A Christmas Miracle with the Typst Guys: A student who is tasked by an evil professor to write a long report by Christmas Eve gets some unexpected help from the Typst Guys, Typst's cloud-dwelling mascots. Can the Typst Guys make the student's Christmas wish come true?
by Julia KandaOnce upon a time there was a student who suffered great emotional pains at the hands of their professor. Not only did his lectures seem to go on forever, the professor was known for his unreasonable demands from the students. This semester was no different: All of his students were tasked with writing a report of at least thirty pages – and if they wanted a decent grade, they would surely have to write forty. Not only was a paper of this size going to take time to write as well as effort and focus, to make the situation worse, all students had to submit their reports by Christmas Eve. (It appeared the professor liked to grade papers during the holidays.)
Our student had to achieve a passing grade on this specific report, if they wanted to be eligible to write a master’s thesis. And while the student was well aware of their situation, they could just not get themselves to start working on the project. There were much nicer things to do: They could go ice skating with friends. They could take a stroll through the snow. Or they could sit on their sofa and not move at all unless their stomach or bladder called.
However, the student had already done one thing: They had opened Typst, the app, about which they had heard from a friend, and had left the screen of their computer on. It was their first time using the app to write a paper, but they had already spent some time playing around with it and felt confident enough to use it.
To follow this story, this is what you need to know: Whenever a student – or anyone for that matter – opens Typst, the Typst Guys are alerted via a call to their red rotary phone. When they are not hard at work, the Typst Guys live in the cloud. Everything is soft and cozy and comforting up there and the Typst Guys do not like to leave their cloud, but they love helping the Typst users even more than they enjoy their time off work. And when they get to fight a wicked professor in the process, they can hardly contain their excitement to do so.
The Typst Guys were carefully monitoring the student, waiting for their chance to help them. And since the student had not moved the mouse cursor once in the past hour or had done so much as type a single letter, it appeared that the time of the Typst Guys had come. After all, something had definitely gone awry.
The Typst Guys were quick to understand that the student was procrastinating and not working on their report. They could not wait any longer, for the student was losing precious time and decided to take action. Anything to motivate the student and get them back to writing their paper.
“We should call out to them!,” blurted one Typst Guy.
“No, we should whistle, because whistling makes a much nicer sound,” said another.
Both of these ideas were shut down by the eldest and wisest Typst Guy, because no matter what noise they made, the student would not be able to hear them through the screen.
The youngest of the Typst Guys had another idea: “We could look for motivating videos online and get the student working that way.”
The other Typst Guys loved it. “How smart!”, exclaimed one of them. “Let’s get to it!”, another.
The Typst Guys did their best. They made sure to match the videos to the situation of the student. Some of the titles were How to study consistently or Follow these steps and you will never procrastinate again. And the favorite of the eldest: Why older generations worked harder in their youths and why you should too.
The student did not seem impressed. They quickly closed the tabs with the videos that the Typst Guys had chosen for them. To make matters worse, the student then got to eating a chocolate Santa, seeming even less interested in their report than before.
The laziest of the Typst Guys, who up to this point had been idling in a corner not engaging in the conflict, finally chimed in: “Why don’t we find the most obnoxious song on the internet and play it on loop until the student gives in?” Since this proposal came from the most slothful, most inert of the Typst Guys, it had to have some merit to it: If the lazy Typst Guy didn’t know how to motivate someone, no one did. Hence the Typst Guys gave it a try.
They found an overly auto-tuned, aggressive song of a kitten singing in a high-pitched voice, repeating nothing but one single sound (maybe a meow, but the Typst Guys weren’t too clear on that). The student closed the video. The Typst Guys re-opened it. The student closed it once more. And the Typst Guys again re-opened it. This went on for a little while, until the Typst Guys typed GET TO WORK! into the Typst App, while the song was still playing. Finally, this did the trick.
The student looked defeated, let out a deep groan and began to add their bibliography. The Typst Guys had become an ally to the student in the fight against the perpetually disgruntled professor and had successfully overcome the first obstacle. But seeing how poorly the student did with their bibliography, it became obvious that the Typst Guys had more work ahead of them in the coming days until Christmas.
Stay tuned to 24 Days of Christmas and don't miss what happens next. Happy Holidays!
