Julia understood "you're either a New Yorker or a tragically doomed civilian"! She's not insulted because when she was nine her father had a long talk with her about how some dictators had people arrested for insulting them, and this was meant to be a show of strength, but it was really a show of weakness; it suggested that their power was in fact vulnerable to mockery. Even those dictators didn't arrest seagulls for pooping on their palace, because the seagulls didn't matter; one might cull them, but not for the insult.

Julia should track insults from people who matter, and let seagulls poop where they may. 

Julia's father has a tendency to say things in overwrought terms like that but the normal-person interpretation is that people aren't worth paying attention to if they don't want to be useful, and that one doesn't want to be useful, so she might as well not exist - oooh, look, a schedule!

"What've you got?" Julia asks Lucy. "Also, I decided what I want for the other shirt; I want it to be a pillowcase instead."

"I mean, it'd save you from being the chump who gets eaten in week one, if it were otherwise good. Do you, uh, know, how to build mana?" El asks Lissa, and looking at Lissa finally makes her schedule show up.

"--Okay. We can do that, but Wilbur doesn't know as many useful enchantments for pillowcases as for shirts." Ooh schedule. 

Good to see that Owoye recognized him- despite several conversations yesterday that didn't pan out, Ghassan was glad to see at least one had borne fruit.

"I plan to focus on creative writing for now. My affinity will help with alchemy. Artificing might give me some trouble, but nothing that I can't handle."

"I feel like you could do big business in pillowcases that promote restful sleep!" she says to Lucy, studying her schedule. "Most people already come in with enchanted clothes. What've you got Friday afternoons, I want to put history or lang lab there -"

"I have languages lab there." She doesn't point out how the market for pillowcases that promote restful sleep is very small and mostly made up of people similar in station to Julia. 

Annisa walks in. ...well, okay then, this is a fine homeroom actually. Malak's sitting with a competent-looking enclaver who looks Korean but who she doesn't recognize from Seoul yesterday, and she shouldn't sit with them but she can compare schedules with them in a bit. A couple of the kids from yesterday's supply run are there, she can hit them up for schedule comparisons too. Obvious maleficer has several admirers. Rich enclaver doesn't, but also Annisa probably hasn't made a good impression, wandering in late like she overslept or something - eh, still probably worth it. She sits down behind rich enclaver. 

Julia writes that down and then tries to remember the name of the doomed Chicago kid who isn't Karen - Lisa? Looks like she's talking to someone right now. She looks over at Marcy instead. "Hey, Boston, swap?"

"Lemme see your schedule," says El to Lissa, "when you get it." She peeps at Lucy's, makes hers visible.

Lucy angles her schedule so El can see it better and looks at El's. 

Malak's schedule is - well, a mostly typical freshman schedule. Until she can check what time slots other kids have for shop and lab there's not much to change. She's got intro to Russian which - she'll request Arabic instead, she's not languages track and she's already fluent - unless this is God and/or the school trying to help her out? Maybe the Russian enclaves invented a bunch of spells to hide from the NKVD?

"Is... is anyone here from Russia?"

"... I'll take that as a no, then." She will request Arabic this term and figure out the answer to the NKVD question before next term.

Marcy has shop and lab and Mandarin Lit/Comp and European History and Algebra/Geometry (also in Mandarin, and that one she might want to swap because she's been taking math in English notation) and physics. She'll swap with Julia and then with Malak.

"Oh, Marcy, that's Annisa, I had dinner at her table yesterday and her affinity is weapons, you could try to get the same shop time if you think you could collaborate well."

Awww, man, Annisa has shop first thing Monday morning which is incredibly tempting but she is not an idiot and not going to take it, she's going to swap for later in the week, she is not in school to build cool stuff, she is in school to not die. With her luck that's the only freshman slot all Monday or Tuesday but that's fine. You know who gets to take shop first thing Monday morning? Senior Annisa, who can handle it, if she gets to exist, which she only will if freshman Annisa isn't an idiot. 

She has lab Thursday right before lunch, which is fine. She has language lab (English) Tuesday and Friday end of the day, which is also fine, and history of artifice Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons, which sounds actively interesting, and algebraic first principles first thing in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays which will be unpleasant but she'll just have to learn how to focus on math first thing in the mornings. Looks like freshman Maleficaria Studies is Wednesday and Friday right after breakfast. She has "Pre-Islamic Javanese Literature" for her lit class, Monday and Wednesday end of the day, which is guaranteed to be a small class, there aren't that many Javanese students here, and probably she should swap it out for a lit class in English, if she has enough swaps - and she shouldn't be getting too attached to any other features of this schedule, actually, given the mandatory swap for shop -

"I have shop first thing Monday morning and I'd be dumb to do that even with friends, but I'm happy to request whatever you've got," she says to Marcy. 

"I've got second slot on Tuesdays; I bet they'll still have some good stuff. Can I see the rest of your schedule? I want a different math."

"Cool - that boots my comp, but it doesn't really matter when I have comp -" She sadly crosses out her first-thing-Monday-morning death shop class. "Anyone have literature in English, the school wants me to embrace my Javanese heritage and I would if there were more than, like, eight people tops who could be in that class, all of whom will also be swapping out of it for the same reason." And she shows Marcy her schedule. "Here, but I've got bog-standard math."

"My literature's Mandarin but I definitely want your math class. Might take your history too--no, that'd kick physics, any chance anyone's got a Tuesday/Thursday physics section?"

"I can offer you an English literature on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons."

"Oh, that's perfect." Boots physics but it's just standard freshman intro to physical principles, it'll pop up somewhere else on her schedule and it doesn't really matter where. 

"Happy to help. Meanwhile I'm concerned about this Monday morning alchemy lab I've been saddled with; anyone have something more benign I can slot in?"

"My lab is Thursday morning; what've you got for history?"

"History of, uh, maleficing, Monday-Wednesday-Friday after lunch. I will happily take a Thursday morning alchemy lab, that sounds much less deadly."

"If you want a more useful history, I've got history of artificing that same timeslot."

"Brilliant, thank you."