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 Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:18 pm
 Today's word of the day was difficult for Ainsley to understand for reasons other than just the pronunciation and definition. She could understand the words that were on the paper but she could not understand the full intent of their meaning but how could she? The child had spent her entire life surrounded by luxury, hidden away from the poverty of the world that seemed to consume its round blue soul.
It was hard to believe that there was destitution in Destiny City, right under the child's nose. It was hiding around the corner of her eyes, always just behind her so she could never see it. It seemed that no matter how hard she looked around the streets, it was always just beyond the sight of her eyes. It was there though, maybe in the least obvious of places.
Ainsley had seen situations of or close to destitution and she didn't even realize it. It was all around her, schoolmates who tried to hide their shame while being thankful it didn't matter if they came to school each day with the same thing on because it was the school dress code. Their backpacks were worn and torn, patched together with whatever would hold them.
The child frowned, wondering and worrying about all the people who lacked ways to survive. How could they survive if they lacked means? What was it that stopped them from having means? Did they have no food? No home? Was there anything she could do? Was it too late to help them? The child paced back and forth in the hall, unsure of what to do before she darted into the kitchen. She checked the cupboards, and in all the cabinets. There was so much food here. Could this food help others? The child stared at it all as she thought about it when suddenly she had an idea.
"Bell!" Ainsley called to her sister. "Bell!"
She grabbed an arm full of some non-perishables and ran in search of her sister. She had to find her and find out if she could take this food and feed people like she did bread to the ducks! It was a brilliant idea, the child's face gleaming to herself as she ran up the stairs to Bell's room. Oh, she hoped her sister would say she could.
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:50 am
It was Day 245 according to the Word of the Day calendar and Ainsley had a cankering to learn. The more she learned, the greater the desire to continue and expand her learning became, becoming stronger as the summer season progressed toward the end and the inevitable school season that followed it. It was exciting, but at the same time Ainsley was longing for summer to last just a bit longer each day so she could continue the unpredictable lifestyle she had gained. However, the longing was not as strong as the excitement that was caused when she realized just how much more she would be learning despite the scheduled manner.
Today word was funny sounding.
"Can - tan - kero - us," she tried to sound out. "Can - tank - er - ous."
"Octavian Oswald," she smiled, holding the bunny up to her lap so he could see the word of the day calendar's page.
"It says it means to be disagreeable to deal with," she said sternly to him.
There seemed to be a moment of silence with the child, holding the rabbit up to her ear gently before setting him back on her lap.
"Don't be so cantankerous Octavian Oswald, that's what it says it means! Look!" She said, holding it up for him to see again.
There was another pause, and Ainsley's face pouted.
"Really, I'm not lying!"
Octavian Oswald was just like an old man, specifically, just like the old man defined in the word of the day sentence that the calendar provided.
Ooh, that word looked familiar.
Ainsley's eyes locked onto the word of the day sentence.
The old man was cantankerous and argumentative.
The old man was cantankerous and argumentative.
Ainsley remembered that word! There was a tiny smile forming on her lips as she successfully recalled the word. Octavian Oswald was definitely that too.
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:43 pm
It had been all over the news, the mysterious and baffling story of how fifty-one people disappeared in the night without a trace. There were no leads at all, leaving police officers stunned. How were they supposed to solve the disappearance of fifty-one people when all of the people from various age groups, ethnicity, and religions without a connection in sight?
The headlining news had been all over the television, radio and even in the newspaper. It was the talk of the town and the gossip of even the elderly women across the street. It was down right impossible for Ainsley to not hear about it and it was very concerning when she did. How did they all disappear so suddenly? Would she disappear too? Would Bell disappear? What about Xavier? What about Cora? What about Sam? What about Talia? It seemed like Ainsley was thinking of people in relation to where they lived compared to her, but eventually she got to worrying about other people such as Senri, Mr. Darrow and Dogy, Ridley, Lissy, Istas and Millicent. What if Destiny City disappeared off the map? Okay, so maybe that was a little drastic.
Ainsley needed a distraction and luckily she had one in the form of a little pad of paper that was otherwise called a calendar. It wasn't just any calendar though, it was her word of the day calendar and it was upstairs away from all the news and gossip about what had happened. She practically flew up the stairs and raced into her bedroom, shutting the door carefully behind her and falling back against it. She was alone in her room but first she had to check! She peeked into the closet, into the toy trunk, above the bed and then under the bed. It was clear, and she was able to sit down with the calendar with a sigh of relief knowing she wouldn't be disappearing too.
The first thing Ainsley's eyes fell on this time wasn't the word, or even the definition. This time she looked at the sentence, more specifically the word police officer. She couldn't understand why a woman wouldn't do what the police officer told her to do. Would that be why people disappeared? Had they not done what they were told? Her eyes fell on the word for a few moments as she thought. Were the fifty-one people who disappeared too... contumacious?
If that was why they disappeared, Ainsley certainly wouldn't be feeding Cora any brussel sprouts tonight. She would eat them and not rebel against them despite how much she disliked them. She didn't want to disappear too and become number fifty-two. She would go to bed on time and wake up early even though it was a Sunday. She would do whatever she could not to be contumacious and disappear.
It was a wild theory. There was little reasoning behind it and Ainsley couldn't say for sure if that could really be why they disappeared. It was too hard to say for sure. The news had said there was nothing in common between all the people who disappeared which by Ainsley's book also meant that must mean they didn't share being contumacious in common.
Ainsley sighed, setting the calendar and her theory down when she stood back up and swaggered over to the window. Her blue eyes looked down at the street below and her palms pressed against the window pane. She couldn't help but wonder as she looked out into the world from behind her window. Just where had they all gone? Fifty-one people in one night was a lot of people to just disappear and then not be able to find without a single trace.
"Please stay safe everyone, come back soon."
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Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2011 12:55 am
Today's word of the day had inspired Ainsley to play a game and all Ainsley had needed was a piece of chalk that she had left over from the other week and she was able to draw herself a Hopscotch court on the sidewalk outside of her steps. It was a fairly simple Hopscotch game, following the typical design that was often painted on schoolyards. It started at 1, followed by a 2, and then a 3. After the 3 was a 4 and 5 side-by-side followed by a 6. There was another 7 and 8 side-by-side after the 6 and then a 9 following them with a rounded 10 to top it off.
It was pretty sloppy when Ainsley stepped back to look at it, leaning off to one side with irregular shaped squares here and there, but that didn't seem to care for what Ainsley had in mind. She wanted to see just how light on her feet she was and just how fast she could move while following the rules of the Hopscotch so as long as there was the proper amount of squares on the ground then it didn't matter how they looked.
There was one last missing piece to the puzzle and it was very important: a rock. Ainsley needed a rock to throw to be able to properly play the game and it lead the child on a small journey around her house to find a sizable rock that she could throw over the Hopscotch. It took a fair amount of time to find one, tossing away several rocks that were either too small or too big before she finally found the perfect one.
With the perfect rock found, Ainsley went to the start of her Hopscotch. She tossed the rock, letting it practically drop onto the first square that was labeled 1. That was her signal for Go!
"N," she said as she leapt over the first square, landing on the second with one foot.
"I," she said as her foot left the second square and landed on the third square.
"M," she said as she leapt from the third square before she jumped to the forth and fifth square, straddling either number with a foot on each number.
"B," she said as she left four and five and landed on the sixth square with her left foot.
"L," she said as she skipped over the sixth square and straddled over the seventh and the eighth square for a moment before she skipped to nine.
"E," she said as she launched herself off of square nine and onto the final tenth square, landing with both feet.
She had spelled nimble and made it across the Hopscotch, quickly gathering her breath and then repeating the process until she made her way back to the second square. She lingered over it on one leg before she leaned over, trying to quickly grab the stone with her hand. She wobbled, and tipped to the side, finding herself having to slow down so she could balance herself so she didn't fall in the process. She wasn't quite as nimble as she had hoped, but she was able to grab the stone and then jump over the last square off the Hopscotch.
Success, but the child had time to spare on the Sunday afternoon so the child continued to play Hopscotch alone and practice her ability to be nimble.
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Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:50 am
It was actually the morning of September 6th and Ainsley's bed was already empty and made up. It was a bit surprising to see Ainsley out of bed and with the bed made so early in the morning, much earlier than Ainsley had usually gotten up over the summer but this morning she had to get ready for school. Not just any school day though, today was the first day of a brand new school week, almost the first full week of school, and Ainsley was super excited! She had missed a lot of the fun beginning of school festivities from school last year because she had been a late transfer student coming in after the Christmas break when she moved to Destiny City.
Ainsley was already dressed for school and was pacing back and forth across the hard wood floors of her bedroom in her black knee high socks. Her uniform was pressed and tidy while she wore it for the first day in months, all ready to be worn again after having been tucked away in the closet all summer. She even had her lucky charm, a bracelet with a star on it that she'd found in her mailbox, on her wrist protecting her.
"But Constantine Cyprian..." Ainsley whined to the massive white bunny plushie that sat at the foot of her bunk bed while she now paced back and forth across the hardwood floor from one wall to the other. The truth was she had been so busy that she had forgotten all about her duty to do the word of the day calendar yesterday and now the parental rabbit plushie was reminding her all about it but Ainsley was positive with all the worrying she was doing she didn't have time to do it.
"I can do it later," she reminded him.
There was a pause while she paced.
"I know I said that yesterday but..."
It was hard to imagine a child trying procrastinate her schedule with an inanimate object but Ainsley seemed to be doing just fine with it, except for the fact she was fight a losing battle. The large white bunny plushie, as far as the personality Ainsley had determined for it, wasn't about to let her just skip her obligations.
The battle wasn't very hard to win, soon ending with Ainsley grabbing the calendar into her hands and taking it with her as she walked over to the door. She turned to look at the white bunny plushie as she twisted the door knob open, "I'll do it while I eat breakfast," she told him before she stepped out of the room and went downstairs with the calendar.
The whole trip down she hadn't looked at the calendar and instead she had worried if she had everything packed for school. She wanted to make sure she had everything so before she went out to the kitchen for breakfast she went into the hallway and to her backpack. She set the calendar down, and then used both of her hands to look through the backpack and make sure everything was there. It took a couple minutes, but Ainsley was relieved to find out she had not forgotten anything, promptly going to the kitchen and forgetting the calendar by the backpack.
She had once again put off doing it and then forgotten about it in her busy morning schedule. It wasn't until after breakfast when Ainsley went to put Octavian Oswald into her backpack as well that she realized she had forgotten about the calendar that was sitting on the floor beside it. What would Constantine Cyprian say? He'd probably scold her.
Ainsley frowned, looking from the calendar to the clock. If Sam was going to come to walk with her this morning, he would be here soon and if she read the word now she would be able to tell him all about it. It didn't give her very long to do it but Ainsley picked up the calendar, finally looking at the word of the day that was listed for today.
Her face dropped rather quickly after she read the defition of the word. It was like the calendar knew all about her forgetting to practice yesterday and decided to remind her while teaching her a new word. She hadn't meant to procrastinate, but she'd kept putting it off until finally she'd forgotten about it not once, not twice but closer to three times.
"I'm sorry I was dil-a-tory," she said. "I'll do two today to make up for it!"
She didn't have time to actually study another word at the moment when she barely could do dilatory properly, but she would make up for it. Later she would study a new one and then even review dilatory again. However, there was nothing to say she wouldn't forget again in all of the day's excitement though but Ainsley was determined to remember to not forget again. She wanted to do it, she wanted to learn more words so she could stand her own with the adults. She couldn't let new things distract her from what she already loved. She didn't normally take the calendar outside with her but Ainsley looked down at Octavian Oswald with her and thought about it. He would definitely make sure to protect it so it would be safe. After a moment of consideration, Ainsley tucked the calendar away in the backpack with her other precious belongings and zipped it up before she put her little teal shoes on.
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Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:31 pm
It was about an hour after the school bell rang to release the children that Ainsley finally pushed open the door to her home and walked inside. She called out to Bell or Xavier, and then she sat carefully slipped off her little teal shoes and put them out of the way of the door. She wasn't sure if anyone was home because no had had answered her call by the time she got her shoes off so before she left the hallway Ainsley made sure the door was locked.
It didn't take Ainsley very long to make her way into the living room and get comfortable on the couch with her backpack. She had some unpacking to do! Poor Octavian Oswald was probably suffocating inside of her bag after the trip home. She couldn't quite remember why she had kept him inside of her bag until she opened it and found her dear bunny hugging her word of the day calendar. Carefully, she took both of them out of her backpack and set each on either side of her before lifting the calendar back up into her hands and removing the earlier piece of paper off the pad.
She remembered what she promised in the morning and before she even thought of doing her homework she would do this first She felt like she was missing something but after a moment she decided to move onto reading the word of the day carefully. She stared with what the word was, and then read over the pronunciation a few times before moving onto the definition of the word. She was a little surprised to see what the word meant.
"School is kind of like a manacle," she mused. "I miss being able to go to the park to read anytime I want."
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Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2011 9:02 pm
It was the late afternoon after school had ended and Ainsley was laying on the top of her bunkbed with her arms outstretched with today's word of the day page. Her hands were holding it, her thumbs on the front with her other fingers on the back as she held it out flat so she could see it all clearly. The word of the day for today was staring her in the face and it was as simple as that. She didn't look away and instead she just stared at the words on the paper, trying to understand them and not just look at them lovingly. She did this in an order starting with the word and what the word was, followed by the definition and then the sentence that helped to explain it.
"I'm laying," she said. "By Octavian Oswald."
It wasn't exactly labile but it helped her remember it.
Byl... byl... By... all? By... aisle? Byl.
La-byl.
Sufficient.
What did the word mean? Ainsley's eyes stared at it some more, scrolling down to the next section where it define the word.
"I am laying on my bed by Octavian Oswald with an open mind before I change my clothes," she said out loud, thinking about the word carefully. Once again it wasn't exactly what it mean but the child seemed to be enjoying it. She was certainly labile like most children, so adaptable to the change around them in the world. It was certainly a good prospect for a child who happened to have an alternative identity and nighttime disguise. However, despite being labile, she still had trouble with it all at times. There were so many questions and so many things she didn't believe were the right way even though all the senshi seemed to think so.
How could you be labile to the opinions of others? Could you make other opinions more labile? Ainsley certainly hoped so.
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 12:16 pm
Ainsley couldn't believe how things had turned out. She had been so busy with trying to help all of the civilians who had magically ended up in space that she had completely forgotten about her word of the day activities. Not just that, but she had said she would make up for it yesterday and then she ran into Sam and then completely forgot to! She didn't regret the time she had spent with Sam though, a smile coming to her face as she thought about it, however she did regret that she had completely forgot about it when she was already so far behind.
The calendar had left her with very minimal choices and by minimal it meant there was only one choice: study all of the words up until today! Her completely forgetting about the calendar hadn't been the only complication though. She had forgotten where she had placed the calendar back in September! She had been so busy trying to find supplies for the civilians constantly that she couldn't think of where she last left it!
A small glimpse of panic settled on the child's face as she realized that without the calendar she would never be able to catch up. What would she do?! Her eyes looked around the living room with haste as she hoped to spot it like a shipwrecked man would hope to find land. Much like the shipwrecked man, trying to find the calendar seemed absolutely impossible! It could be anywhere and in any direction and she didn't see sight of it anywhere. It left her with very little choices but being the stubborn child she was she quickly found herself lifting up pillows and looking under furniture in hopes to find it. Her efforts were rather futile but her hope was endless. It left her with the conclusion that if it wasn't in this room then maybe it was in another!
Ainsley didn't find it anywhere downstairs but after finally making it to her bedroom she was able to find it! Believe it or not, it sitting on the floor under a pile of books. How come she didn't look in her bedroom first? She sighed for a moment, only to take up a spot on the floor next to it with a small smile. She was happy to see it, and she missed it fondly. The calendar however looked awfully lonely there, despite being surrounded by fellow pieces of paper. Did it miss her too? Ainsley carefully picked it up into her hands and immediately she thought it looked much happier, as if it knew she was going to read it!
All distractions seemingly at bay for the moment, Ainsley began looking over the words. She carefully tore off each of the pieces of paper, setting each of the pieces of paper on the floor all around her, until she was holding the calendar in her hands with the paper sitting at the current date:
"Am... I?" She read out first.
"Am I kuh ball," she said a second time.
"Ami kuh ball," she said a third time.
She wasn't sure which of these sounded more accurate, but she found herself giving the word particular attention like someone might a friend they hadn't seen in a long time. She wanted it to know she was sorry, but there were so many people who needed her help. She didn't want to forget about one friend to help so many more but her word of the day calendar was safe at home while the civilians in the Surrounding were not. Surely the calendar understood, and perhaps today's word was it's way of saying it understood.
She smiled, carefully looking at all of the words around here: irate, wrath, posthaste, precedence, vocation, ardent, apprehension, synonynmous, commermorate, untarnished, fettle, allegation, justification, irrefutable, reowned, charismatic, preposterous, predicament, acknowledgement, lurid, amass, nocturnal, satiety, gregarious, and inherent. Just glancing over them she could see that there were a lot of big words in the month of September and she was actually a little sad that she was late in seeing them! She was really excited to try and understand them. She was so excited that she didn't even know where to start first! The calendar gave her the perfect way to decide though, numbering each of them with the date that she would have normally discovered them on! She would just do it numerically like she would have to begin with.
It was there on the floor of her bedroom that Ainsley had a chance to relax for the first time in nearly a month. There was no one stuck in space who needed her help while she was immersed in her own world of words. She was determined and at least read them all, and try and learn them. She may have really wanted to but Ainsley wouldn't make her goal tonight because before she had even made it half way through the month of September she had fallen asleep next to all of the wonderful words. She may not have gotten what she wanted, but she got what she needed.
Tomorrow she would help them but tonight she slept for herself.
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Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2011 11:43 am
Ainsley had slept in much later than she usually did this Monday morning, barely able to keep her eyes open by the time she got to school. The day had been long but it seemed short in comparison to the ongoing struggle she had been helping with up in the Surrounding. She didn't have to worry about the civilians who were trapped, nor did she have to go up there to help them whenever she could anymore.
By the the time Ainsley had gotten home from school, she knew she didn't have to go anywhere or do anything throughout the night. She was finally free to stay home and to relax with Octavian Oswald while studying words up in her room. Oh boy, was it ever a good thing that Ainsley did have that time because on top of the words that she hadn't gotten a chance to finish in early October she also had the words up to now to work on! It didn't matter how many words there were though because she was determined to try and learn them all and finally catch up so she would only have to look at one word at a time.
She had to start somewhere though and like the last time, she began to remove the calendar pages off of the pad and set them around the floor next to her. There were quite a few of them and when she added the other ones from September on top of them she ended up with quite an ocean of words. She kept going through, spreading them out within her reach as best as she could until she got to today's date:
Ainsley was pretty speechless when her eyes settled over the letters of this word. The word itself was short and with short was usually simple but with this word it seemed the opposite. Words with the letter x in them were usually a struggle for children to become introduced to and Ainsley was no different. She looked at it as if it had three heads for awhile, her eyes trying to get over the pronunciation.
"Ick," she stumbled. It was certainly appropriate to say so. Ick, what a word.
The meaning of the word itself was nice though, and Ainsley could think of many different situations that she would love to be able to use this word, many of them involving her mother, father, sister, Xavier, and even Senri. However she certainly couldn't use it in a sentence if she couldn't figure out how to say it and as much as she hate to think it but the pronunciation the calendar was providing her seemed to be lacking.
"Ick... ick... stole?" Just who was Ick and what did he steal?
It still didn't seem right though, despite actually being quite close. She would just need to pronounce more of an an sound to make extol and she would be right on the money. She lamented over it for awhile though, trying to settle the word within her until finally her eyes settled all around her instead. On top of the ones she had laid out a couple weeks prior, she had quite a few new ones. Some of them looked absolutely fascinating while others were not so much. Despite appearances, Ainsley looked forward to learning them so she could improve her speaking abilities! She hoped that by the end of the day that she would at least be familiar with the following words: chagrin, flippant, savant, profess, abomination, austere, ostentatious, tumultuous, disparity, gibberish, gobbledegook, quandary, and ailurophobia. If she was, she'd at least like to be able to recognize the words if someone showed them to her.
Despite trying, Ainsley had been unable to feel confident in quit a few of the words she was trying to catch up on such as ostentatious, tumultuous and ailurophobia (even though she wouldn't forget that it was an abnormal fear of cats). She felt confident with chargrin, flippant while gobbledegook absolutely amused her every time she tried to say it. All of the other words didn't strike Ainsley in any particular way except for profess which put butterflies in her stomach when she thought of it and then in turn when she thought professing her feelings to Senri. That would be for another day though and that day was October 7th.
Oops! It seems she has to wait another year to now!
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 12:35 pm
Ainsley lingered in her room, a little more than usual. She didn't sit in one place nor did she pace around eagerly. Her body was forward facing across the floor and every so often the child would migrate her position, rolling over in the process. She found that reading the book for her project was increasingly difficult when today's word was staring her in the face. It didn't seem to matter which way she moved, or even if she faced the word down over the floor, it would follow her. It begged her to revolve the conflict between them, and for her to read and understand it.
"Uuuuuuuuuaaaaaah," she incoherently announced, rolling over the floor once more before finally sitting up straight and carefully smoothing out the surface of her dress. It was decided! She wasn't going to get any work done, not until she'd managed to revolve the differences she had with the word of the day.
Her blue eyes looked darker than usual as they hazily looked at it, reaching out carefully with just one hand to flip the calendar back over to the right side. There it was, staring back at her:
She didn't say a word, nor did she move. She just stared at it, almost as if she were having a staring contest. She may have looked like she was staring off into space but instead the child was studying the word, carefully, almost as if she was determining the best strategy to go about it. It was just a word, surely it had a weakness. Surely there was a way to defeat it.
She didn't want to succumb to such a terrible word. It was a word that had no reason, and had no mercy. It was a word that described not only so many of history's greatest mistakes but also many that would surely come. Why did there have to be such a word? If it no longer existed, if it was annihilated, would the word be able to continue to do harm? Humans surely find a way without the word, but Ainsley had hope and she had a great justice to do!
Quick hands grabbed the calendar, ripping the day's word off. In her hands was the fate of this word was held. She could destroy it here and now but her hands didn't tear the paper apart. She stared at it, eyes lingering over it carefully. It was just a word. It did no good or wrong, and was only justifiable by either when used describe the actions of people.
Ainsley sighed, and after a moment she smoothed the edges of the paper down and moved over to tuck it into a box with the other words. She would keep it away and remember that with every action there was a choice behind it. Someday she would bring it back out, and when that day came she would be ready for it. It may be a long distance from where she currently stood but when that day came, her choice will be clear.
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