Straka goes into great detail about how hard Ostrero tries to look stoic before he heads out from the city. This shows  how nervous and divided he feels on the inside, since he is leaving his wife and the life he knows for a dangerous trip. His guise of confidence is, as “S notes, very much a work in progress.” (129)

Then Ostrero gives the signal, and he leaves. Stenfalk embraces Corbeau quickly as Ostrero heads out, which could show that Stenfalk is the driving force in the relationship-he embraces her, they don’t embrace each other.

In the margins, Jen expresses fear that she may not be able to graduate because she is failing Floulkes and Ilsa’s class. When Eric asks “What happens if you fail this class? Will you still graduate?” (129) she replies “It’s not clear if I’m going to pass any of my other classes.” (129) Her continued struggles in her classes reflect that she doesn’t care about them very much, since from her observations and research about “Ship of Theseus,” she is clearly a very intelligent person.

Jen’s report card

At the end of the page, Jen writes that she’s started feeling like she’s “failing to notice something,” (129) with everything she sees. Eric affirms that he feels the same way, and Jen asserts that if he wasn’t feeling that way, he should. This shows how deeply they are immersing themselves in their studies, and how much it’s impacting the way they look at the world around them.