays careful attention.

The lecture is two hours long and ends with assigned reading and a reminder to do the online progress quiz.

Two hours is not nearly enough to strain his patience, though it's a little bit irksome that apparently nobody gets to ask questions.

This is the biggest thing I wanted to try and I like it a lot. Listening to a mind that understands the topic is so much easier than reading. I understand there are discussion sections, practical sections? While I am used to one-on-one teaching this style is informative enough that it's worth paying for and being stuffed into a room with too many people.

"There are those, yes, with TAs or sometimes just in smaller groups with the professor."

His tail does a happy motion. 

I am going to learn so many things! It will be excellent.

"Do you want to come to my office and work out an auditing plan now, or do you need a while to think, or ask more questions?"

Yes! This is a thing I want to do! I will have lost nothing irreplaceable if it doesn't work out. Is there some workspace I can rent and receive deliveries and ship from? I want to keep making sculptures.

"The university doesn't rent out space unless you count the dorms; do you need help finding something in town?"

I doubt you want me melting glass in the dorms. Yes, I want some nearby place to be before working out an auditing plan. I could probably figure it out on my own, if your job doesn't extend to that.

"It doesn't exactly but if you ran into a problem looking into it on your own I could try to help."

I will make the attempt on my own, then!

-Ah, I do need to apply for Tapai residency still. So perhaps I should fly back to the conference and set another time to come here and set up an auditing plan.

"Okay, that works for me. When would you like to plan to return?"

Any time past tomorrow.

They can set a time for the day after that, then.

He flies back and finds that population law guy, thanks him for arranging the tour, and asks him to help him apply for residency.

It's impossible for all blues to know each other, but you seem to know someone who knows someone, or know how to find someone who knows someone, no matter what the task at hand is. With that in mind, do you know someone who could be a shortcut to renting a garage or something in the university town or am I better off just searching on the internet?

"I can ask around, I'm sure I," he chuckles, "know someone who knows someone with property in the area. Might take a few hours for everyone to check their messages though."

Good! I'm not in a hurry on a scale of hours. Just say so if I should use the internet instead. I probably need a residency approval to rent a place, that seems like the sort of thing that governments do, that's why I haven't looked on my own already.

"It's actually permissible to stay for short periods without residency - people can have vacation homes in Tapa with just a vacation visa and we've issued all the Draak vacation visas preemptively just to make things go smoother. But to live there for long, yeah, need a residency."

Amused, I'm sure not everyone realizes you've done that. Or that visas are a thing.

"We haven't gone up to every individual Draak about it, no, it seemed as likely as not that the ones who aren't that interested would think it was a waste of their time. It is on the public internet and anyone who might be trying to look into whether a given Draak is allowed to be somewhere in Tapa ought to know it."

Maybe, maybe not. I think so many of us gathered up into one place does something to our psychology. People are acting humbler and calmer. Like Moots. There haven't been any fights except some sparring. A few insult-exchanges, but no blows. That's very surprising actually.

"- I didn't realize nobody coming to sincere blows in a group this size was remarkable. It wouldn't be remarkable in a conference of Amentans a hundred times this crowded. I wouldn't be floored if you got three thousand people together and there was a fistfight, especially if somebody was intoxicated, but..."