Emily Lee: Senior Year

Welcome to this dorm at Veronaville's Académie Le Tour, where we have already spent three full semesters, thanks to a number of playable students with different surnames. 

We have just managed to catch up with Emily Lee before her time at uni ends: This is her Senior Year - and everybody else's, too, apart from Tybalt Capp (far right) who is the only Junior right now. 

Emily is a Knowledge Sim and an aspiring Game Designer. According to her Maxis-written bio, she "is excited about starting school and very interested in learning the history behind the Academy." 

Well, her "starting school" (shouldn't it say "uni" or "college"?) days are long over, but she is still very interested in learning, and not just about the Academy's history. 

Sharing the dorm with her are (from left to right) Chris Cho, Ellen Frost, Phineaus Furley, Chaz Whippler and Marla Biggs as well as Tom Freshe, who is not in the picture, and Tybalt of course.

Exams make hungry, and Emily sits down for a late breakfast with Chris first thing. 

Then she proceeds to skilling, like almost everybody else - unless they are too tired and I send them straight to bed.

Marla Biggs is first to finish her Term Paper this semester. 

One by one, the students write their papers. Chaz is lucky in that the Campus Coach arrives to pester him in to working out only after he has finished his paper. "She just can't leave me in peace, can she," he wonders. After having worked so hard on his paper, he would love to just kick back a bit for the rest of the semster. 

Emily has just pressed the "send" button on her Term Paper. 

Talking about it to a friend on the phone, she plays it down, pretending it "really was nothing, you know - I could have written this in elementary school." Knowledge Sims!

Marla and Ellen are engaged in an animated conversation in the cafeteria, blissfully unaware of being in the dorm cook's way. 

A bit later in the upstairs common room, Ellen watches her boyfriend Tom and fellow student Tybalt dancing away to the stereo - she finds it hard to decide who of the two has the better moves, but of course she favours Tom.

Too late for the show, as Marla and Emily realise a bit after the boys have stopped dancing. 

Phineaus is last of the group to finish his Term Paper. From now on, everyone is largely left to their own devices, save a few phone calls to maintain their friendships.

Emily surprises me by taking it upon herself to clean one of the upstairs toilets.

After their return from class, she and Marla share some juicy gossip about one of their professors.

It is Exam Day the next day, and I have made sure everybody got enough sleep. Whether they sit their exams in their nightwear or decide to have a shower and dress properly is up to them; Emily here chooses the latter. 

Just as they are all off to their exams, Mitch Indie appears and rummages the dorm's rubbish bin for something edible... successfully :-P

A decent night's sleep has obviously helped: All eight playable students return with A+ and their full grants. For everyone but Tybalt, their very last semester at uni has begun!

For all but Tybalt, their very last semster has begun! And for really all of them, a round of skilling starts. Everyone seems to be needing charisma this term, and so an extra two mirrors are installed, one in the dorm's library and another one in the communal bathroom where so far there had been only one mirror. 

The dorm cook watches a fight between a cheerleader and a Cow mascot. I don't know whether her thought bubble means she wants the cow to win, or lose - I suspect it was the mascot who set off the sprinkler and caused the cook to have wet feet, and extra work to mop up the water. 

Phineaus finishes his Term Paper before everybody else. He will now never have to write anything like it ever again. 

Emily enjoys the peace and quiet at the empty cafeteria - a little earlier, and she would have witnessed the fight. 

Ellen and Tom are an item, but that does not mean that she can not find other guys attractive, such as Tybalt here. As long as she does not cause scenes of jealousy, I'm fine with that. 

Emily gets up the next morning, thinking that she won't be sleeping in this tiny room for many more nights. 

She needs to improve her logic, and Chaz joins her at the chess board until I send him painting - he needs creativity.

It must be PJ Day today! Marla, Tybalt and Ellen are all coming for breakfast at the canteen in their nightwear.

Emily has just finished her VERY LAST Term Paper EVER when a fight breaks out in the room. Is it a mascot and cheerleader again? 

No... the sworn enemies (for whatever reason) Tom and Meredith. This time, she wins. 

Emily spots Edwin Sharpe walking by and greets him.

Inside, Chaz can't believe he has finally made it and handed in his last Term Paper!

Ellen has never changed out of her PJ all day, but the others are decently dressed when the group meet at the canteen for their evening meal. 

Emily loves the pinball machines and has become pretty good at playing.

Of course, no semester is complete without at least one sponge bath. Actually, two are happening today; first it's Chaz and then Tom who can't seem to remember the way to the showers.

And all of a sudden, Exam Day is here - the FINAL exam for all but one of our students! Different students have different ways of calming their pre-exam nerves: Emily tries to lighten the mood by telling Ellen one silly joke after the other. 

Tom and Chaz prefer a pillow fight... 

 ...and Tom also thinks an extra portion of rapdily eaten syrup-drenched pancakes will give his blood sugar a high helping his performance later. 

All their strategies have worked, when a few hours later the group return with a complete round of A+ and full grants. 

Emily, Ellen, Marla and Phineaus have graduated Summa Cum Laude, while Tom and Chaz are still happy with their Magna Cum Laude diplomas, and Chris achieved Cum Laude. (Tybalt, of course, has another year to go before he, too, will graduate.) 

Emily gets to throw a graduation party. Most of her friends are still here, and she has no family to invite; it is a rather low-key event, just having fun with her fellow students and dorm mates.

After two of the students had moved out, I was hoping for Phineaus and Marla to ask their NPC student friends Alan Riley (front) and Carl Cho (back) to take over their rooms at the dorm, but although I was able to click on "propose" and then "move in", the action disappeared as soon as I had clicked it. Strange, that! 

Anyway, Emily and the other six original playable students have now all moved to Veronaville, where I have to find places for them to live. 

Tybalt is now the only playable Sim at this large dorm. Who is going to join him, and how/when/by whom will Alan and Carl move in?