Private The Diffusion Of Knowledge

Ava was impressed by Vlad's ability to draw such a good circle without any tools, and although it kinda pissed her off that he wasn't looking at her when she was talking Ava could tell that Vlad was still listening from his demeanor and position. He had an attentive look to him.
"Every opportunity given is a challenge and a chance to win and beat someone at something. That makes everything seems much more exciting, don't ya think?"
Ava grinned cheerily. She was competitive to a fault, and although it was true that most people liked winning Ava was on a whole another level.
"Though most of the time I just wanna beat myself, you know? Become better than I was yesterday."
Ava added as an afterthought. That was one of her life goals, to every day try to be better than she was yesterday.

"Even if it applies doesn't mean I want people to think of me through it or define me with just the big shining label of 'top student'. 'Cos that's bullshit, I get good grades but I'm much more than that, grades don't even come close to who you actually are. So, don't call me top student."
Ava's tone was firm and the look she gave Vlad was just as firm. It left no room for arguments. Then she leaned over the paper, took a pen and drew a little picture of both DNA and RNA, colouring them different colours with highlighters.
"I'm a kinesthetic and visual learner so I just draw DNA and RNA in different colours and when I wanna remember what RNA does I do a thumbs-up with one hand 'cos it's a single stranded and when I wanna remember DNA I do thumbs-up with both hands 'cos it's double stranded. Small memory tricks like that. But they don't necessarily work for you. Do you know what your learning style is?"
Ava turned her head to look at Vlad with one raised eyebrow.

Guess Vlad was going to ignore the debate they had had going on. Ava felt irritated and almost felt like pushing the issue, but since she actually did want to get this over with she reluctantly focused back on the studying.
"You could try recording yourself reading from the text book out loud and then listening to that when you do something physical, seems like a perfect way to combine those two."
Ava suggested, glancing at Vlad's clenched fist. She raised her brows a bit, did learning bring back some nasty memories or why was this guy suddenly doing that?
"If you don't get some question or answer just ask, I'll explain as well as I can. This is my first time tutoring too so we're both learning here."
Ava said, ignoring the fist. Lord knows she did that a lot too for the most random reasons. Ava was almost constantly a little annoyed so her hands were at home when curled into fists.

"After you're done you can look at my notes about what this test covers after you've reviewed. They're pretty chaotic but you're a big boy, you can handle it."
Ava snickered and pulled out her textbook and notebook. She opened her notebook and Vlad would see that more than chaotic Ava's notes were...colourful. Each paragraph and line was colour coded, Ava had written some titles or words with a different font and there were small doodles and pictures of biology stuff drawn on the edges of the pages. Things like bones, plants, animals, organs and stuff. And a random heart or a star here and there.

Ava saw Vlad write down her advice about recording himself, and she felt a small sense of pride. She felt it in her club too when the members listened to her advice, applied it and succeeded. Maybe Ava wasn't so bad at this teaching. Though that'd only be seen in this case if Vlad actually managed to get a 70 or more in the next test.

Ava finally managed to get something akin to a smile out of Vlad and even a chuckle and she considered that a win. Vlad had seemed to be kind of a serious guy and really not into this arrangement, so getting him to loosen up a bit was a great start to making this more fun for both of them.
"Then maybe you should try some visual tricks too. You seem to have the pencils for it too."
Ava said, referring to the highlighters he had used to colour his own notes.
"Though obviously your circle drawing skills will never beat my awesome drawings."

So this guy did have some snark in him. Ava let out a laugh at his big girl comeback, it was more funny than insulting.
"Don't get sassy with me, I'm not the one who got assigned a tutor here, Vladdie."
Ava shot back, but she had a mile-wide grin that was a clear tell that she wasn't actually insulted or serious.
"Let's get started with cell division, since one of the first questions you left blank was about that. Why didn't you get it?"

"Yeah, and I'm not ginger."
Ava rolled her eyes at Vlad's denial of sass, but better not get too hung up on chatting. If Ava let herself just casually talk and bicker they'd never actually get any work done.
"Get that smirk off your face and focus on thinking what sound you'd associate with RNA and what sound with DNA."

"The blanking happens 'cos your brain doesn't have any triggers that it has associated with the knowledge. Like, with me, I was sitting outside when I was studying cell division, and I remember the steps 'cos I saw my dog run in circles in the yard. So, I associate the shape circle with it, kinda like when a round parent cell divides into sister cells. You should find personal and fun stuff to connect to the knowledge so you remember it better."
Ava suggested, and smiled a bit when she actually remembered the moment she was talking about. Sauron liked to chase his tail and it was always so funny to watch.
"In your case you could try combining a song you like with the knowledge, or any other sound you like."

"That's the thing, even if it seems stupid or obvious you should write it down. 'Cos you might get point from just saying that in cell division cells divide from a parent cell to sister cells. As long as you don't leave it blank."
Ava said and helped Vlad with just going ahead and flipping to the right page, she could remember almost exactly which part of the book it was. She pointed at the page with a picture of the cell cycle.
"Now, what kinda sound would you assign the mitotic phase of the cycle? To me it's colour green, for example."

Well, Vlad's sound choice was for sure unexpected and made Ava snort. She grinned at Vlad, this guy was pretty interesting.
"That caught me off-guard. But it's good they're unique! It helps you remember even better."

Ava absolutely lost it, when Vlad thought colour green was a band or something. Ava's shoulders started shaking and she held back a belly laugh desperately, lightly hitting the desk with her fist as she tilted her head forward and hid her scrunched-up face behind her hair. She couldn't just laugh outright in a library, that would definitely get them kicked out.
"I-It's not..."
Ava started to say after she had calmed down a bit, though her sentence was interrupted by a giggle.
"It's not a b-band, I associate green to cell division. You know, the colour."
Ava snickered a bit more after she finished talking, her stomach was hurting from holding back laughter.

"I actually don't listen to music a lot."
Ava said, now calmed down from her laughter episode. She knew she probably seemed like the type to like loud, aggressive music like Vlad had suggested and it wasn't like she didn't. But when Ava listened to something for entertainment...
"I actually prefer acoustic songs with a calm nostalgic vibe, like country. I also like acapella. Ya know, songs where all the sounds are made by humans, not instruments."
Ava explained. Her recent history in Spotify had lots of Pentatonix and some old Taylor Swift, Sam Hunt and few songs from those Pitch Perfect movies.