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Time for a little Ed-ja-ma-cation

Teagan looked across the kitchen table at Liang, perplexed by the fact that the child didn't look away, or close her her eyes, or turn her head, or anything a normal kid would do. Mora walked by on her way to the fridge, stopping when she noticed the two were still at the table, "What are you... What are you doing?" Tea shooed her away with a hand, "Staring contest." Mora rolled her eyes, pulling Liang's chair out from the table and turning it away, "Yeah. I don't think Mom would appreciate you dumbing her down. Besides, she dropped some stuff off before she went to her second job." She took a set of folded up papers, two or three, from her back pocket and set them on the table, "I think Mom wanted her to do these, they're like ABCs or something." Tea sighed, taking the papers and unfolding them. Who needed the alphabet? It had never helped him, most of the stuff he learned when he still went to school was useless. But if Mom wanted the girl to learn them then whatever. "Here, these are for you," He said, shoving the papers toward Liang, "There are some crayons in the drawer over there."

After an hour or two, the girl was done, and had apparently learned something in the process of her coloring. She was now scribbling on a seperate piece of paper, practicing the letters she had just learned. Ul had come home a few minutes ago, and when she looked over the girl's shoulder to check her progress, she was amazed. Not only had the girl been practicing the letters on her own, but she had colored in the lines too. Everything was so neat, so meticulous, it was eerie.

Extra practice


Extra practice

Going grey at barely eighteen!
Written by Ul

Well, it's been exactly ten days since Liang arrived, and it seems like it's been so much longer. The child that had been the easiest to care for, Tangia, has grown into a lovely toddler. But, she's rather listless, and she wanders around with no apparent purpose. Liang seems to love her though, and she's formed a strange attachment. Tangia is awake almost twenty-four hours a day now, with that same quiet, sullen demeanor that Liang likes. It's strange, up until now Liang has only attached herself to the oldest, strongest male near her, but with Tangia, it's different. She doesn't depend on her like she does to Teagan when they're out somewhere. It's more of a... Symbiotic relationship I guess you could call it. They play together and talk to each other for most of the day. Liang gets her nice quiet friend and Tangia gets a child her own age that accepts her. Tangia has random times during the day where she'll start sobbing though, not making any noise, just tears flowing down her cheeks. Liang still seems to find this show of emotion uncomfortable and usually runs off or hides when it happens instead of comforting her. She's been getting along about the same she did the first few days with the female Relis, not extremely well, but not badly.

As for the boys. Well, she does have a liking for Teagan. I hate to say it, but he is a strong young man, and she looks to him for some sort of emotional and physical shield. I don't think he sees her quite the same way, though he does appreciate her "colorful beauty", as he put it. Roscoe is strong, but a bit short, so Liang only hangs around him when Teagan is away. Jack is... Insane. She hates him, no doubt about it. Liang isn't one to show much emotion in front of people, but when it comes to the vicious little toddler, she's more than enthusiastic. On one occasion, she even hit him with a toy to keep him away and Teagan had to come rushing in and rescue her from the boy's knife assault. Now she stays away from him at all costs.

She's been practicing those first six letters over and over, she says she wants to get them perfect before she does anymore. I'm going to try and get her to try the next six tommorow or the day after, just the first six letters of the alphabet won't get her very far in life. She's made two friends, well I guess you could call them friends, who were also from D-Corp. A hyperactive boy, Keanu and another boy, Arith. She seems to interact better with boys than most girls, but I think I'll try and set up a few play sessions with some girls, she doesn't seem like the type to be a tomboy. Except well, that one day, but I think that was a fluke.

For all of her hard work on the alphabet, Liang had asked for the rest of the day and the next morning to herself. It wasn't much time really, after meals, clean up time, and sleep, but she managed it well. She spent most of the evening combing her hair and inspecting her new fan. Her hair was rarely tangled, but she combed it two hundred times twice a day, too keep it shiny and healthy. And the fan her brother had given her, it was gorgeous. She especially loved the character painted on it, and the birds. Well, she thought they were birds, Mora said they were butterflies, but birds could be just as graceful. The best part of it was that they seemed to sparkle whenever she moved it, in the most beautiful pastel colors too. The frame was a hollow metal too, might lighter and stronger than her wooden one, and it would look nice with her more formal cheongsams. Her mother had taken her shopping for the gorgeous silk and satin dresses, and they had been hard to find until the two had stumbled upon a Chinese import store. Now, instead of lonely and unwanted sitting on racks, four of the gowns, each a different pastel shade from pink to white, hung on padded hangers in her closet. That night she placed the fan on her bedside table. Tucking her wings back and cocooning herself up in her blankets, she went to bed.

Her free time the next morning was spent practicing her penmanship and calligraphy. She prided herself on the her penmanship, even if it was still a bit shaky. And her calligraphy, it was a skill she prided herself on for its beauty and long history of being a 'proper' art for women. But when noon came around, Teagan was in charge. He had set the table up the same way as with the alphabet, with the 1 to 10 worksheet set with a stack of notebook paper beside her lunch. This time the yogurt was vanilla, a flavor that she usually ate as a snack because it was so light. This was his justification for the two giant bags of jelly beans. Surely after such a light lunch she would need something to snack on while they worked. And, even though she knew it was an excuse for him to down mass amounts of sugar, their mother had agreed and got the candy for them. He didn't give Liang a time limit to color the sheet, it was just one sheet after all, and he wanted her to get these right.

By the time she was finished with the worksheet, Teagan had already plowed through half a bag of jelly beans. With a smile, he dumped the remainder of the bag out on the table, "Ok, we're going to practice those now, sound good?" She nodded and tucked away her crayons, giving him her usual response of, "Yes big brother." Leaving the worksheet on the table as a reference, Tea started to ask her to put them in certain groups, starting at one, two, and three and moving on up as she got them right. By the time they got to ten, she was getting a bit bored of scooting the beans around over and over. So Teagan jumbled up the rules a bit. Whatever number she could count up to would be the number of them she could eat that time around. On her first try she made it up to four, so she got to pick out four jelly beans to munch on while he went over them again. Her second try was much better, seven. On her third try, she made it all the way up to ten and celebrated by reaching over and giving her brother a big hug. "We're not done yet," he laughed, pointing to the remaining pile of jelly beans, "We still need to finish these."

They went on with their game for a while, until the last jelly bean of the bag was gone and they were both sugar sick. There was still another bag left, a full one, but that could wait for another day. Teagan really was a good teacher when he could keep both himself and his student focused. After all, when there was praise sugar and celebratory hugs involved, concentrating was easy. Like the letter sheets, he set Liang's number sheet marked on their mother's desk, then went to take a nap with Liang to sleep off the sugar headache that was coming on.

1 to 10

I am becoming more used to call Miss Ul Mother. She is a good person and she tries very hard to make sure her children are taken care of and happy. I have gotten a bit bigger, and my cheongsams fit nicely now. Brother Teagan says I am destined to be a beauty, that God decided that early on for me. I don't know about that, but I didn't say anything about it to him. I know how sensitive he is about his faith and things like that. I have been practicing my diction, maybe some day I will be able to speak well enough to deliver a speech. That would be nice, but I do not think I will ever have that much courage. Cousin Jack has taught me that there are some people in the world that really do live to hurt others, and though I wish he could learn another way of thinking, I am thankful I was given the change to learn. Brother Teagan had told me that I should learn to stand up for myself, and I suppose I should, but only around him. There is no reason why I should have people hate me just because I feel a need to stand up and yell how I feel. He does not seem to understand why I behave the way I do, but then again, he has never been a girl such as me.

I don't go to church as often as the rest of my family, in fact I don't think I've ever stayed the whole service with them. It gets so boring, I don't know why. I suppose I just don't find the same comfort in those sermons that they do. Maybe I will find my niche in religion someday. For now I am just happy to know that the people are me are kind and goodhearted, for the most part anyway. Whatever force did create them, they did a good job.

Take the plunge (Ala and Liang)

During a trip to the park with the intention of curing her fear of flight, Liang ran into a young koala girl name Alaqua. At first Liang was planning to simply give up and go home, but Ala encouraged her to stick it out and face her fears. She also inadvertently taught Liang how to climb. After a bit of prodding, Liang finally jumped and suprised herself by not crashing. Ala's advice to not look at the ground, at least not at first, gave her the confidence to fly despite her fear. She already had the ability, but she had tricked herself into believing that no matter how many times she tried she was always going to fail. Her strongest fear, that of crashing when she tried to land, was always overcome, with both a tree and a ground landing. She's glad she met Ala, and would love to see her again sometime when she's a better flyer.