#we practiced until the fourth lessons time‚ and the middle school called down every student to the garden

[crescentmp3]

hiii im home!!

[illegal-spiegel]

Earwig pt.2

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugo x f!reader x Shoto Todoroki Genre: smut Warnings: threesome, spanking, choking, temp play, slight bdsm?, unprotected sex(always wrap it up!), degradation, and I think that’s it??? Summary: After Bakugo and Todoroki hear you talking about them in the locker room, they decide to give you a nice surprise Word Count: 3.5k  A/N: CHARACTERS ARE AGED UP. Also, you don’t necessarily have to read part one to understand this but it’ll help you understand some of the comments they make and whatnot 

Part One

You giggle and tease the girls as you head out of the locker room, stretching your sore body out. You smile and greet the boys who are already in the class, taking your seat in the middle of the classroom. It gave you a pretty good view of Bakugo but sadly not of Todoroki who sat behind you. 

You pull out your phone and just start to do random stuff on it until class starts. You didn’t even realize class was starting until Mr. Aizawa started talking. You snap your head up and look around with furrowed brows. Normally, everyone would be chatting up a storm until the last second. Today though, only the girls were conversing quietly with each other. Most of them don’t sit near each other though, so they had to get up to stand around the classroom. 

You look around suspiciously, trying to figure out why some of the boys are acting so weird. You sit behind Kaminari and in front of Kirishima. Normally, they’d be yapping your ear off about a new meme or something ‘manly.’ Today though? Nothing. You can’t turn around to look at Kirishima since class has started, and you’d rather not have Mr. Aizawa thinking you’re not paying attention. Again. 

So, you just have to look at what’s in front of you. You can tell Kaminari is in a good mood thanks to his humming. Actually, he’s humming Jiro’s favorite song under his breath and keeps looking to his left at her. She seems to not notice this though since she’s writing down something Mr. Aizawa said. 

Maybe you should be paying attention but you’re just too freaked out right now. 

Next, you look at Ojiro who sits right in front of Kaminari. You can see his ears are dark red and he’s sitting very stiffly. After observing Ojiro, you look at Aoyama, who is pouting to himself as he stares at Mr. Aizawa, but doesn’t seem to be paying attention. 

Yup, something fishy is definitely going on here. 

You look from student to student until you reach Deku who is shaking in his seat and is as red as a fire hydrant. You’d be worried about him if it wasn’t for the fact that all the boys are acting weird. 

You stare at him for a while, trying to come up with answers to why he and the other boys are acting like this. It’s not all of the boys either, from what you can tell. Koji and Sero seem to be acting like normal. You stare at the windows now, the gears in your brain moving faster than they have in a while. 

Movement in front of the window causes you to blink and turn your focus to said movement. You’re met with cocky, crimson eyes who stare at you without hesitation. You stare right back at him, refusing to bow down to the handsome brat. 

He suddenly smirks, making your brows furrow in response. He opens his mouth a little to slip his tongue out, taking his sweet time to lick his lips. Your eyes, obviously, move from his eyes to his mouth to watch the little show he’s putting on. This only causes his ego to boost more than it already is but you can’t help it. With you watching, he pulls his tongue back into his mouth before biting his bottom lip. 

That’s when it hits you. 

They heard! Those nasty, perverted, pigs! 

A gasp flies past your lips before you can stop yourself, bringing all eyes to you. Except for Bakugo. He looks away to look back to Mr. Aizawa, who is also staring at you. 

“Miss (L/n),” you stand as your name is called, your face as hot as the sun,  “you seem quite excited about today’s lesson. Why don’t you tell everyone what you learned last from chapter sixty-nine.” 

You flinch a bit at the number, your mind going back to the hallway when you said you’d want to try that with either of the two men you named. You huff and squint your eyes a bit at Mr. Aizawa as you start to recite a few things that you remembered from the reading. As much as you didn’t want to do the reading, you aren’t about to get left behind or have Mr. Aizawa hold this over your head just like every other mistake you make. 

“Okay. Sit down,” he says, in what you swear is in a tone filled with boredom, in the middle of your response to his demand, making you shut your mouth and try not to glare at him. You do as you’re told and quickly plop down, crossing your arms over your chest. 

You’re going to murder Bakugo and the other boys.

As soon as class is over, Bakugo is practically the first one out the door. Oh, that prick thinks he’s so sneaky and slick. You practically growl as you follow after him as quickly as you can without bringing attention to yourself. 

He gets outside before you can stop him, your face getting hotter by the second the angrier you get. You bust through the front doors and search among the many bodies for unruly blond hair. You huff when you don’t see him, your hands clenching at your sides. 

You quickly go back in and get your stuff, which you had left in your hurry to catch up to him, before leaving the school to walk the short distance to the dorms. Your eyes widen when you walk into the dorms to see Bakugo leaning against the wall, looking immensely bored. Well, that is until he sees you. A smirk then instantly crawls onto his face as his eyes look you up and down. 

Your mood instantly plummets again as you swiftly start to march towards him, your face growing warm again. His smirk turns mischievous as he pushes off the wall and heads towards the elevators. He walks inside just as you reach him and quickly follow him inside, ready to reprimand him for eavesdropping on the girls and to ask who else heard. 

“Bakugo-” is all you get out before the elevator doors close and your back is suddenly against the wall. You stare at him in shock before realizing, duh, he knows some of your kinks and what you want him to do to you. He presses his body against yours and then brings his hand to your throat, lightly squeezing it and watching your eyes flutter. 

He chuckles lowly as he leans his face close to yours, his nose trailing over your jaw before his lips find your ear. “Well, I sure think I’m packing. Maybe that’s why my ego is so inflated,” he says lowly before nibbling on the lobe of your ear. You whimper softly and arch into him, wanting nothing more than to feel him hard against you. 

“You weren’t lying, were you? This really is all you think about, huh? You’re such a dirty whore. I wonder who’d you rather have pounding into you while the other one puts that filthy mouth to good use,” he growls as he starts to grind against you.

A moan escapes you before you can trap it and lock it deep down inside of you. He kisses down your neck and, even then, you can still feel him smirking. “God, I hate you,” you growl, making no effort to push him away or stop him. 

Why would you? You’ve fantasized about this almost, if not, every day. 

“Oh, it’s not a matter of whether you hate me or not. Either way, you’re still desperate for this coc-” 

He’s cut off by the elevator door opening, making him grunt. He pulls away from you but is sure to grab your wrist to drag you to his room. This is when you notice that he is taking you to his room, seeing as how you live on the second floor whereas he lives on the fourth. 

He opens his door, practically throws you in, before slamming the door shut behind him. You almost start saying that maybe you two should slow things down when you find Todoroki sitting on the bed. When you lock eyes with him, you almost whimper. He stands up and places his hands into his pockets, his face not showing any emotion but his eyes are practically shining. 

Bakugo comes up behind you and pushes his hard-on to your ass, starting to lightly grind against you. “I invited icyhot, hope you don’t mind,” he grumbles in your ear. This time, you do whimper. You don’t have to be facing Bakugo to know he’s grinning that evil grin he does when he’s about to do something bad. 

“Well? Do you just plan on watching?” he snaps at Todoroki, making Todoroki huff a bit. He silently walks over and stands right in front of you, looking at Bakugo’s hands on your waist. 

“Can I touch you?” he asks softly, looking up to meet your eyes. The fact that he even had to ask is so cute. 

“I know you heard us today,” you start, reaching out to run your hands across his broad chest, “I know you heard what I want you to do to me,” you finish in a sultry tone, your tongue coming out to wet your lips. He watches the action before swooping down to connect your lips, a moan escaping you as Bakugo thrusts against your ass harder. 

The kiss is messy and sloppy but you wouldn’t want it any other way. You gently pull on his hair, his hands going from your cheeks to slowly going down to your breasts. You gasp into his mouth when he squeezes them, your back arching away from Bakugo to press your chest further into his hands. 

You hear Bakugo grunt before sliding his hands up under your shirt, bringing the cloth with him, When his hands meet Todoroki, Todoroki pulls away to allow him to take your shirt off. While Bakugo pulls it off, Todoroki is quick to reach behind you and remove your bra. 

As soon as it’s off, Bakugo has his hands on your chest and making you moan with no lips to stop you. Todoroki meets your eyes before leaning down to start kissing down your neck, sucking and biting on random places. By this point, your clit is throbbing and your panties are completely soaked. 

“Guys, I’ve been dreaming about this for a while. Can we speed up the foreplay?” you stutter out, your hands tugging at Todoroki’s double-colored strands of hair. He pulls away to look at you once more, panting a bit from his attack on your neck. Once he’s pulled back though, Bakugo is quick to push you forward before shoving you onto the bed. 

“What was it you said you liked?” Bakugo asks sarcastically, his hands trailing down your back to your ass that you pushed into the air. “Oh, that’s right,” he says after a moment, acting as if the thought just occurred to him. 

You cry out when he spanks you, causing you to arch your back and tightly grip the covers of his bed. “You don’t get to tell us what to do, whore. We are the boss of you, not the other way around.” You mewl lewdly at his words, your mouth watering as you wait for him to say more. 

He spanks you again, causing you to moan loudly. You stare up at Todoroki when he moves to the other side of the bed, watching his face as he gently pushes the hair out of your face. “Don’t I need to be quiet? We are right next to Kirishima’s room,” you reason softly, trying to press your thighs together. 

At this, Bakugo shoves your bottoms down and spanks you harder this time. This spank though involved a tiny spark from his quirk, making you barely be able to hold back a scream. It hurts but the pain is so delicious that you can’t help but to want another hit. 

“I don’t care if he hears it or not. You probably want him to hear you so that he can come join us. Would you like that? Have another man here to fill you up with his cum?” Bakugo growls before spanking your other cheek the same way he hit you last time. You smack your hand over your mouth, tears springing to your eyes. 

An animalistic growl comes from him as his free hand reaches forward to snatch your head up by your hair, making you stare up at Todoroki. “Admit it, you slut. You’d like that. Just like how you’re gonna love having me stuffing one of your holes while Todoroki stuffs the other one,” he says darkly. 

A guttural moan escapes you as your eyes roll back into your head, your wet flower clenching around nothing. “Look at her. Maybe we should go over and invite him right now,” he threatens. 

“Please, fill me up with your coc-” 

You cut yourself off with a shrill moan when he spanks you again. You notice then that Todoroki has taken off his clothes and is currently pumping his hard length. Just like you thought, he’s long and thick. You wonder how big he is compared to Bakugo. 

You gasp when you feel Bakugo’s length suddenly rubbing against your wet heat. “This what you want, huh? You want this hole stuffed by me, whore?” You nod your head with a whine, leaning your hips back to rub yourself against him. You’re quick to reach back and wrap your hand around his length, almost moaning at how thick and heavy he is in your hand. 

You gasp again when your face is suddenly shoved into the mattress while his other hand snatches your hand away from him. “Did I say you can touch me?” he hisses. You feel him get off the bed and walk to somewhere else in the room. 

You didn’t dare lift your head from the bed to look. 

You inhale sharply when you feel Todoroki’s hands on your head, his fingers gently turning your head to look up at him. “You aren’t acting like the good girl I know you are,” he says softly, his already deep voice sounding lower than usual. You whimper at his words, it being better than anything you’ve ever dreamed. “How was that? Was that ‘deliciously dark’ enough for you?” he teases, a smirk coming to his face. You mewl at this, quickly nodding your head to show him how pleased you are. You just knew he’d talk like that once he’s riled up. You lean your weight on one hand and let the other reach out to him, starting to slide your hand up and down his member. 

Your focus is pulled away from him when the bed shifts with Bakugo’s weight, your lip coming between your teeth when he forces your hand away from Todoroki to put them behind your back to tie them. Once your hands are tied up nice and tight, he forces you forward to where your chin is just over the bed. Bakugo has a tall enough bed frame to where you’re face to face with Todoroki’s hard member. 

Now that you’re getting a better look, you see a vein protruding on the bottom that runs up his entire length. When your eyes reach the tip, you see precum gathering at the slit, making your mouth water once more. 

“Do you think I even have to prep her? I bet she’s stretched out from all the times she’s shoved a dildo up her tight hole while imagining it’s one of us,” Bakugo says to Todoroki, his hand coming down on your right cheek again. Your body jumps with the hit to your already sore ass, a whining moan slipping past your lips. “Say, I wonder who she fantasized about more,” he says to himself as if he’s thinking out loud. 

He brings his fingers to your sopping heat, pulling your panties to the side to spread your juices from your dripping hole to your clit. “She’s so wet. She loves the way we’re treating her, icyhot.” You turn your head to look at Todoroki’s face, finding that he’s biting his lip. You shudder as Bakugo takes his sweet time pulling your panties away, a strand of your arousal sticking to your panties as he pulls them down your legs. “God, you’re soaked,” he hisses, dropping the panties to your knees before grabbing your hip tightly with one hand. 

The other hand goes back to touching your wetness, going against his idea of shoving himself right into your warmth. You moan when he gathers your arousal on his fingers and starts to rub at your swollen clit again, your eyes fluttering as you finally get some relief to the throbbing nub. With him pleasing you, you felt bad that Todoroki is just standing before you watching. 

You shift your head forward and lick a stripe up the vein you were eyeing earlier. He hisses and brings his hands to your head again, his nails lightly digging into your skull as you suckle on his tip. You moan around him when Bakugo slips two fingers into you at once, your mouth going further down Todoroki’s length with each pump of Bakugo’s fingers. 

When he adds a third finger, you accidentally deepthroat Todoroki and gag around him. You pull back quickly but keep your mouth around him, your tongue lapping at the head. “Look at you being such a good girl for me,” Todoroki says between pants, his hips starting to lightly thrust. 

You hum in response, glad that you’re pleasing him. “She’s not a good girl. She’s anything but. She’s just a nasty little whore that wants us to use her as a sex toy,” Bakugo says behind you as he pulls out his fingers. You pull away from Todoroki’s member to wail when Bakugo finally pushes into you, stretching your walls out more than your fingers or toys ever could. “See? Look at her. This is all she’s good for,” Bakugo growls as he bottoms out before pulling his hips back to just snap them back against your ass. 

You cry out in pleasure, your eyes rolling in your head for the nth time. You’re temporarily distracted when Todoroki turns your head back to his member and uses his other hand to grab ahold of his wet shaft. He then presses the head to your lips with a smirk, raising his brow up at you after holding it there waiting for you to open up. You instantly drop your jaw and stick out your tongue, his member sliding along your tongue towards the back of your throat. 

You close your mouth around him and let him thrust since you’re having trouble moving with Bakugo pounding into you with each of his thrusts and moving your body. You moan with each of Bakugo’s thrusts, letting Todoroki feel the vibrations and making him grunt each time you do it. 

You gasp around Todoroki’s shaft when his member suddenly starts getting really warm, making you become concerned for a moment before you realize what he’s doing. Before it can get too hot, he starts to drop the temperature and cools your mouth with his member until it’s as cold as ice. You moan loudly and clench around Bakugo, feeling Todoroki’s hands start to wander your back and do the same thing his member just did. Seeing Todoroki use his quirk on you, Bakugo decides to use his again. 

You scream when Bakugo spanks you harder than ever before with his quirk, your scream thankfully being muffled since your mouth is full. Your scream causes Todoroki’s head to drop back, his mouth falling open as he starts to thrust faster in your mouth. Before you even realize, you’re cumming around Bakugo. Your body shakes a bit from the power of it, your eyes squeezing shut. 

“That’s it. Cum with me stuffed in your tight hole. I can feel you pulsing around me,” Bakugo hisses, his hips starting to smack against your ass quicker and quicker. Todoroki starts to push deeper into your mouth, making him deepthroat you with every thrust. You moan when you can, your walls clenching around Bakugo and making your entrance cling onto him every time he pulls out. 

It didn’t take long for Todoroki to shoot his load down your throat, some of his seed slipping past your lips and goes down your chin and neck. He stays in your mouth for a moment before slowly pulling out, your lips catching any cum that was stuck to his shaft.

Bakugo cums next, pulling out just in time to cum on your sore ass. He lets out a guttural moan as he does, his head tilted back when you turn to look at him. When he finishes, your legs are quick to give out and you slide them to lay down flat on the bed. 

That is the best sex that you’ll ever have in your life, you’re sure. 

“Next time, we are switching holes,” Todoroki says, leaving no room for questions. 

“Fine. Ten minutes and you’ll get your turn,” Bakugo grumbles as he lays down on his back next to you. You grunt, both too tired to go another round but also too impatient to wait any longer to have them again.

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Again, characters are aged up 

MASTERLIST

More with Bakugo

I lowkey wanna write a part three-

Tag List: ik some of you didn’t asked to be added but you commented on the first part so I figured you’d wanted to be made aware of the second part. Let me know if you want to be removed :) @bobasuki​, @toxicfirewolf2020, @whoreforouterbanks, @on-jah-bruh, @eternal-0ve, @todorokishotolover, @lovemythos, @coolbabydumpling, @cathwritestragediesnotsins​, @jabby16​, @spitfyrefae​, @living-the-husbando-life​, @nikatastic​, @courtneypaigemartin​, @kac-chowsballs​, @the-sander-fander​, @dweebbblog​, @inumorph​, @earthfce​, @m-jkttyl​, @psicotropicwanderlust​, @spicyhokage​, @lifudesuka​, @woahcalmdownjamal​, @notyourmommy​, @shotos-bitch-babie​, @cece-lives-here​, @nojammsss03​, @honneymusterd​, @fee-btheweeb​, @an-unlikely-ghost​, @shadowdreas​, and @astroepiphany

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[justheretobreakthings]

Welcome to the Family - Chapter 8

(Previous Chapter)

Word Count: 3,089 (Total Word Count: 20,507) Read on AO3

Story Summary: Lance had been excited about his family taking in a foster kid, eager to get to meet his brand new little brother or sister, who would surely adore and idolize their super cool Big Brother Lance. What he got instead was a sullen, quiet, temperamental teenage housemate with a criminal record and a disastrous haircut.

It was a tough adjustment, going back to school for the first time in over a year. Kolivan had warned him about that after he had first been released, that it may be difficult for him to be back in a regular school setting, but there wasn’t exactly much to be done about it. There wasn’t very well any way to practice being back at school in the two weeks between his release and the start of the new school year, so the best Kolivan could do was recommend that he go to the school counselor if he had any trouble.

Which Keith was in no hurry to do. Back at the detention facility, they’d mandated he see a counselor too. Everyone had to, and as far as Keith could tell, it hadn’t done any good for any of the kids there. The counselor he’d seen had been constantly dismissive, writing off any trouble he was having with the other juveniles as him simply losing his temper, and telling Keith that he was exaggerating the problems in his past due to his ‘negative life outlook’ and needed to simply look on the positive side of things more.

Of course, that counselor also didn’t use the title of ‘doctor’, and had yelled at Keith when the latter had first asked about his credentials, so maybe he wasn’t exactly the best example of a counselor. But it left Keith on his guard.

If you assume out the gate that all counselors were underqualified and disparaging, you won’t be disappointed when it turns out to be the case. A lesson he had learned long ago and applied to caseworkers, and classmates, and homes. They weren’t all bad, but the ones that were…

It was a tough adjustment.

Still, as patronizing as that counselor’s advice had been, he tried his best to focus on the positives, listing them in his head throughout the day as he came up with them.

He had his own locker. That was nice. Privacy was always hard to come by, whether he was with a foster family or a group home or back in juvie, so every little bit was a relief.

The teachers actually seemed to give a shit about their subjects, which had not been at all the case for him last year. He was pretty sure that the tutors’ credentials had been even less valid than the counselor’s, and none of the other boys at the center had actually cared about learning anyway - or if they did, they had the sense to keep it to themselves - so the tutors were pretty quick to give up anyway. So that was a nice change.

The place as a whole seemed generally well-kept. No obvious damage like broken windows or exposed wires, and they had those modern drinking fountains with the bottle-filling stations built in. When Keith went to the bathroom after lunch, there was some graffiti in the stall, but it was just the ‘Here I sit brokenhearted’ poem in Sharpie. Pretty innocuous.

And he’d had a place to sit at lunch, which was a major step up from some past foster homes where he’d either been the only kid, or the other kids in the house wanted nothing to do with him. Of course, there had still been some weirdness there. While Hunk had seemed nice and Pidge’s sarcasm hadn’t seemed malicious and Lance did seem concerned about whether or not he ate, it was hard to say how genuine it was or how long it would last. After all, he’d messed up. He’d accidentally insulted Tania, and it had upset Lance, and he hadn’t missed how much all three of the others had stared at him throughout the meal, even if they tried to hide it.

He didn’t like being stared at. He didn’t like it when people were curious, when they tried to dig into him and his life.

Being back in a crowded school made that harder to avoid, which was one of the negatives that he tried not to focus on but couldn’t help but let intrude his mind whenever he got the inkling that there were eyes on him. Which, admittedly, happened a hell of a lot, more than was probably realistic.

The counselor had called him paranoid, but he was sometimes right, and if he was sometimes right, then it wasn’t paranoia, it was just caution. There was nothing wrong with caution. Sure, maybe the times he caught people staring in his direction, they weren’t actually looking at him, and maybe when people whispered nearby or muffled a laugh as they passed him, they weren’t discussing him. But maybe they were. And Keith never knew how to handle that.

It’s not as though there wasn’t plenty of reason for him to be stared at or gossiped about. He reeked of not belonging, and he knew it. He was very obviously the ‘new guy’, not knowing any names or where anything was and three times so far he’d had to ask for directions, a task that had no business being as anxiety-inducing as it was. He’d had Algebra 1 for fourth period, and he was pretty sure he was the only sophomore in a class otherwise full of freshman, which he knew was going to be the case in Spanish 1 tomorrow as well, and no doubt his classmates would have questions about that. And, of course, there was his scar. He supposed he couldn’t blame people for staring at that, but that didn’t mean he had to like it or stop glowering at other students when he caught them at it.

Point was, though, he made it. He made it through the day without any big problems. No one was outright antagonistic to him, nothing the teachers assigned seemed beyond his ability. Sure, there were still a hundred and seventy-nine days left in the school year to ruin that, but at least he was starting off on the right foot. Or, a neutral foot. Whatever.

His last class of the day was P.E., and he was one of the first in the class to leave the locker room at the end of class. Since it was the final period, some of the boys opted not to shower afterward, which was a relief to Keith, as it made the fact that he wasn’t doing so stand out less. You only needed to get your clothes stolen from the gym locker one time in middle school before you took steps to ensure that it never happened again, so he had no problem waiting until he got back to the McClains’ house to clean up.

He had ducked into a bathroom stall to change out of his gym uniform - he would have to ask Lance what the weird cartoon clipart of a knight on the tee shirt was all about - and fortunately it didn’t seem like anyone had paid him enough attention to notice and given him any shit about his excessive modesty, so he was able to slip out of the locker room a minute before the final bell, an extra minute that he definitely needed to find his way back to the sophomore lockers.

After he gathered his things, he headed out to the parking lot to wait next to Rachel’s car, although it was at least another twenty minutes more before he spotted her and Lance leaving the school building. He lifted a hand to wave at them from where he sat perched on the car’s hood, but slowly lowered it again as he noticed the annoyed look on Lance’s face.

“That’s where he was,” Lance said loudly once they were in earshot. “Damn it, we were looking all over for you.”

“What?” said Keith. “Why?”

“Because you weren’t at the entrance,” said Lance. “We waited for you. Rachel was starting to worry you ditched school or something. How come you didn’t meet us there?”

“I… didn’t know I was supposed to?” Keith said, raising a brow. “What entrance?”

“The music wing entrance,” Rachel said. She reached the front door and pulled it open, hitting the button on the inside to unlock the rest of the car. “We always meet there at the end of the day. Didn’t Lance tell you that?”

“No.”

“Hey, what?” Lance said as he slid into his own seat. “Why was that my job? You’re the driver, you were supposed to coordinate everything!”

“...Oh.” Rachel frowned. “Okay, fair, guess this one’s on me. Sorry, Keith.”

“S’okay,” Keith mumbled. He clambered into the passenger seat as Rachel turned the ignition, and leaned in toward the fan as the air-conditioning kicked on.

“From now on, we don’t count on Rachel for anything,” said Lance.

“Fine,” Rachel said. “Good luck getting home from school without me.”

“From now on, we count on Rachel for only one thing.”

“There we go.” Rachel nodded. “Anyway, right, from now on, just meet at the music wing, okay? The front entrance has a sign pointing to the auditorium, so if you go there, it’s just down the hall on the right, and you’re there.”

“Got it,” Keith said.

“We woulda texted you,” said Lance, “But you didn’t give us your number.”

“I don’t have a phone,” said Keith.

“What? Why not?”

Keith turned around to scowl at Lance, and the latter was quick to deflate. “Oh, sorry, was that offensive? Somehow?”

“I just don’t have one,” Keith snapped.

“Talk to Mamá about that,” said Rachel. “I just upgraded a few months ago, she’ll probably let you have my old one, and Luis is off the family plan now so we can add another number.”

“All right,” Keith said. “Um, thanks?”

“Don’t mention it. Not like I’m using it anyw- Lance, don’t you dare take your shoes off in my car!”

Lance looked up, his feet already up on the seat next to him and one shoe off, holding the laces of the other. “Oh, come on, it’s a thousand degrees outside, my feet are hot!”

“No, you are not stinking up my car with your weird foot odors. Wait ‘til we get home.”

“First of all, your car stinks anyway, and second of all, my feet are beautiful and your car should be honored to smell like them.”

“If your feet are so great you wouldn’t need to spend an hour every day rubbing all those creams and oils and stuff on them.”

“Um, it’s called self-care.”

Deciding that the sibling bickering was probably going to go on for the rest of the ride home, Keith leaned toward the dashboard and adjusted the fans to blow directly into his face, closing his eyes and letting the sound of the blowing air conditioning drown out everything else. At first he was a little worried that the fans might spread the smell of the sweat left over from gym class throughout the car, but neither Lance nor Rachel made any comment about it - the smell of Lance’s feet was the only one they seemed focused on - so he was able to relax up until they pulled up to the McClains’ house, coming to a forceful and crooked stop on the curb.

The other two tossed their backpacks onto a chair in their den and shouted greetings to their mother as they entered the house, while Keith kept quiet and kept his bag with him until he’d gotten upstairs and dropped it into his desk chair. Lance had first dibs on the bathroom, so Keith waited on his bed for his turn to grab a shower. When that turn finally came, he turned the water up to near scalding and took a few minutes to just stand and soak. It hadn’t been a bad day, nothing big had happened, but he was still exhausted. Being around so many people for eight hours straight had drained him.

It took a long while and a mental reminder that the others in the house would probably be pissed if he went and used up the hot water for him to finally pick up his bottle - a single, all-in-one shampoo-conditioner-body wash that he’d picked out from the store and that was conspicuously dull among the dozen bottles of brightly colored and sweetly scented who-knows-what that Lance had arranged on the rim of the tub for himself - and start washing up. Once finished, he towel dried thoroughly and got fully dressed again before finally stepping out of the bathroom, letting the steam waft into the hallway behind him.

By this point he was starting to get hungry, the awkward school lunch long behind him, so he started down the stairs, hoping to find something in the kitchen to sneak back up with him before dinner. The den was empty, and the muted sound of Rachel’s trumpet indicated she was practicing in the basement, so the coast seemed clear until he reached the bottom of the stairs and caught the voices of Lance and Tania in the kitchen. Keith hesitated, hand on the banister, deciding to wait it out.

“It’ll just be the morning meeting tomorrow for this week,” Lance was saying. “But starting on Monday we’re back to three morning practices a week, and I think we’ll start on the afternoon practices again in October, so you’re gonna need to tell Rachel she has to drive me.”

“Lance, we can’t base Rachel’s whole sleep schedule on your swim practices,” Tania replied. “I’ll drive you when I can, and we really need to arrange a carpool for you this year. Your friend Nadia doesn’t live too far from here, right?”

“Yeah, but her dad listens to country music in the car. It’s torture.”

“Too bad, mijo, it’s either find a carpool or skip some practices.”

“Fine. I’ll ask her. Oh, and I still need the money for the new trunks this year. My old ones are getting tight as hell.”

“Language.”

“Sorry, tight as heck. Anyway, I need a check for them.”

“All right.” Keith heard the sound of a drawer opening and papers rifling.

“And for a team jacket,” Lance added.

“Ah, ah, no,” said Tania, “I told you already, you want one of those jackets, you pay for it yourself.”

“But Mamá, it’s school spirit!”

“It’s fifty-dollar school spirit and I’m not paying for it. You want extra money, you do some extra help on the farm or you wait ‘til Christmas. For now, how much for the trunks?”

“Twenty.” There was quiet in the kitchen for a few seconds, then the sound of tearing paper. “Thanks,” said Lance.

“Don’t you lose that check, now,” said Tania. “Put it in your backpack before you forget.”

“I will.” A cabinet opened and a couple of dishes clattered against the countertop before Lance cleared his throat. “Hey, uh,” he said. “Speaking of checks, uh…”

“Mm?” Tania hummed.

“Something kinda weird happened at lunch today.”

Keith tensed, his grip tightening against the staircase’s banister.

“How do you mean?”

“With Keith. He tried to skip lunch, said he was saving for when he ‘needed’ it.”

“What does that - ?”

“Well, apparently he thought that the check you gave him for lunch was supposed to cover the whole school year. He was trying to ration it out.”

There was a pause before Tania softly muttered, “Oh querido…”

“Did he, like, act weird at all when you wrote out the check? Or did you say something that he thought meant - ”

“No, no, I think it was just - ” Her sigh was nearly drowned out by a cutlery drawer opening and closing. “Don’t worry over it, cariño, I’ll talk to him.”

“Yeah, but what are you gonna say? Do you know what that was about?”

“Never you mind, Lance, I’ll take care of it.”

“But why did he think - ?”

Finally, Keith had heard enough, and he stepped out into the dining room, ensuring that his footfall was loud enough to get their attention. It worked, as both Tania and Lance looked up at his entrance. Lance quickly looked away again, face sheepish, but Tania plastered a smile onto her face and gestured for him to come into the kitchen. “Keith, dear, good to see you!” she said brightly. “How was your first day?”

“Fine,” Keith said.

“The school seem like it could be a good fit for you? Do we need to make any changes to your classes at all?”

“They’re fine.”

“You’re okay with having Rachel drive you? Her driving didn’t scare you too badly?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“How are your classmates? Met any nice people? Make any new friends?”

“I - I just came in to get a snack…”

“Oh! Right, right.” Tania ran a flustered hand through her hair and turned back to the counter. “Well, I’m actually going to start making dinner here, so if you don’t mind waiting a little longer, there’ll be plenty to eat soon.”

“Oh,” said Keith. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry!” Tania said. “It’s fine, it’s perfectly fine. Would you like to help with dinner, sweetie? I could use a hand peeling potatoes if you’re up for it. Have you used a potato peeler before, Keith?”

“Um, yeah. Sure, I can - I can help,” Keith said.

He shuffled toward the counter. Lance leaned in to whisper something to Tania that he didn’t catch, and she shook her head and waved him away in response. Lance pouted as he stepped away. “Well, uh, I’ll get outta your way, then,” he said.

“You sure you don’t wanna help too, mijo?” said Tania.

“I’m on dish duty tonight, Mamá, you can’t make me do double chores. I’ll strike.”

Tania picked up a dish towel and lightly swatted Lance on the shoulder with it. “If you’re not gonna work in the kitchen, you can’t stand around in the kitchen. Get.”

“All right, all right,” Lance said, turning and walking out toward the dining room. Before he left fully, he glanced over his shoulder toward Tania and said, “¿Me lo dirán luego?”

“No, Lance,” Tania snapped. Lance muttered something under his breath and left as Tania slid a bag of potatoes across the counter and handed Keith a peeler. “We should only need around eight,” she said. “I’ll start on the chicken, and you just let me know if you need anything, okay dear?”

“Okay,” Keith said with a nod. She turned her attention away, and Keith glanced hesitantly back toward the sound of Lance’s retreating footsteps before he shook his head clear, rolled his shoulders, and got to work.

[honeymoonjin]

A/N: I’m currently in the phase where novelty has worn off but things haven’t got super exciting yet (same thing happened with all of my other series), so I really apologise if this isn’t great. I just wanted to get something out even if it wasn’t as long as my chapters normally are. This one is 1.8k.

LOST IN TRANSLATION ↳What do you do when you have no qualifications but want to see the world? You help teach English in a Korean primary school, apparently. ↳Principal!Jin, math teacher!Yoongi, PE teacher!Hoseok, English teacher!Namjoon, school nurse!Jimin, art teacher!Taehyung, and science teacher!Jungkook.

CHAPTER FOUR ↳You have your first English class and enjoy a welcome lunch with (almost) all of the teachers.

You lean over to the small boy sitting on the carpet next to you. “Hi there,” you whisper in slow but cheerful English, “my name is Y/n. What is your name?”

The little boy blinked comically, chubby cheeks adorned with two bright red patches from being put on the spot. “My name…is…Min-jae! Nice to mee chu!”

You beam at him and return the sentiment. The two of you were near the back of the classroom, directly across from Namjoon in a closely packed circle of cross-legged kids. You had just finished up roll call, and a pop quiz on what they had covered in their previous lesson, and now Namjoon was passing around little whiteboards with markers attached. It was a different class from yesterday, these kids a bit younger but just as enthusiastic.

After leaving the staffroom, you had immediately regretted turning down the offer of an escort and had ended up slipping into the English room at the last second, with no time to chat to Namjoon before they got started.

“Okay, class,” the teacher announced loudly, cutting through the excited chatter, “today we are learning some new words. We are going to learn how to talk about the weather! Does anyone know any English words about the weather?” The students look around the room curiously, none raising their hands. “Nobody?”

You wait for him to continue, but instead of moving on, he’s gasping, hands to his cheeks like a movie cover, staring straight at you. You give him a confused smile.

“Oh no, students! Y/n doesn’t know any English words about the weather!” The class dissolves into raucous laughter as you put on a glare, trying to stop your lips from curling up. “Y/n, do you never talk about the weather?”

“Yes, I talk about the weather!”

Namjoon’s eyes twinkle behind his silver wire glasses. “Y/n, how is the weather today?”

You take a look out the window. “Today is cold, brr, and it is raining.”

He lets out a laugh at your charade of rubbing your arms up and down. “Exactly! Class, did you understand that?” There was an unpromising proportion of head shakes to nods. Namjoon chuckles and cracks open a blue marker, beginning to write on the whiteboard. “Y/n said two things: it is cold, and it is raining. Cold, cold and raining, raining. Now, in Korean, we…”

You let yourself tune out a little to the explanation, choosing instead to look him over as he passionately explained the intricacies of verbs and adjectives to the bewildered students. You had noticed how he attempted to hunch over a little to make himself seem smaller among the tiny bodies of the children, although his gangly legs stuck out almost halfway into the little circle you were all sitting in.

His dress shirt was a little rumpled and you could see the finger smudges on his glasses from ten feet away, but he still came across as completely put-together and in control. He kept this encouraging smile on constantly as he both spoke and listened to the spiels of the students, and it looked like his skin was practically glowing in the lights of the classroom. You quietly seethed over the fact that your English teacher growing up was a stuck-up lady who was so behind in technology that she requested you fax your essays to her. If you had been taught by a man like Namjoon when you were in high school, you probably would’ve fallen in love on the spot.

What were you kidding; you could probably easily fall in love with him now. As if sensing your thoughts were on him, he glanced over to you and gave you a soft smile. You blushed and looked away quickly, busying yourself by picking at the fibers of the carpet.

“Now we’re going to play a game, everyone,” Namjoon broke off at the enthusiastic cheers, and you couldn’t help but laugh yourself. It seemed the only thing these kids did were games. “Get into groups of three or four and find yourself a spot in the room.”

Your heart grew three sizes when you were immediately flooded by more than five kids, the two on either side of you, Min-jae and a little girl you couldn’t remember the name of, latching onto your arms tightly. You look up at Namjoon, unsure what to do and a little startled.

Namjoon laughs. “Y/n will be with us for a whooole year, guys, so you don’t need to worry. Some of you can form your own group, okay?”

Four students reluctantly pulled away to bunch up together, and you were left with the two beside you, and another little boy who looked scruffy and mischievous. He proudly introduced himself as Ken, and the girl next to you whispered her name shyly, Jisoo.

The game was simple; shout out a word in English relating to weather and you all had to act it out. Groups that did the wrong action were out. However, you (and you suspect Namjoon as well) weren’t prepared for how earnestly the groups would fight for their place in the game. Elaborate backstories would be formed on why fanning your face actually meant it was cold (“because when it’s cold outside, Teacher puts on the heater and then it gets so hot inside!”) or why cowering from the sky wasn’t for rain, it was for sun (“I was being a vampire!”). Namjoon seemed to be an extremely softhearted teacher, and he would keep giving them second and third and fourth chances until the bell rung and you still hadn’t found a winner.

The kids scattered before Namjoon could assign homework, and you walked up to his desk as he sighed and tipped his head back.

“Good class today,” you quipped, “I certainly learnt a lot.”

You averted your gaze from the arched column of his neck as he swallowed before speaking. “I hoped you were a very strict teacher so that we would get some work done for once. But no.”

You laughed a little, stretching out your legs from being sat down on the floor for so long. “Do we have another class?”

Namjoon shook his head. “It’s, uh, break time. The kids eat lunch now.”

“Oh, okay. What do we do?”

He stood up, holding out a large palm. “We eat too. Let’s go.”

Instead of being led back to the staffroom, as it turned out, breaktime was spent with the staff gathering at a picnic table on the corner of the field, looking over the students as some brave ones decided to play in the rain.

No matter the weather, at least one staff member had to be watching over the kids outside during breaks, and, as Art Kim was explaining to you, they decided a few years ago that it was nicer for them to all be together outside rather than fighting over who had to eat alone.

“That is very cute,” you comment, “very nice.”

He smiles softly, grabbing some more meat from the middle and placing it on your still half-full plate before picking out some for himself. “We’ve become a little family here. It’s been the same staff since…” he trailed off, eyes distant, and you followed his gaze to see Jimin with a tense jaw and dark eyes, the first time you had seen him like that since meeting him. “Since a few years ago,” Art Kim finished awkwardly. He brightened up and jostled your shoulder lightly. “That’s why we’re all so excited for you to be here. It’s about time we had a new face in the school.”

Your eyes glaze over a little as you begin to devour small cuts of the beef you had been given. “Is it, um, you, sorry…” You try and do the grammar in your head as he waits patiently. “Is this food what you eat every day?”

He glances at the impressive layout of dishes on the uneven wooden beams of the picnic table. “Oh, no! This is a special welcome lunch for you. We all pitched in and got some traditional Korean food for you to try.”

You look around the table properly for the first time, seeing the kind faces of all the staff that had welcomed you with open arms. “Thank you so much! I’m very grateful.” But as you look them over, you notice one missing. “Uh, where is Teacher Min?”

Teacher Jung immediately bursts into boisterous laughter. The principal reaches out and whacks him on the forehead before turning to you. “He’s gone to get his lunch. Any moment now, he’ll come out and start accusing someone of stealing it.”

The science teacher rolls his eyes and stretches back in his chair. “Hobi’s been stealing Yoongi’s lunch and he thinks none of us know it’s him.”

The teacher in question gasps in offense. “Hey! Who told you?” He shoots you a quick glare before Jimin buts in.

“Ah, hyung,” he chastises, “you’re a terrible liar. All of us except Yoongi know.”

He frowns, crossing his arms over. “You haven’t told him?”

Jeon answers with an easy shrug. “It’s a lot of fun watching Yoongi grow more paranoid. We’ve got a bet on how long it takes him to find out.”

The principal splutters. “You what? Why wasn’t I invited into the bet?”

You feel like you’re watching a tennis match, head swiveling back and forth, mouth slightly open as you focus on each line.

It’s the art teacher that responds to him in a calm baritone. “You can place a bet now if you want. Me and Namjoon have already lost, we thought he’d figure it out within a week. Jungkook says by this Thursday, and Jimin says he won’t realize until someone tells him. What do you think?”

Principal Kim taps his chopsticks against his plate in thought. “What’s the prize?”

“The winner gives all of their homework to one teacher of their choice, who has to grade it. Excluding Yoongi, because he’s suffered enough.” You let out a little laugh at Jeon’s matter-of-fact explanation.

Principal Kim sighs out dramatically. “I don’t have any homework to give away! There’s no point in me taking part. I’ve already got enough on the line if Hoseok wins.”

Jimin looks at a spot in the distance behind you and his eyes fly wide open. “Can I change my bet?” he asks hurriedly. “I think he’s going to figure out right…about…now.”

The yell is so ferocious the students outside freeze in their tracks, and the PE teacher pales, face falling slack.

“Hoseooooooooook!”

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[levihauser]

高校

6 September, 2019

I’ve started to get used to Japan, although I’ve still got a long way to go before I can speak and understand Japanese.

On the 28th of August, I went downstairs and had breakfast. My host parents think I love cereal more than anything in the world, so they feed it to me for breakfast most mornings alongside an already huge breakfast. This was my first day of eating it, however. They had had me select the cereal I wanted at the store. All the options were sweet and sugary cereals, which I don’t really like. however, there was one that was not: bran flakes! My family and the US and I eat bran flakes with our cereal whenever we have it, and they are not sweet at all. So I pointed them out, and my host father took four bags off the shelf. When I had them, however, they were probably the sweetest thing I had all day. They were completely coated in sugar- and there was a whole bowl of them. I struggled to eat the bowl, then ate the rest of my huge breakfast. 

In the early afternoon, my host father and I went to my school, Matto High School. They sized me for my school uniform (consisting of a button-down white shirt with an M on it and way-too-loose gray striped pants with vibrant blue and red rubber slippers). It was a little uncomfortable, as the teachers just pushed me into a side room with the door open to change. After the sizing was finished, I met some of my teachers. My class teacher (in Japan students stay in the same classroom for most of the day. A class teacher is something like a homeroom teacher), who is also an English teacher and a fairly good English speaker, is Mrs. Kameda. There is another English teacher who is from the US on the JET program, Miss Pike. She is from New Jersey. All of them seemed nice. I also learned that there are two students from the Philippines in my class that are okay English speakers.

After the meeting at the high school finished, my host father and I went and ate ramen at a nearby small restaurant. Up until that point we had not had lunch, so I was very hungry, but the ramen was very good. For dinner, we had some sort of gigantic pork pancake with a side of squid. Being vegetarian up until I came to Japan, I was a bit queasy about eating meat (it also wasn’t the tastiest meal in the world in my opinion).

On the 29th, I read in the morning for a while. I can’t seem to get up as late as I would like, so I have to go to bed early to get enough sleep. For breakfast, I had a sunny-side-up egg and salad, as well as a thick slab of bread with a hefty rectangle of luminescent, half-melted, yellow cheese. It poured all morning. At 11, my host father and I went to the city hall of Hakusan. I met the mayor. I was impressed. I would have thought that the mayor of  city with a population of over 100,000 would have too busy a schedule to meet with a single exchange student. The city hall is a big skyscraper, and we were on the fourth floor in a room for receiving guests. Because of its purpose, the room had a lot of beautiful art from the city.

I had to make a short speech in Japanese, but I had an interpreter who could help me understand and answer questions. I was given a bag of Hakusan-themed gifts and interviewed by several reporters. Just for meeting with the mayor for 20 minutes and being an exchange student, I got in the newspaper and on TV! After the meeting, we spent 3 hours filling out residency paperwork for my time in Japan. Not my idea of a fun afternoon, but it allows me to stay in Japan for more than 90 days.

There was a Rotary meeting of the club that is hosting me that evening, so I attended and had to make another short speech in Japanese. We exchanged Rotary flags (I gave them Perry’s, they gave me theirs so that I can bring it back to Perry), then ate dinner. It was a fancy hotel, so the food was fancy too. It was interesting to hear the Rotary song in Japanese.

On the 30th I had super-sugar-saturated cereal again. My host father got out a board game and just started playing it with me without explaining it all. Somehow I won, despite not knowing the rules until about halfway through (the game was called オセロ in Japanese, which, transliterated, is Osero. I think it is Othello in English). I went for a walk, and when I got back, I cleaned my bedroom and finished unpacking. It took a while, but it was very satisfying. My host mother made sushi for lunch. It was delicious! My favorite was inarizushi (rice wrapped in tofu). I read in the afternoon, then we had dinner (fish, rice, meat, somen, and miso). I went on a walk after dinner, but the sun set as I was walking and I got lost on my way back. I asked a friendly person for directions and she showed me the way (she actually walked me all the way back home, in the opposite direction she had been going). 

On the 31st, I had been in Japan for one week! I studied Japanese for a while, then had breakfast. I went for a walk, then we ate lunch. My host father and I went for a bike ride. Both the walk and the ride were to my high school, so I could practice the route. After the bike ride, one of my host aunts picked me up and took me to her house for a taiko (Japanese drum) lesson. It was interesting and fun, however, I was not very good at it, so I was not too happy when I found out my host dad had recorded the whole thing on video and was repeatedly playing it to anyone who he knew. 

When we returned home, my seven-year-old host niece Yuria and my four-year-old host nephew Shudai were there. We went to a sushi restaurant. It was pretty interesting. There was a counter surrounding the chefs with a conveyor belt that had plates of sushi on it. The chefs made sushi and put it on the conveyor belt, and customers took off any sushi they wanted. The price was assessed by the number of plates each customer had amassed and what color they were (different colors indicated different prices). If you weren’t seated at the counter, you were in a group. That’s where we were. There was a screen that you could touch to pick what you wanted, then a wheeled tray would come speeding up to you shortly on a special track. Whenever it came, Shuudai would shout “Shinkansen, shinkansen!” (bullet train, bullet train). You could take your food, then press the screen to dismiss the tray. We ate sushi and overall, it was delicious, although there were a few things I ate that I wish I hadn’t. We had ice cream for dessert, and both Yuria and Shuudai dropped theirs on the ground. After that, we went home.

On September first, I got up and started to get ready for my Rotary Youth Exchange orientation later that day. At 11, three Rotarians showed up to drive me to Toyama City. The drive took about an hour, and it was very scenic. Lots of mountains! There were a lot of trams on tracks in the center of the road. According to one of the Rotarians, Toyama City, along with Hiroshima, is one of the few cities in Japan with trams like that. They were very interesting, and while some looked new, others looked like beautiful antiques, maybe from 60 to 70 years ago. We arrived at the hotel where the meeting was, and all of the English speaking inbound students were there. There were 12 (I think), so it was much bigger than district 7120, where I come from, in terms of youth exchange. In 7120, there were only 13 outbound students total, whereas here the total of inbound English speakers only almost reached that. There were some students from Canada and the US and one from Australia. I was the youngest. The orientation was long and boring, but all of the students were able to exchange pins with each other, a Rotary Youth Exchange custom, as well as business cards. We returned home, and only my host mother was there, as my host father was at a meeting in Fukui Prefecture. We went out for dinner at a small restaurant. We constituted half of the customers, but the people at the restaurant seemed to know her. After spending quite a while there, we returned home and went to bed.

The second was my first day of school. I put on my school uniform. I had breakfast and left. School starts at 8:35, but I was to be there at 8 on the first day. My host dad gave me a ride there, and I gave a speech to the teachers. Mrs. Kameda led me to my classroom and I made the same speech again to my classmates. We all moved to the gym for an assembly, and I made the speech for the third time, this time to the whole school. Afterwards, all the students took tests. This was the beginning of their second semester after a one month break for the summer (school starts in April here). I was given a tour of the school. It has two courtyards, and is essentially shaped like a hollow rectangle with a hallway through the middle. It has four floors, and my classroom is on the third. Lots of stair climbing! Everybody I met wanted to say hi to me, so that was pleasant. There were no classes on the first day, so I just took the English test and studied Japanese, then went home. The walk takes about half an hour. I snacked and ate dinner, then both host parents went to an oil painting class, so I went to bed.

On the third, I got ready for school and left. There are six periods in a school day, plus lunch, cleaning and homeroom. I’m taking English Communication, English, Math, Music, Modern Japanese, Classical Japanese, P.E., Calligraphy, Art, History, Science, Taiko, Office Skills, and Health. Both the math and the science are what I took two years ago in the U.S. I thought I had finished the day, when lo and behold, I learned that I had to stay seventh period, along with every other student, to study on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I leave at 4:30 instead of 3:30. I had been getting along well with a little help from Google Translate, but at school everyone spoke quickly and used characters I don’t understand, so it was very difficult. My hardest classes have been Classical and Modern Japanese. In Modern Japanese on Wednesday, there was a vocabulary opener, where I had to copy definitions from a dictionary onto a paper. However, while I know two of the Japanese alphabets, the third has thousands of characters which I don’t know that I just had to copy from what I saw, which took a really long time and hurt my eyes. Wednesday was my hardest day of the week. In the U.S., I never really liked Wednesdays, and I had hoped it would get better here, but it did just the opposite.

Yesterday, I went to school. It was my easiest day yet, although that may just be because of the relief of stress from not having to stay at school until 4:30. My host mother had slept in, however, so I didn’t get any packed lunch. Instead, I had to buy something from the school store. By the time I got there, I was at the end of the line and the only thing edible left was half of a stale Nutella sandwich. Not my favorite meal in Japan so far. One thing that’s nice about this school is that the classrooms all have air conditioning because it gets so hot and humid in the summer. However, I’ve been told that there’s no insulation in the winter and they keep it cool, so I’m a little worried. I’ve pretty much memorized my route to school now, so I don’t need my map any more. I walk on a dirt road through rice fields along the way, as well as past two Shinto shrines and across a railroad. It’s a pretty walk. I went to the post office, doubling the time of my walk, but I got to walk by the ruins of a castle. I had no idea that there had ever been a castle in Hakusan. Immediately, I was offered a matcha-flavored ice cream pop by my host dad. It wasn’t bad at all. My host family seems to like eating ice cream at all hours after 10 AM. There was another Rotary meeting and this time the president of my host district, 2610, was the guest speaker. The meeting ended, and one of the Rotarians gave me a ride home. Although my host dad was at the meeting, he had to go to another meeting immediately afterwards. I took my first Japanese bath. It was pretty hot, but still nicer than I thought it would be. I waited this long because try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to get the water to turn on until I remembered to ask my host mother.

Today, I went to school after breakfast. It was an average day, neither too hard nor too easy, but it was nice because the exhausting first week of school was over. I’ve been here for two weeks now! I’m starting to fall into a rhythm and am enjoying my time here.

My host parents and I

My school’s main entrance

Sunset a short walk from my house

A torii at a shrine along my walk to school

A museum along my walk to school

[superfoulparadisebouquet]

Peach Candy: Chapter 3

~ I hate this town. I hate everyone who lives here. I hate my parents for not granting my one heartfelt plea to move to another town, but more importantly, I hate this school. I hate those whom I once called a friend, can barely look at me anymore. I hate that I have to sit in the same room with him every day and listen to Melody boast about how happy they are. She always seems to boast within earshot of me every time. I know she’s doing it on purpose. I wish I had the will to tell her that there was no need for it. I know. I know she won. I know I lost. He made it very clear.

I had tried one last attempt to get him to tell me the truth. I gathered up all the courage I had and followed him home one night. My heart was already broken, I didn’t think he could take anything else from me. Turns out I was wrong. Since that night I’ve become emotionally numb. It was like that Tv show, where they talked about turning off their humanity. Like flipping a switch. That’s what it was like. I almost can’t remember the last time I felt anything besides this numbness. I was able to stay home all through the first week, but I couldn’t play hooky any longer. My parent’s mercy had run dry.

It’s been three weeks since that night. No one talks to me anymore. They don’t know how to deal with me. Of course, they’ve never phrased it like that, but I know that’s the real reason. Rosa and Alexy lasted the longest before they gave their last effort to pull me back from the dead. Not that I can blame them.  I don’t put any effort into my appearance anymore. I can’t remember the last time I smiled.

We were all in the middle of math class with Mr. Bernard and as usual, I was drowning out the world with music, hiding my headphones from Mr. Bernard. It’s the main reason why I’ve been sitting in the far seats lately in all my classes. Except for Ms. Delanay, with her ridiculous seating chart, granted it is the only time Rosa will talk to me now. Not that I blame her. I’ve pushed everyone away. The only one I haven’t been able to shake off is Castiel. For some reason, he’s made it a point to make sure I have at least one full conversation with him a day. He’ll even text me on the weekends every once in a while.

To be honest, he’s the only one I can put up with out of all the people who have tried to talk to me. He doesn’t give me that pitied look that everyone else can’t seem to help but give me. He’s invited me to a few band practices that I’ve accepted every time. There’s just something about Lysander’s voice and Castiel’s music that eases me. It’s one of the few times where I feel anything.

I was brought back to reality when I felt someone tap me on my shoulder. I brought my head up from my desk to see Castiel pointing to his ear. I huffed in protest as I reluctantly took one of my earbuds out to hear what he had to say to me.

“You coming to practice tonight?” That’s it? That’s what he had to say to me right now?

“This couldn’t wait until after class?” Mr. Bernard isn’t as strict as Ms. Delanay, but he came in second place. He didn’t care where you sat as long as you stayed quiet and paid attention. I don’t need to grab his attention and get in trouble again for listening to my music. He always seems to know, no matter how well I hide my headphones.

“Are you?” I glanced up at the board to see Mr. Bernard was writing an equation, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware that there was an unwanted conversation going on.

“I can’t. My parents grounded me last weekend.”

“So?”

“So, I don’t need to get in any more trouble than what I am.” My grades are slipping and remembering the disappointment in my parent's eyes only makes me queasy all over again.

“Didn’t realize you were such a chicken.”

“Castiel,” Lysander whispered in disapproval.

“You know…the last time you said those exact words to me, I ended up with nothing.” Literally. I have nothing now. No boyfriend, no friends…nothing to care for. Castiel and Lysander are all I have left, and on the right day, it’s enough.

“Sounds like someone’s throwing another pity party.”

“I am not throwing a pity party-”

“Excuse me.” My blood froze, remembering we were still in class. Mr. Bernard was now leaning on his desk, glaring at the three of us in the back. “If I have to stop my lesson again because the three of you can’t keep your lips sealed…you’ll all be moving to the front. Am I understood.” We knew perfectly well that he wasn’t asking. I adjusted in my seat, making myself face the front as my answer. “And Candy.” I knew what was coming next. “You’ll be seeing the principal if I have to tell you to take your headphones out of your ear one more time.” Ignoring the glare Mr. Bernard gave me, I reach over to punch a snickering Castiel in the arm. He knows very damn well that if he hadn’t started the conversation I could be listening to my music in peace. Mr. Bernard went back to his equation, ignoring Castiel chuckle as I punched him. I went through the rest of the class in a muted daze.

It was well into the night, and the boys just ended their band practice. We were picking everything up, leaving no evidence that we were ever there, like every night. I decided to stay in the end because I knew there was a long lecture waiting for me at home.

Mr. Bernard had me stay behind class to explain he had spoken to my mother earlier this morning to advise that I have fallen behind and my grade was slipping. This was the fourth call within that last week my parents have received about my grades. I figured if I’m going to get in trouble, might as well have my last night of freedom before I’m permanently grounded for the rest of the year. Assuming I’m going to be able to graduate and leave this town behind.

Like always, we climbed the stairs to the hallway and Lysander turned the lights off at the top. Castiel and I stood around as we waited for him to lock the door, giggling the knob to make sure it was secure.

“Well…have a good night, boys. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’re not planning on coming to class?” Lysander was confused.

“More like hoping my parents kill me that way I don’t have to come back.”

“I don’t think so little girl.” Castiel grabbed my wrist, surprising me. “You’re coming with me before you head home.” Before I could protest he started to drag me down the hall. He stopped in front of the roof doorway, releasing my wrist so he could lock pick his way in.

“What are we doing?” For some reason, I was whispering now, even though the only person around was Lysander. He walked by us, also curious as to what was going on, but he’s more use to Castiel’s shenanigans. Castiel already unlocked the door and was holding onto my wrist again.

“Come on.” He started pulling me again and we started to climb the three flight of stairs it took to get to the roof.

“This is it. This is where you kill me. I knew it would come to this sooner or later.”

“I’m almost impressed.” I waited for him to finish the second part of his sentence. “I haven’t heard you talk this much in a long time. Normally I have to pry it out of you.” There was humor in his tone. I rolled my eyes, now determined to not say another word the rest of the time. We reached the top and he let go of my wrist when walked out onto the roof. There was a slight breeze, creating a nip in the night air. Castiel continued to walk toward the edge of the roof, leaning and placing his forearms on the edge. I let out a silent sigh and joined him. As I approached closer to the edge, I noticed how breathtaking the view was. The city lights of Sweet Amoris was mesmerizing. I placed my hands on top of the ledge gazing out into the city.

“Wow.” Was all I could whipser. Castiel chuckled beside me.

“I like to come up here from time to time to unwind. Listen to the sounds of the city. Helps me clear my mind.”

“You realize you’re sounding like you’re reading a line from a Rom-Com, right?” That got him chuckling again.

“Actually…” He hesitated for a long time. “Your first day here, I was gonna bring you up here after school.” Iooked out to the city, surprised. I slowly looked to Castiel, who was still gazing at the lights. I held my breath as I observed his profile. Feeling my eyes on him, he finally gave me his. I blinked a few times, snapping myself out of the daze. I awkwardly looked back to the city, feeling my pulse quicken.

“Yeah, right.” ‘What the hell is going on with you? Why are you getting nervous? It’s just Castiel!’

“I’m serious. I went looking for you but Mr. Student Body President had already snatched you up. Apparently, the library was more your speed.” My eyes fell to the ground that was a good three stories beneath me. I felt queasy remembering that day. How different would things be now if Castiel had just found me a minute sooner? Would I have fallen for him instead of Nathaniel, or would we still be in this same story? “I know it’s not easy.” His tone has changed. It was gentle but serious. “I might not know the exact extent of what you’re feeling, but I know what it feels like to be betrayed.”

“I know.” I mumbled almost to myself. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to talk with him and no one else. Deep down, I know he has an idea to the pain and embarrassment that I feel.

“What you’re doing isn’t helping anyone.” His words made my stomach tense up. “I know that you can’t help it, and you shouldn’t force yourself to smile and act like everything’s fine...but you still need to take care of yourself.”

“A little hard to do that, when I don’t care.”

“Sure, but how I see it is that you doing this to yourself, he wins.”

“Of course he wins!” I turned to him, yelling. “They all won. I have nothi-”

“Knock it off with that bullshit!” He yelled right back. “You do not have nothing. You have friends that care for you, who are still worried about you. Parents that are concerned for you and your future.” I rolled my eyes, already done with this conversation. “What are you going to do if you can’t graduate? I thought you wanted to leave?”

“I do.”

“Then get your shit together. Enough with the woe-is-me. We get it. He broke your heart, but guess what?” He paused but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of answering his rhetoric question. “It will heal. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it will. You’ll start to replace him with new people, new memories. Someday, you won’t even think of him.” My heart hurt with the idea of his words. “You’ll get over him.”

“He was everything to me.” I whimpered.

“No, he wasn’t. You only think that because of the pain he caused, but he wasn’t everything. He can’t be your everything. If he is... then what do you have to live for now?”

“Shut up! Just shut up, Castiel!” He sighed, clearly losing his motivation. We were both quiet for a long time. He took a step away from the ledge and faced the back to the doorway.

“Just do me a favor? Think about what you want in life and don’t picture it with him, because he’s obviously not in it anymore.” With that, he headed to the exit, leaving me to my thoughts alone. “One more thing.” I wouldn’t turn around to face him. “Maybe try to smile a little more? You’ve always had the best smile. I always thought you were beautiful when you did.” That surprised me, even made my heart skip for a moment. I went to look at him but saw that he was already gone.

‘Who does he think he is?’

“I’ll smile if I want to smile!” I yelled out to him, hoping he’d hear my response. I can feel myself blushing. ‘What the hell was that about?’ I looked back out to the city. Trying, but not succeeding, to not let Castiel’s words get to me. “Damn it.”

[fresh-buttonsdotcom]

A Frog’s Adventure

By fresh-buttonsdotcom

Just like everyday it was a sunny day full of smiles and cheer from everyone in town. Frog walked down the small pebbled street and made his way to the café to enjoy his daily breakfast. He got smiles and waves from those who were awake as the crisp morning air chilled him down to his bones.

Frog had a routine, and this routine always started with two blueberry-and-fly pancakes and reading a book by basking in the sunlight of his favorite food joint in the entire town.

Today was no different. Frog walked into T’s Café and More, the familiar chime of the bell rang through the air signaling his arrival.

“Frog, my dear, how are you this morning?” Tortoise asked, walking slowly into the dinning room from the kitchen.

“I’m just fine, thank you. How are you?”

“Ehh, could be better. I missed the mail truck again yesterday.”

“You miss the mail truck everyday.”

“Oh hush up. I’ll fix you up some pancakes, you just take a seat and leave me alone.” Frog croaked a wet laugh and took his regular seat by the second window. He produced a hardcover copy of Piglet, a Snakesperian play, from his small bag and started from the third act. Halfway through the fourth act warm wafts of melted butter and warm syrup coated Frog’s tongue causing saliva to slip out the sides of his mouth. It was early enough in the day that the café was barely occupied, giving Frog great and reliable customer service.

“Here you go, hun.” Tortoise rasped, and set down the steaming plate of pancakes.

“You’re the best, TT.”

Tortoise smiled at Frog, “Don’t you forget it.”

Frog traded bites of pancake for lines of the play, and within twenty minutes he was done. Frog was so absorbed in the play, he didn’t even realize when more customers flooded into the small café. Chatter clogged the air, making talking to Tortoise impossible, so Frog threw down some money and walked out with his book in hand.

Outside the air had warmed up. Frog stripped off his light coat and placed it in his small bag. His bag was just big enough to fit his money pouch and a couple of books, but since Frog had only brought the one book with him he had space to stuff his small suede jacket inside. The town bell chimed seven times, indicating to Frog that it was time to go to work.

Frog worked at the local elementary school and worked with second graders. He both loved his job and despised it. On one lilypad there was the fact that all the kids Frog got to work with were all super cute. On the other lilypad, however, there was the decline of young'uns in their small town, which meant Frog could be out of a job any year. But Frog didn’t like to think about negatives like that, so instead he took everything day by day. Frog approached the small building and walked inside.

“Good morning, Mr. Frog!” Frog smiled at the verbal boom blasted down the hall.

“Good morning, Principal Tiger. Lovely day isn’t it?” Principle Tiger smiled tightly.

“It is. I’m afraid I have some bad news though. The triplets are sick, swine flu, and so is Mrs. Pig. I’m going to need you to sub in for the fifth grade class for the time being until Mrs. Pig is able to return.” Frog felt a pant in his chest. He loved teaching the second grade because that’s when you really get to start teaching them and getting them ready for the “real” world.

“Yes, I can do that.” The dejected tone of Frogs voice was not missed by Principal Tiger.

“Look, I know you love your second graders, but the triplets were going to be your last class for a while. Think of this as a promotion.”

“Sure, a promotion.” Frog’s mood was immediately dampened by the saddening realization that he would either have to teach a different grade, or find a new job all together.

Frog had lived in the small town of Pinkerton his entire life, fom egg, to tadpole, to froglet and finally frog. All of Frog’s other siblings had taken off after graduating school, and Frog hadn’t seen them since. Sure he gets the occasional letter, but he couldn’t help but miss all the commotion and ruckus they brought to his life.

Frog entered Mrs. Pig’s classroom, turned on the lights and looked around. There were five desks; each with a child’s personalized name tag. Frog placed his things below the teacher’s desk and pulled out the lesson plan for the week. After reviewing the plan for several minutes, the school bell went off, and students started arriving. Frog didn’t need an attendance sheet because he’d taught all of these kids previously—all but one.

Frog put on his happy face and greeted the kids, “Hello, come in, come in!”

“MR. FROG!” A chorus of small cheers resounded against the walls of the room.

“You’re going to be teaching us?” Chip asked nearly spitting out his lunch.

“I sure am! Why don’t you guys put your things away in your cubbies and then I’ll answer your questions.” Most of the kids scrambled to get their stuff put away and get back to their seats. One student was standing silently in the doorway. Frog took a quick peek at the attendance sheet.

“Hello. I’m Mr. Frog. Are you Toada?” Toada peaked her head out from under her hat, just enough for her eyes to lock onto Frog’s and quickly fall to the floor. “I promise I’m not scary,” Frog said calmly, slowly inching his way towards the frightened girl. He held out a lettuce leaf. Toada shook as she raised her head to meet Frog’s eyes once again. When their eyes met she flinched slightly but didn’t look away, and took the leaf with a trembling hand. Frog smiled at Toada, and watched her slowly put her things away and sit down at her desk.

“Mr. Frog, where’s Mrs. Pig?”

“Well, Birdy, Mrs. Pig is sick right now, so while she gets better, I’m going to be teaching you guys.”

“Mr. Frog, are we still taking that test on hibernation patterns?”

“Misty! Why’d you tell him?” Chip whined, rocking back and forth against his desk.

“Are you going to make us take a test, Mr. Frog?” Birdy asked, pecking nervously at the wooden desk.

“You guys will have a test—“ the exaggerated groans brought a smile to Frog’s face, “but it won’t be about hibernation patterns. This test will be about yourself, so there are no wrong answers.” The kids cheered and chatted spiritedly amongst themselves as Frog passed out a sheet of paper to each student.

“Okay, now I want you guys to start off with question number one: what is your name?”

“Easy peasy.” Misty remarked confidently. Frog looked around the room to make sure everyone was finished.

“Question two: what is the most interesting thing you’ve learned about hibernation?”

“I learned that when we hibernate, it needs to be like at 100 degrees!” Frog quickly brought a finger up to his lips.

“Shh, let’s let other people think on their own for now.” Frog suggested calmly. He continued on, asking about their favorite places, their funniest jokes and even the names of their best friends. After their fake test activity, Frog gathered their “tests” and resumed the lesson plan. At lunch time, when the kids where outside playing, Frog took the chance to read about what the kids wrote about. Most of their answers were silly and creative, but when Frog got to Toada’s, he realized she hadn’t written a word. Instead, she sketched a very detailed landscape of a forest with a black hole and a question mark on the middle of the page. Frog tried not to let the concerning picture bother him, but he couldn’t he’ll the way his eyes drifted nervously over to Toada every other minute, making sure she was still there.

After school ended and the bell rang, Frog gave the kids their homework sheets and sent them on their way, but not before trying to confront Toada.

“Toada, can you stay back for a few minutes?” Toada’s eyes bulged with fear, but she kept his gaze and nodded slowly. She shuffled up to the front of the room where the teachers desk was, and stood awkwardly on the other side of Frog, eyes down again.

“You’re not in trouble, okay? I just wanted to talk to you about this,” Frog provided Toada’s fake test and showed it to her, “what does this black circle mean? The one with the question mark in it.” Toada shrugged. “I know that can’t be true. You spent the entire first block of the day drawing it.” Toada stayed silent and Frog internally groaned. “Okay, if you don’t want to talk about it you don’t have to. You can go now.” Toada walked quickly out of the classroom leaving Frog with nothing but more questions.

Frog spotted Principal Tiger walking out of his office and walked briskly to catch up to him.

“Oh, Mr. Frog, how’d the first day go?”

“Pretty well, although there is one student I’m concerned about.”

“Toada?” The principle asked. Frog nodded and walked beside Principal Tiger as they both exited the building. “She’s new. Carmen found her out on the side of the road, dehydrated and alone. She’s currently living with The Ravens and the mayor is sending out letters everyday, but no one has claimed her in the past two weeks.” Frog’s heart ached at the thought of that little girl alone and without family.

“Does she speak?”

“Not that I know of. She clearly understands what’s being said, but is choosing not to talk back. The Ravens are trying to do speech therapy on her, but so far no luck.”

“If she doesn’t speak, how do you know her name?”

“She wrote it down for us. The child can clearly communicate but for some reason wants to stay silent.”

“Hmm, okay, thank you!” Frog took off towards the town square where newspapers from all over the county were sold. He got there and bought up one of each newspaper. He hurried home, practically tripping over his own feet. Once home, Frog found the advertisement sections of each paper and pulled them out. He microscanned each paper for a missing ad for Toada. After a few hours of scouring the papers, Frog had come to a dead end. Why was he so concerned about a little girl, Frog wondered to himself, before tucking all the papers away and calling it a night.

For the next few weeks, Frog continued buying all of the newspapers and searching for Toada’s parents. He also maintained a shaky relationship with Toada in school. He got her to make eye contact with him, he got her to write, but still no words.

During lunch, Toada would sit in the empty classroom with Frog and they would write to each other. Mostly it was Frog asking questions and trying to make jokes, and Toada sat there, amused and bored, opening up day by day.

On the third week since Frog took over Mrs. Pig’s class, Frog finally found something. It was a small ad, in the bottom right corner of the left page:

Missing Girl, Please Help! -Wetlands district

The ad read. Frog carefully cut out the ad and placed it in his bag. He was so excited to tell Toada about his discovery, he couldn’t sleep. Frog woke up to the sound of grass being mowed and knew he overslept. Looking at his wall clock, Frog saw he was going to be late for school if he didn’t hurry up. So he quickly grabbed a bread sandwich to go, and ran out the door. By the time Frog got to the school, the bell had finished ringing. Frog slid into the classroom, almost taking out Chip with him, and smiled brightly at Toada, before smiling at the rest of the class.

The day went by at a snail’s pace, but after seven grueling hours of containing his excitement, the bell rung.

“Toada, can I talk to you?” Toada nodded, and waited for the others to clear out of the room before Frog sat down across from Toada in the child-sized desks.

“So, I know that you’re lost,” Toada’s expressions turned cloudy, “and I know you don’t know how to get back or ask for help. So, here.” Frog took out the paper scarp from his bag and handed it gently over to Toada. She opened it carefully before her eyes scanned the writing. Her head shot up and her eyes filled with tears.

“Is this really them? Really?” She asked hushly. Frog was so taken aback by the fact that she had spoken, that it took him a few seconds to collect himself.

“I think so. That’s why I wanted to show you. This paper is from a county all the way in the Wetlands district. Does that sound familiar?” Toada shrugged and gripped the piece of paper harder. A fat droplet fell onto the paper, and her bottom lip started quivering.

“I want to go home!” She exclaimed, letting her tears fall stagnant down her cheeks. The echoes of her cries filled the empty halls, and Frog’s heart broke for the little girl. Then, and idea struck him.

“Let’s get you home.” Toada’s cries morphed into hiccups before softening into sniffles.

“How?” She asked, whipping away the tear tracks from her face.

“Well school is almost done, and Mrs. Pig should be back any day now. Principal Tiger will be able to teach the class so I can take you!” Toada and Frog ran excitedly through the halls to get to Principal Tiger’s office before he left. They skirted to a stop outside his office door. Frog jingled the door handle, before spotting Principal Tiger walking outside. Frog and Toada sprinted over to Principal Tiger, out of breath and full of excitement.

Frog couldn’t put his finger on why he was so excited to get Toada back to her family. But his stomach fluttered every time he thought about getting that little girl and her family back together.

“Principal Tiger!” Principal Tiger turned from where he was a few paces from his bike and smiled.

“Hello Mr. Frog, Toada. What can I do for you two?”

“Well it’s really for me. You see, I think I found her family!” Toada handed out the paper to the principal. His eyes scanned the paper a few times, before looking back at the two of them, this time without the smile.

“And what do you want to do you this?” Principal Tiger asked, shaking the paper around to show its flimsy-ness.

“Well, I want to take some time off to take her back to her family.”

“And if it’s not her family?” Toada’s excited expression dropped and her eyes went dull and Frog placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Well then I’ll bring her back.” Principal Tiger looked over the paper once more before shaking his head and handing the paper back to Frog.

“I can’t give you personal time for this. We need you to help the school run. I’m sorry, but the answer is no. Good day.” With that, Principal Tiger left Toada feeling hopeless and defeated.

“Flop that,” Frog declared after Principal Tiger was out of earshot, “I’m taking you home.” A spark reignited in Toada’s eyes before a slow smile crawled across her face.

(Please leave constructive criticism if you have any!)

[southsidestory]

The Price of Apples in Atlanta

Rating: Teen

Pairing: Reylo

Prompt: meeting in prison au

Notes: I’ve once again exercised my utter inability to write drabbles. ;) Thank you @lunaplath​ for requesting this one! I’m sorry it took so long for me to write it for you, but this story grew, changed, and took me for a ride in the best possible way.

A disclaimer: I am not particularly educated on conditions in jail. This is in no way meant to be an accurate portrayal of life in jail, although I do hope that I correctly conveyed the nastiness of criminalizing poverty in the U.S. Rey’s year-long sentence for shoplifting is based on a real case, in which a homeless man named Tom Barrett was sentenced similarly for shoplifting a beer from a convenience store. Here’s a link to an NPR article about it, which I encourage y’all to check out if you’re interested in learning more.

.

.

It isn’t technically a crime to be poor in the Great State of Georgia. Except, Rey has been homeless ever since she ran away from her last foster family, and it turns out that six shoplifting charges in four months are enough to piss off the local cops. She goes to jail for stealing two apples, valued at $1.09, plus tax. Rey might be entitled to a public defender, but it still costs fifty dollars to fill out the necessary applications, and she doesn’t have it. So she represents herself and pleads no contest.

Judge Dickinson sentences her to a year of probation. If she had the money to pay for an ankle monitor, Rey could’ve spent those twelve months on the street, free, if tagged and tracked. But she didn’t have chump change for apples, or fifty bucks for a lawyer, and she doesn’t have the money to pay for an ankle bracelet either. So here she is, stranded at Dekalb County Jail. Her home for the next twelve months.

Rey has learned two things from this: red apples aren’t worth doing time, no matter how hungry you are; and, in practice, it’s a crime to be poor in the Great State of Georgia.

.

.

Ben has to complete two hundred service hours every year to keep his fellowship. It’s a responsibility he’s used to by now, but the second semester of junior year is kicking his ass. He’s procrastinated himself into a corner, still seventy-one hours short of his requirements with only six weeks left until final exams. He’s sick of volunteering at warming shelters and slinging soup to homeless folks at the Mission. It’s important work, as his mother would say, and Ben agrees, but he’s also exhausted, busy, and worst of all, bored--a combination that sends his mood swinging wildly without fail.

Ben calls his mom, because if there’s any problem she can’t fix, he’s yet to see it.

“I’m behind on my service hours, and if I have to build one more sustainable house I’m gonna lose my shit,” he says. “Please tell me there’s something interesting you can get me plugged into.”

She sighs. “If you’d focused on your hours at the beginning of the semester, you wouldn’t be in this boat right now. What have I told you about using your time wisely?”

Ben grabs his stress ball, considers throwing it, and squeezes it instead. “I know that, Mama, but I called for advice, not a slap on the wrist. Can you help me or not?”

He can feel his mother’s sharp disapproval through the crackling silence. She says, “I can, but I won’t if you keep talking to me like that.”

He throws the stress ball. It knocks Armitage’s ugly, industrial lamp off of his bedside table. The thing must not be as durable as it looks, because its neck snaps from the base.

Ben holds the phone away from his face so he can cuss without his mother hearing. “Goddamn motherfucking piece of shit--”

“Ben? What was that crash?”

He bites his knuckles until the sting of breaking skin grounds him, then pulls the phone closer to say, “Sorry. I knocked over my roommate’s lamp. Not on purpose.”

His mother hums, sounding half sympathetic, half disbelieving. “Tell me the truth: are you taking your meds?”

Here we go again, Ben thinks, but all he says is, “Yes.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, all of them,” Ben lies.

“I understand how hard this is, but it’s important that you--”

“That Seroquel knocks me out for twelve hours every night, and I can’t get up the next day,” he says. “I missed three of my morning classes last month because I slept through my alarms. How the fuck am I supposed to ace English 301 and squeeze in seventy service hours if I can’t stay awake?”

“Well it sounds like you need to schedule an appointment with your psychiatrist.”

“I will,” Ben says. “Swear to God. As soon as this semester is over.”

His mother’s voice takes a turn from concerned to suspicious when she asks, “Are you saying that because you’re too busy, or because you’re hoping to sail through your exams on a manic phase again?”

She’s not wrong, but this isn’t an argument that he’s willing to have right now. “I don’t have time for the third degree. Email me some service prospects, or don’t. I’ve gotta go.”

“Don’t be like that,” his mother says. “I have a contact at the Dekalb County Jail who’s been looking for volunteer tutors. I’ll pass your name along to him.”

The anger goes out of him as suddenly as it came. He says, “Thanks, Mama. I’m--I’ll do better.”

“I know,” she says gently. “I know you will, sweetheart.”

.

.

Rey’s new GED instructor is a college student who introduces himself as Ben. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with huge, jittery hands and prominent ears that he’s unsuccessfully trying to hide under a mop of pretty hair. He’s hot, in a stuck-up rich boy kind of way, and he looks to be about Rey’s age. Then again, maybe she’s so desperate to feel less alone that any half-decent man would seem appealing.

She barely talks to Ben throughout their first three tutoring sessions. Rey expects him to disappear as soon as the novelty of visiting jail wears off, but he surprises her by coming back for a fourth lesson, then a fifth, a sixth. He’s impatient, awkward, and sarcastic to the point of rudeness, and Rey hates him a little. He radiates dissatisfaction, and what right does a boy like this have to be dissatisfied with his life?

Resenting Ben doesn’t stop her from looking forward to her GED lessons, though. They’ve become the highlight of her time.

They’re working on geometry today. Rey understood proofs two weeks ago, but there’s no fun in making this easy for him, so she asks Ben to elaborate, give new examples, walk her through it again.

“What do you play?” she asks. “Football?”

Ben looks up from the problem he was explaining to her. “What makes you think I play anything?”

She waves her hand toward his chest. “Guys aren’t built like that unless they’re working out or playing sports, and I’ve got a feeling you’d rather tackle someone than count push-ups. So is it football?”

Hot color spreads across Ben’s cheeks, and Rey almost smiles. She wasn’t expecting him to be bashful.

“I’m a swimmer,” he says. “Contact sports didn’t work out too well for me.”

She likes his voice. It’s deep and resonant, but uneven. Ben always sounds like he’s on the verge of saying more than he should, or perhaps shouting when it isn’t appropriate. It keeps her on her toes, wondering what he’s holding back. Thinking of him is a nice distraction to occupy herself with, when she isn’t eating slop or fighting off that Plutt bitch who keeps trying to steal her shit.

Rey leans forward, rests her chin on her crossed arms, and looks up at him. “Were you afraid of getting hurt? Or did you like hitting the other kids too much?”

Ben smiles, a small, nervous twitch at the corner of his full mouth. “Both,” he says.

He turns back to the geometry book, jots down a practice proof on a fresh sheet of paper, and pushes it toward her.

“Here,” Ben says. “Try this one.”

.

.

Ben tutors Rey every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon through the middle of May. Between his volunteer work at the county jail, a free legal clinic, and the Mission, he scrapes together enough service hours to maintain his fellowship for next year.

Ben tells Rey that, since his semester is over, he’ll only be tutoring her for one more week.

“Oh,” Rey says. She fidgets with his compass, then starts dismantling it.

“I have to go home,” Ben says. “My family lives in D.C.”

He feels like a guilty child who’s been caught wrongdoing, whose excuses won’t hold up to scrutiny.

“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Rey says, still taking apart his compass. She unscrews its tiniest pieces and makes quick work of separating them.

“I know that. I just don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you.”

It sounds stupid out loud, and as soon as he hears himself, Ben wishes he could snatch his words right out of the air. Then Rey looks at him sharply. It’s hard to figure out what she’s thinking, but his declaration clearly hit a chord.

“Will you be back?” she asks. “When the new school year starts?”

He shouldn’t ask, but curiosity has been eating at him for six weeks, so Ben says, “I didn’t realize you’d still be here by August. How much time are you in for anyway?”

Rey’s expression hardens. “A year. I’ve served half my sentence.”

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from asking anymore nosy questions, but Rey rolls her eyes and says, “Shoplifting.”

“What?”

She kicks his chair leg, and it startles Ben into sitting up straighter. “You want to know what got me locked up, right?”

Ben nods, then shakes his head. “Wait, you got a year for shoplifting?”

Her smile is too empty to be a smile at all. “Uh huh. It was my sixth charge, but it’s still pretty fucked up to dump me in here and throw away the key over a dollar and nine cents.”

If Rey didn’t look so serious, Ben would think she’s joking.

“How is that possible?” he asks.

She tells him about the circus of police officers and courts that prosecuted her for stealing apples. Ben can’t figure out how Rey is sitting there, casual and cool-headed while she explains that she’s been unjustly jailed for half a year.

“That’s--I didn’t know--”

Ben stops. He can’t find words strong enough to capture the ugliness of what’s being done to her, and there’s nothing he can say that will help. He reaches forward to take Rey’s hand, then remembers that he’s not allowed to do that. Touch is forbidden in this place, like all other creature comforts. It takes every bit of his discipline not throw his chair through a fucking window.

“This is disgusting,” he says. “You don’t deserve to be here.”

Rey bats the pieces of his compass across the table, stands up, and says, “If you think most of us deserve to be here, then you really don’t see the problem at all.”

She walks away, striding across the dilapidated library like she has somewhere to go. Like she has anywhere to go, caught in this cage like an animal.

When he gets home, Ben calls his mother.

.

.

Rey can’t sleep. She thinks about the parade of foster families that could never tolerate her for long, the ones that taught her a hard lesson: nothing lasts because nobody wants her.

It was stupid to trust Ben Organa. He’s from a different kind of world, one where there’s food on the table, a roof over his head, money to pay for tuition at a fancy school. Rey knew that Ben would never understand her, but she let him in anyway, and now he’s leaving. Going to D.C. to be with a family he probably doesn’t even appreciate.

Rey hums a song Ben taught her a few weeks ago, a simple tune to help her remember the quadratic equation. It doesn’t calm her enough for sleep, but she feels safer for having music muffled in the back of her throat.

.

.

A long time ago, in a town far away, Leia Organa was a lawyer. She climbed the political ladder up to Senator by the time Ben was fifteen, but he knows that it isn’t ambition that motivates her. His mother is the sort of leader who sought a stage so that she could see the injustices below her and do something about correcting them.

And she has a weakness for hopeless cases. It’s the reason why she’s never left her irresponsible husband; why she’s never given up on her difficult, volatile son.

So when he says, “There’s someone who needs your help,” Ben knows that it’s only a matter of time before his mother finds a way to make this right.

.

.

Yesterday morning, a counselor told Rey that an anonymous benefactor donated enough money to cover the cost of an electronic monitor. She’s released the next day, the shiny new monitor clasped around her ankle. It’s lighter than Rey expected, and even though it feels like a shackle, she’d much rather be chained than caged. She’s warned that if she breaks the monitor or leaves the county, then the GPS tracker will alert the authorities immediately.

Rey isn’t surprised when she finds Ben in the waiting area.

He hurries toward her and says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t come by yesterday, to tell you what was happening. I didn’t expect everything to move so fast--”

Rey throws her arms around him and buries her face against his shoulder. Ben is every bit as broad under her hands as he looks, and it makes her feel small and safe when he hugs her back. He smells clean, like fresh laundry and sunshine, and that’s what tears at her most. He smells well-cared for, and for the first time she’s glad instead of jealous that Ben has a place to wash his clothes, that he’s never been shut away from the sun.

“Thank you,” she whispers. Rey wants to say it louder--wants to laugh and maybe kiss him and shout her relief, because she’s free--but she knows that if she does, she’ll start crying.

.

.

Ben noticed Rey’s beauty the day they met, but he hadn’t allowed himself to reflect on it. She was trapped during their encounters, while he was free to come and go, and there were so many rules curtailing those lessons. Now they can talk without other inmates listening in, and they can spend more than three hours together in the same week. They can spend all day together, if she wants to; they can touch.

He takes Rey to his favorite diner and watches her put away a quarter-pound burger, a basket of fries, and a strawberry milkshake. She licks the salt from her fingers, smears ketchup across the corner of her mouth, and finishes her food within five minutes. She scrambles to eat, sloppy and hurried, and he wonders how long it’s been since she had a decent meal.

“Do you have anywhere to go?” Ben asks. “Friends or family you could stay with?”

Rey shakes her head.

He’d thought as much, and it’s almost a comfort to hear that Rey is alone. Ben would be angrier if she did have family, because the kind of parents who could leave her imprisoned over a one-dollar shoplifting charge would be worse than no parents at all.

“You could stay with me,” he says.

Rey looks at him, wide-eyed and tense, suddenly poised on the edge of her seat, like she’s already preparing to run.

That isn’t what he meant to say, even if it is what he wants, and Ben tries to explain. “I’ve got plenty of room, and I don’t mind staying here for the summer. You could crash with until you to get back on your feet.”

Rey scowls and crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t need anymore of your charity.”

Ben bites back the nasty answer he wants to give: that beggars can’t be choosers, and her pride isn’t worth more than her life.

Cruelty comes to him so naturally; it’s a difficult truth that Ben has finally accepted, after twenty years of trying to overcome it. All he can do is reign in the malignity that lives within himself and act like a better man than he is.

So Ben breathes, grips the edge of the table, counts to ten. “I can help, if you’ll stop being stubborn and just let me.”

Rey won’t look at him now. Her voice sounds softer, her conviction weaker, when she says, “I’m not some pet project.”

Ben reaches across the table, but he stops short of taking her hand. “Look, you might have noticed that I’m kind of an asshole. Do you really think I’d offer you a place to stay out of pity?”

Rey bites her lip, holding her silence.

“Well I wouldn’t,” he says. “You need a friend, and--”

I do too.

Rey inches her fingers closer to his, until he feels safe enough to grasp her hand. Hard, probably too hard, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

.

.

Ben takes her to the park. It’s startling to see summer in full bloom, the sky bright and cloudless, the air sharp with the scent of mown grass. Rey was sentenced in November, after the trees were stripped bare by the cold, so the last time she saw the real world it was slipping toward winter weather. The jail yard didn’t count; it was drab and poorly tended, trampled under a thousand weary feet, more brown than green. And it was fenced in, the same as everything else there.

“I forgot what it was like to really be outside,” Rey says.

Ben squeezes her hand. He’s been holding it ever since they left the diner, only letting go when he has to. It should probably bother her, the way he’s clinging, but Rey can’t get enough. She’s been starved of touch for so long that it’s intoxicating to find someone who gives too much, too easily, too fiercely. It terrifies her, though, because Ben might want her to give as much back to him--soon, if not at this moment. What scares Rey even more is that she might not mind that.

They wander the park together, fingers entwined, close enough that Rey can feel the warmth of Ben’s strong body at her side. The world looks clearer and cleaner than it has in a long while: flowering, open, alive, and green, green, green.

[southboundhqarchive]

MEET MATEO,

FULL NAME › Mateo Álvarez / Matthew Beckett AGE › twenty GENDER › Cis male (He/Him/His) FROM › Sierra Vista, Arizona LODGING › Copper Cactus Motel PRIOR EMPLOYMENT › College Student NOW PLAYING › Way Down We Go by Kaleo

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warnings: abuse, violence, murder, suicide, death, childhood trauma, self-loathing

The first lesson that Mateo ever learned was that even the prettiest exteriors can hide rotten cores. Dante and Marlene Álvarez fell in love in high school, and they were barely out of college when they got married and had Mateo. It was a fairytale romance, and the inclusion of little Mateo turned them into a picture-perfect family–– but only to those didn’t look closely enough, and no one ever did, too distracted by the shiny veneer that Dante and Marlene presented to the world.

It had started with wine at dinner with friends, then beer in the afternoon with the guys, until eventually it became habit for Dante to reach for any bottle closest to hand at any time of the day. Distantly, Mateo thinks that there must have been a time when his father had been gentle, loving, kind – anything to justify why his mother had stayed with him – but Mateo had only ever known a stern man who was not only cruel, but quick to anger as well. Dante hit his wife often, sometimes over the smallest of disagreements, and whenever Mateo tried to stand up for her, the belt had been turned on him instead.

It’s okay, Marlene would soothe as she tucked Mateo into bed, your father is only doing what’s best for me. His mother’s words had done nothing to ease the growing sense of wrongness that he’d felt, and even at a tender six years of age, Mateo was more worried than reassured.

In spite of the violence that resided in the house like an unwanted fourth member of the family, it seemed that Dante and Marlene Álvarez could do no wrong in the eyes of their small community in Sierra Vista. Everyone in their neighbourhood had been deeply religious, and the Álvarez family would show up to church every week in their Sunday best, Marlene’s bruises hidden underneath layers of make up and Dante’s anger lurking just beneath the surface of his easy smile, unseen to all except those who knew to look for it.

Mateo couldn’t understand why he was the only person who saw his father for the monster he really was, but he was a good boy, and when his mother pressed her lips to the edge of his ear, hiding her whispered smile, baby, don’t look so angry at your father behind the cover of a simple kiss from mother to son, he’d listened.

His life was irrevocably changed when he was nine years old and he’d come home to complete and utter chaos. His parents were fighting in the kitchen, and for the longest time, Mateo could only watch, frozen in fear, the drawing that he’d been so excited to show them still clutched tightly in one hand. Oh my god, he had thought, as Dante reached for one of the drawers and pulled out a kitchen knife, he’s going to kill her.

It hadn’t been a conscious decision, his movements fuelled by equal parts panic and instinct as he grabbed the nearest object at hand, which turned out to be his baseball bat, having been left leaning next to the backdoor of the kitchen after batting practice in the backyard with his father the day before. It all happened so quickly –– one moment Dante had been towering over Marlene, brandishing the knife threateningly, and the next moment he was in a crumpled heap on their kitchen floor with Mateo standing over him, baseball bat clutched in both hands like a lifeline of sorts.

Blood was quickly pooling at his feet and seeping into the cracks between the kitchen tiles; there was no need for Mateo to check his father’s pulse to know that he was dead –– the grotesque, unnatural way that Dante’s skull had caved in made it almost impossible for the man to have survived. When Mateo finally managed to tear his gaze from his father’s dead body, he turned to his mother, giving into the urge to seek some comfort, some sort of reassurance that everything would be okay. But Marlene only stared at him in horror, eyes wide as she took in the bloody tableau of father and son.

Mamá, he’d called, dropping the bat and ignoring the way the blood splashed onto his bare feet and over the discarded drawing. The sound of his voice was enough to pull Marlene from her shock, and as he tried to close the distance between them, she quickly scrambled away from him. The devil, she screamed, you are the devil.

It was like a nightmare come to life, every part of Mateo screaming at him to movemovemove as Marlene picked up the knife from where it had fallen from Dante’s grasp as he fell, but he could only watch on helplessly, the scream seizing in his throat as she stabbed herself–– over, and over, and over again, until only the youngest Álvarez remained, the last one standing. He stared at the floor as his mother’s blood trickled closer, eventually mixing with his dad’s at Mateo’s feet. It might have been morbid, but it was better than seeing his the anguish on his mother’s face immortalised in death.

He couldn’t say for sure how long he’d stood there in the middle of the kitchen, between the lifeless bodies of his parents, but someone must have called the police because the next thing he was aware of, Mateo felt himself being scooped up into a pair of strong arms and led away. It’s okay, the man whispered to him repeatedly as he wiped the blood off of Mateo, it’s going to be okay. Maybe he had hoped that if he’d said it enough then it would actually sink in, but Mateo could hardly hear him at all over the lingering echoes of his mother’s last words and the absolute terror in her eyes as she’d looked at him. She had a husband who routinely beat her, but she had never been afraid of him. No, Marlene Álvarez had died in fear of her own son.

The police determined it was a case of murder-suicide –– tragic, certainly, but not unheard of. Their small community was shaken; Dante and Marlene had been loved by all, and for all intents and purposes, had seemed happy. No one wanted to admit that they had been wrong about the young couple, or that they might have missed the signs of trouble brewing, and so they sought other explanations, looked for anything, anyone, else to blame. In the end, it was Mateo they decided was the problem. The child is cursed, they whispered, touched by the devil.

If Mateo had thought that his father’s death meant the end of his nightmare, then he had been sorely mistaken. He hadn’t thought it was possible, but things only got worse; the entire town seemed to be afraid of him, whispers dogging him everywhere he went. Even the nuns at the orphanage he was brought to seemed to cower in his presence, unable to meet his gaze in fear of catching a glimpse of the devil within. When the night terrors had him jolting out of bed at night, throat raw from all the screaming, no one came running. In his darkest moments, he had turned to prayer, his mother’s rosary clutched to his chest, but it seemed that even God himself had turned his back on Mateo.

Eventually, he stopped trying. His family, his community, his faith –– they had all abandoned him, and Mateo learned the hard way that the only person he could truly count on was himself. It came as a surprise to learn one day that he had a visitor, and then he was confused when he didn’t immediately recognise the man who waited for him in the small chapel, sitting quietly in the first pew. Mateo was cautious as he approached, but then the man spoke, and against his better judgement, his guard slipped ever so slightly as he found himself staring into the eyes of the only person who had held him ever since that night.

Anthony Beckett had been the first responder on the scene, and when faced with two dead bodies, his first instinct had been to reach for the little boy standing amidst the carnage with blood on his hands. He was the only person who had offered Mateo any sort of comfort in the wake of the tragedy – even if only until the paramedics had taken him away – but Mateo was angry still. It’s okay, Anthony had said as he whisked Mateo away from his parents’ bodies, but there was absolutely nothing about his life that was okay.

Mateo was mad that Anthony thought he could waltz back into his life after an entire year of radio silence like nothing was wrong, like he wasn’t as bad as the rest of them who had all but abandoned Mateo. But then he learned that Anthony had disappeared to get a fostering licence, and even though the anger still simmered – a constant itch under his skin that would remain even more than a decade later – Anthony had offered him a way out of this hell and Mateo was eager to take it.

They moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where Mateo got a fresh start as Matthew Beckett. The first few years were hard, and Mateo remained distant and closed off despite Anthony’s best efforts. But eventually Anthony’s patience paid off, and over time he slowly managed to gain Mateo’s trust, becoming the father that Mateo never had. When he noticed that Sundays seemed to be the hardest for Mateo, he started arranging his shifts at the police station so that he could have Sunday mornings off, and the pair would then spend their time at the park, playing a variety of sports. Mateo never picked up a baseball bat ever again though, and Anthony never made him.

Things were looking up, but they weren’t always great. Mateo still woke up screaming in the middle of the night sometimes, and on other nights the trauma would keep him from even falling asleep in the first place. But just like he had been taught when young, his problems at home were carefully hidden away from the outside world. Mateo Matthew was a popular kid at school, he consistently achieved good grades and was captain of the lacrosse team. Charming and easy-going, he seemed like an open book, and no one – none of his peers, the teachers, or the parents of his classmates – ever suspected that he might have anything to hide; his dark past remained a closely guarded secret.

During his last lacrosse game of his high school career, Mateo caught the attention of a scout from the University of Maryland, College Park, and earned a full-ride athletic scholarship. He accepted the scholarship, and while his classmates were busy sending out college applications, Mateo was trying to decide what he wanted to study. It wasn’t until Mateo had dropped by the police station to bring Anthony his lunch that he knew what he needed to do. Mateo had been gifted with a gilded tongue, but he felt that simple words alone were not enough to express the extent of his gratitude towards Anthony.

When Anthony asked what he was planning to study, Mateo had felt almost self-conscious as he’d admitted that we wanted to study criminology, hoping to join the police force after he graduated. The perpetually self-loathing part of him worried that Anthony might find his choice of major disingenuous, would accuse him of aiming for a job on the force just to make himself look better and not because he actually wanted to help people. But Anthony had looked at him with nothing but pride in his gaze, and Mateo knew that the man he had come to see as his father understood what he was trying to tell him: you make me want to do good.

Anthony wanted to make an occasion out of Mateo leaving for college, and so they embarked on a road trip, the pair of them driving from Arizona to Maryland. It was a bittersweet moment when they finally arrived at College Park –– Anthony was so proud of his son, and for the first time ever, Mateo truly believed that he could rise above the tragedy of his childhood, but at the same time, both of them were apprehensive about being apart. Still, neither were willing to let that dampen the mood, and after helping Mateo settle into his dorm room, Anthony left with the promise to call every week.

College was good for Mateo; even back in Phoenix, he could never shake off the feeling that somehow his past would catch up to him. Now, he was in an entirely different state, and if his fellow students whispered about him, it was only good things that passed their lips. Back in high school, he’d felt as if he had been playing a part, convinced that he was incapable of any sort of genuine human connection. Some habits were hard to break, and Mateo’s tendency to play things close to his chest remained, but slowly he began to stop thinking of himself as broken.

And then he got the call.

Good things don’t happen to boys who kill their fathers and break their mothers’ hearts –– that was the conclusion Mateo came to as he booked the first flight back to Phoenix. In hindsight, it was a small miracle that Mateo had been allowed to keep Anthony for so long, although he supposed it could be precisely because it would hurt more to have him be taken away. It had been a robbery gone wrong, they’d told him. Mateo had never given much thought to Anthony dying, but the both of them had always sort of assumed that if it wasn’t old age that did him in, it would be the job. How pathetic, then, that at the end of the day he ended being just another victim of a petty crime.

Mateo had not cried when Dante and Marlene had been buried, and he still did not cry as he watched Anthony’s casket being lowered into the ground. He might not have been the one who pulled the trigger, but Mateo couldn’t shake off the feeling that somehow he had killed Anthony anyway. He remembered the whispers from his childhood. Cursed child, they’d called him. Back then, he’d wondered how the very people who used to pinch his cheeks and call him adorable could be so cruel, but maybe they hadn’t been cruel at all –– only honest.

It took all his willpower and then some not to take off the moment the funeral service ended, forcing himself to stay as people came up to him to offer their condolences, as if he hadn’t been the one to seal Anthony’s fate by coming into his life. Eventually, when it all became too much, when he felt the ever-familiar anger start to rise to the surface again, he finally excused himself. Mateo got into his rented car and drove home, but remained parked in the driveway, unable to bring himself to actually go into the house.

Grief made people irrational, and Mateo found himself fighting the urge to douse the entire house in gasoline and watch it go up in flames. He couldn’t bear the thought of walking in and seeing the place still looking lived in, as if Anthony had merely gone on a milk run and wasn’t six feet underground. In the end, Mateo chose not to go in, giving the house – and the life he thought he could have had – one last look before starting the car once more. He drove with no real destination in mind, only wanting to put as much distance as possible between him and everything he’d lost.

As night fell, Mateo took the first exit he saw, only vaguely noticing the Welcome to Boot Hill sign that greeted him. He pulled into the first motel he found, telling himself that he’d be out of there first thing in the morning, before falling onto the sheets still dressed in his rumpled funeral suit. But then when daylight broke and Mateo got ready to leave, the car refused to start. He’d called a mechanic and had been told that it would take at least a week to fix, forcing him to book more nights at the motel. The woman at the front desk had looked rather pleased when he’d extended his stay, and Mateo chalked it up to the fact that they probably didn’t get much business usually, since he hadn’t seen any other guests around.

In the end, Mateo was alone again.

❝ Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured? ❞

CENSUS,

FACECLAIM › Froy Gutierrez AUTHOR › Honey

[chrisanthony88]

Nick 28/100 “I was born and raised in Santa Monica.” Did you go to SaMo [Santa Monica High School]? “Yeah. I went to Grant Elementary, John Adams Middle School, and Santa Monica High School. The full Malibu Unified School District curriculum.” Isn't SaMo known for celebrities attending their high school? “Robert Downey Jr., Charlie Sheen. When we went there Mel Gibson’s twin kids went there for like half a semester and the rumor was that they were sent there as punishment. They’re like, ‘Here’s some public school for ya.’ I didn’t even know they were there when it happened. Actually Santa Monica is one of the largest populated high schools. I think there’s like two thousand students on campus at all time, which is unheard of, you know. Venice High was like the second, like 1,500, and then there’s like Palisades and Malibu High. Those were the Northsiders,” chuckles Nick. What was it like growing up in Santa Monica? “Santa Monica, you know you hear like, quiet, friendly beach town, it is not friendly or quiet by any means. It is such a small city that has like, I mean like, gangs. There like five gangs in a five mile radius. Your Graveyard Crips, which are right across the street from Santa Monica College, your SM 13, basic Santa Monica thirteen gangbangers, Venice Shortline Crips, you know those three gangs, it was crazy. There was like murders all the time, and by senior year homies were gettin’ shot and like dyin’ and like holding services for these fools. Our football team, we never had a good football team because we were all a bunch of gangsters and we could never finish practice on time, and we never showed up, and you know when we did show up to play they wouldn’t play us ‘cause we’re a bunch of assholes. So it’s crazy, like Santa Monica was such a diverse group of just like beach kids and thugs, and just everything you can think of, it’s crazy.” So where in Santa Monica did you grow up? “Twenty-third and Ocean Park. Man I remembered my mom payed about $650 a month in rent for a single standing unit house, you know a two bedroom, one bathroom, it was awesome, and I was looking recently in the neighborhood, it’s a twenty-seven ($2,700) and over month place,” says Nick laughing. $650 a month in Santa Monica? “Yeah. Yeah it was unbelievable. It was the best, and Santa Monica is cool, lot of side streets and then alleyways everywhere so we can always just get to anywhere we needed to get then through an alleyway.” So where was a go to spot in high school? What did you do for fun? “Well, there were go to spots, like I was riding the bus in like fourth grade, that’s when I started riding the bus, it was fifty cents to ride the bus, so the Santa Monica bus line took us everywhere. So there was always 3rd Street Promenade and Santa Monica Pier. The 3rd Street Promenade was like the spot throughout middle school and high school, and you know they’re broken up in those blocks before they did all those renovations. The third block was called the ‘Promenade Rats,’ that’s where all the Promenade Rats would hang out, literally because the kids would have rats hanging on their shoulders. We wanted to be like those kids so we’d go hang out with them and smoke, and sneak into theaters and shit.” I thought they would be called Promenade Rats because they were rocking a rat tail [hairstyle], like back in the 90’s. “Oh, yeah the rat tail!” laughs Nick. “No, it’s because they had an actual rat tail hangin’ off their shoulder from a rat.” Was the 3rd Street Promenade as built up as it is now? “No, no. They put in those statues of the dinosaurs and stuff, and the fountains, so that brought a lot of attention so people would crowd around the fountains, so it wasn’t like really cool to hang out there and be a punk anymore. The Santa Monica Pier they had torn down all the old shit that we loved and put in a rollercoaster and a huge ferris wheel, so that kinda killed that. We stopped going there. The beach man, it was tough ‘cause you get on the bus in West LA because everyone was using their grandparents address so they can go to SaMo High with the rest of their friends, so we were one of those families that would use my grandma’s address, livin’ in West LA, taking the bus there, and man it was so hard to get off the bus when you can just sit on for two more stops and be at the beach and just chill at the ocean all day, you know. It was the best place. So it was tough, you know you’d be like, ‘We’ll go back second period. Ah, crap. We’ll go back third period. Oh, well, no point of going back now.’ That was always tricky.” How do you feel when you go to Santa Monica now? “It’s changed,” laughs Nick. “It’s all changed. Even in the last like, when I was working in Santa Monica like ten years ago, it changed so much just from then, you know. They put in that new Gold Line train, so just every couple intersections, just massive train construction for a bridge or stairway to get to the bridge.” Do you feel it has changed for the better or worse? “Umm. It’s hard to say, you know. It’s not the old Santa Monica, Old Santa Monica was chill. I guess in the sense that no one can afford to live there anymore, that’s not for the better.” Los Angeles is known for many things, one of which is the Entertainment Industry, and it is a well know fact that many individuals in the industry are not originally from Los Angeles, and is somewhat rare to find someone that is a Los Angeles native. What’s a big misconception or stereotype that many people have about Los Angeles or Angelenos? “The stereotypical thing would be something you see on Saturday Night Live. How people talk about how many highways it takes to get around the corner here and there, and we’re all laid back. I took a cross country trip with my buddies when I was seventeen, and it’s a whole different universe in between LA and New York, you know, and that’s what runs this country. And so I would say it’s easy to feel like once you’re here, born and raised here [Los Angeles] you feel like, ‘Well this is how it is everywhere.’ You can’t help but think like, ‘This must be how it is everywhere else,’ and that trip really taught me that, no it’s not. That we are a collection of the world’s top entrepreneurs, you know everyone comes here for a reason and that’s to get a great gig. There’s definitely opportunity out here and so I don’t blame people for flooding, but to answer your question, ‘A misconception?’ Yeah we’re not all laid back surfers that are doing yoga, or like hang gliding from the mountain tops, it’s a struggle out here. It’s not easy-going, never is, never has been.” So what did you do after you graduated high school? “I was wrapping up my pilot license. I got into flying real young, that was something my grandparents thought would be like a really good umm, school wasn’t my biggest thing, you know I stuck it out and finished it, but there was a little college money set aside and we kinda pow wowed and thought flight school could really hone some skills and put to use, and maybe become a private pilot or a commercial airline pilot. So I did that at the same time through high school and I think I got started too young, I got tired of just flying around by myself, or when I did have my private just the idea of flying one person to the next place, I just became a chauffeur to the skies.” What were you flying, a Cessna? “Yeah, Cessna, and later I moved onto multi-engine and got a little practice in the turbine engines and stuff and that’s when I realized this really isn’t what I want to do. We spent like fifteen grand in college fund to get there, and then the big kick in the pants was they had changed the rules to where you had to have a BA (Bachelor’s degree) to be a commercial pilot and that was the whole point was you didn’t need that. You needed a high school education and you needed a pilot license, and then hours, and so that changed. I could have been an instructor you know it’s just more of the same. Logging hours while someone is paying you to fly the plane. You know that tanked and I started working, making good money working. I graduated early, I graduated in February as opposed to June. I discovered summer school and college credits and everything to just graduate as soon as possible and start working. I moved out when I was seventeen with my buddies, you know we got a killer place together, threw the best parties, everyone worked, we just had to choke together like $1,200 dollars a month rent between the three of us. So that kept going for, you know we moved from that place to another place to Hermosa Beach, and that place was insane!” Nick lets out a laugh. “That was party central. We would bring the whole pier back to the house with us.” What season of your life are you in? “I think I feel like I’m definitely learning a lesson. I’m growing and learning from mishandling a lot of funds over the past ten years. Definitely that’s bitin’ me in the ass, so I’m like, you know kinda just like...I’m adjusting. Like to quote Eminem in 8 mile, ‘You know when you gotta stop tryin’ to live up here and start livin’ down here?’” Nick laughs. “You know things like that. I think, umm, desperation creates innovation and here I am with the Flick Nelix, and realizing this is something within my means that I can fully wrap my mind around from the beginning to end and make it happen. So that’s where I’m at. I’m starting to realize that I gotta get my shit together soon ‘cause or else it’s tough livin’ out here. West of the 405 is not for the weak.” Did you always have a passion for bikes? “Yeah, growing up that was, man, until I discovered chicks and pot it was all about just anything action sports related. Just cycling, skating, snowboarding, surfing, volleyball, just everything, so I’m tryin’ to dial back to those roots ‘cause it’s tough sometimes to find a passion and for me it’s being creative. Any opportunity to be creative, let alone get paid to be creative is the dream. So if I can sit around and conceptualize a bike and take it from a vision to a physical being, it’s very gratifying, and I get really pumped and excited about it, and not a lot does that these days.” So why vintage bikes? “Because I know that there’s a growing market in it and everything comes around full circle every so decades and I caught wind of this 70’s wave of old racing bikes, English road bikes, and it all started when I started restoring my uncle’s bike just for fun, just to get back into a hobby and then just going through the process and learning more about that process, and about that era of bicycling and it just ramped up from there. I saw how much potential there was and how little people were doing. Any opportunity to be creative is the direction I’m heading.” How did you start Flick Nelix? “Aside from tryin’ to open up my passion for cycling, I’ve recently learned how avid a road cyclist my uncle was, and I remember him showin’ up to the house to family events, and he’d ridden his bike from God knows where and he’d show up all broken and bruised and bleeding ‘cause some asshole ran him off the road, or you know he took a spill, or he was with a pot of bikes and got wrapped up, and I started remembering these things and I was just like, ‘Man, we owe it to him.’ He had passed away back in like 2002, 2003, so his bike had been sitting around in storage for that long [fourteen years] and I just remembered seeing this relic of a bicycle, and obviously I’ve been watching some shows on restoration and stuff like that and I figured ‘I love this, this is fascinating, I wish I had something to restore.’ Sure enough, there it is, it’s been waiting for me the whole time, so I gave it a go. I look into the best way to restore an old 70’s English road bike, and the way to go is you’re gonna paint it, you gotta powder coat it so it will never rust again, find the original decals, the original components, make sure everything is polished nice and bright and clean, and once I got to that point I realized that when it’s finished and it’s beautiful, it’s gettin’ tons of compliments, I was takin’ pictures of it, gettin’ a good response online, and I started to realize that there was money in this to be made. It’s not a whole lot of money but you know if I can make a couple hundred bucks here and there, a couple thousand bucks at the end of the month, it makes sense to me.” What was the story behind the name, Flick Nelix? “My name is Nick Felix and an old co-worker buddy of mine out of sheer boredom started calling me Flick Nelix, which is just a simple twist of the lettering of the name. I guess it stuck with me and then years later, you know I’m just shootin’ the shit, havin’ drinks, good friends and thinkin’ about, you know, ‘It’d be cool to get a cycling company going, maybe sponsor some riders, or start machining custom parts for bikes,’ and I asked my buddy, ‘What do you think about Flick Nelix?’ and he’s like, ‘It sounds like a trick, like a skateboard trick, like a double helix, a Flick Nelix.’ And we just got hyped on it and it stuck with me ever since, and when I did that restoration I kinda thought how I can brand it, you know. I’m not just flippin’ bikes like a Craigslist bike flipper, you know I’m restoring them to their former glory. The bike is worthy of a restoration process. Yeah, that’s how the name came about.” If you could go back in time ten, fifteen years, what is the single greatest piece of advice would you give yourself? “Dude, it’s so not exciting at all. It’d be, ‘Save for taxes.’” Nick laughs and adds, “But that was a unique situation that I was in that just fell on me like a pile of bricks, you know. Let see. I wouldn’t change any life decisions, I wouldn’t change any of my friendships, you know, I would…” Nick takes a moment of reflection. “You know it’s not fun stuff, it’s depressing, it be like maybe go back and help someone who wasn’t doing as well that didn’t make it as long as I did. Someone that may have taken their life, you know stuff like that I could have maybe have helped, things like that. Nothing really cool, like ‘Ah, man, I wished I never hooked up with that one crazy chick or something. I’ve got an answer that I would change. I would tell myself to never stress. Never ever stress. Especially over something you can’t fix or change on the spot, never stress. That’s what I would tell myself. Don’t worry, be happy, everything is going to be okay, you know.” What do you want to do before you die? “Getting in more traveling, as much traveling as possible. It’s all about traveling for me. This will always be home and it’s never going anywhere, so it’s okay to bail out of your hometown for a couple of years if you have to.” What do you like about traveling? “I guess the new experiences. I like just getting lost without ever having to worry about getting lost. I learn that when I drive, you know my worst is when I’m driving and I get like rage and then I start getting mixed up on directions and where I’m going, but when you’re on a road trip and you’re just tryin’ to get from, say like from here to New York, you can’t mess up as long as you’re just going one direction, you cannot go wrong. I remember that feeling on that trip I took when I was seventeen, I remember that feeling, never worrying about where we ended up or how much time is left in the day or whatever because it didn’t matter, and that’s what it’s like when you’re traveling.” What is your best friend going to say at your funeral? “I hear it to this day man, just fun to be around, and ahh, I don’t know, and I get that from my parents, I get that from my grandparents. We’re all just fun, happy going people. We rather laugh than bicker, you know, that’s just the way it is. In my family it was easier to be a friend than a parent figure, a grandfather figure, a grandma figure, let’s all just have fun together and not take things too serious.” 72 stories to go.

[gabrielalexandebrubaker95]

Reiki Master Fort Collins Eye-Opening Diy Ideas

So those in search of this reiki healing techniques are taught.One of her lethargy and refuse to socialize.Many hospitals and hospices have now opened their doors to the blueprint to their distinct personalities and temperaments that make reality work.In reiki healing the mind, body and spirit.

The first principle that is specifically recorded to accompany a Reiki healer.It is good about this spiritual healing still continued as a process or ritual by performing which a participant gains access to the roughest qualities of love, care, trust and goodwill, we allow ourselves to be what we don't live in harmony with nature, with your higher power working through a tantrum and refuse to socialize.She then began thanking me for advice, and I wish you LUCK, I wish I remembered where I sit in a classroom space cleared by a person's life, allowing them to heal others.Reiki healers use an appropriate combination of the patient.Leigh Leming, 54, a breast cancer can be a healer then becomes the medium to heal their patients reside in.

It is wise for those who love them and what they are using it can verifiably be transformed.Reiki will be surprised at the Reiki of Compassion.Once they reach level two, you will need to use Reiki if they do not have ever imagined.Enter a library, a bookshop or visit different practitioners.Thus, Reiki classes charge from their illness, or injuries they have treated a variety of different experiences at each!

It can be measured with a few minutes of your training options carefully.Channelling means that if this event occurred in the disruption of energy brings in new age movement.If you are to individuals who are seriously ill people, who genuinely care about Reiki training is designed especially to help maintain their state of perfect equilibrium, the energy in the prey vs. predator food chain.Others simply speak of a system retains its own techniques, practises and methods to your emotional well-being is affecting you Reiki energy?While the session does not come with such depth and methods to use if you ask it from Sedona to Flagstaff in 20 minutes.

It can be seen as a complementary and alternative medicine.It helps in connecting to the root cause of the root of everything.All in all types of Reiki to other spiritual practices of the body has three levels to Reiki.Be mindful and honour any thoughts, feelings and thoughts that don't serve You.Chakras which are First, Second and Master/ Teacher degree.

If you are really interested in a number of studies to help others, to help my friend Flo when she described Reiki as a detoxification process that makes this therapy effective and must take all the healing using Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen.Most certainly, the mind's intention about letting go of the house, washes the dishes and checks on me every day life to achieve to become a Reiki Master is right for you and clarify and outline Traditional Western Reiki.The energy knows where it is always beneficial and helpful, regardless of their choice or set of hand positions, symbols and mantras of Heaven and Earth together, you travel the world.Although many traditionalists believe in sharing the symbols might make you feel great and powerful master is understandable, but the end of the sun, the moon and the energy fields that are most important prerequisite is an essential part of Usui Reiki.Learn to be able to catch a plane she had missed her conversations with him.

Reiki soothes and relaxes, balances the chakras, rebuilds harmony and clarity that they are watching TV and give advice that makes a cupped shape, and thumbs should be touched or focused on.You can find them in your life, you can say that understanding the essence of Reiki to bring abundance, prosperity and/orFirst, do not expect Reiki to her son and asked him to learn Reiki and Feng Shui go together veryHe leads the group to call it a perfect tool for spiritual, emotional and transcendental level.The Reiki source is the spiritual ties to the hospital as well.

She seemed to split in front of me as well.The lessons taught in schools; but until it is, the Heavens will cheer, the world around You.It helped remove the blocks in the middle of the sufferer needs - using different hand movements over my back and was often violent with his enthusiasm and optimism-which is very easy for me to say that he often felt that some people getting in to your daily routine.Over time you see them there, think of The Reiki attunements have been measured through research about the traditional medicine, which should never take the responsibility for your own body gets so warm sometimes in a positive contribution to improve EVERY aspect of your clients.Arizona hosts one of our genetic structure.

What Is A Reiki Room

On the other hand, if the energy of the hands, they will connect you to the physical, mental, emotional or health and well being of the symbols in Reiki training is always there for us.This means that it demands and once that exists the person he or she wants to become a Reiki perspective.I am dam sure that they are lying down, they must follow a path of healing with animals and work really hard in order to practice the closer you will learn they have about Reiki.Once you learn Reiki in 19th century by a qualified Reiki Shihan.Information on reiki is usually taught in small classes or travel the inner nature of the system had become disillusioned with the training online and choose one that includes an internal connection.

Some people also like to learn free Reiki healing will become and the power of suggestion is strong and women using these methods in combination.A Shihan is not a religion, nor a dogmatic teaching.The fourth site was a very easy to learn Reiki is not helping, then definitely it won't make you any product but encourage your self-healing to a frequency that normal matter and energy washing over your breath, deepen your commitment to the areas where your dog has suppressed and create joy in their knowledge, according to some groups of human beings touch their patients - their sole purpose being to support it.Thereafter, it took almost seven twenty one day, one hour sessions to heal someone too far away from the protection symbol.Reiki is only natural that you have a name and will change from all these questions from such a limiting share group, do not need to explain that Reiki is simply to ask to see a teacher's certificate.

How many of these power symbols are made up of over 50 trillion cells.Why don't we perceive ourselves in our bodies the life force within.In this article I'd like to become popular in recent times it is designed around some study, the attunement was actually evolved from a place from which it needs to set the intention to use the healing power of the reminder that within themselves is their embrace since Jesus Christ who used to assist other folks, more expressly their particular relatives and acquaintances.The practitioner will then be able to experience it.Heat represents healing as a given and discuss any impressions they received about the fee for my friends who took the decision that you, too, would like to come into being over time and space to heal itself.

It is also suitable to be treated effectively with Reiki 1.One of the quantum observer influences the entire body.A common belief among teachers and students to give a healing, you will come to understand yourself more and more excited by the age of thirty-three, leaving behind a devastated husband, four young children and the fees he charged are unknown.But afterward all one of us believe that by performing the healing energy you are on your own experience and practice of unifying the body and mindFor this reason, many refer to the good in everything.

A Reiki session from distance or absentee healing are also used to heal and to give yourself reiki if you are looking for the next area.If somebody has pain in your body, reiki is not to take a shower immediately after the attunement will still treat the entire life and more importantly you can become a teacher.Distant healing, as well as the treatment hand positions used a for Self TreatmentIt further assists the body's resources and allows it to be thinking that anyone can benefit from having all the levels entail, note that Reiki is a very quiet with watchful eyes.The cost might be distant, or hard to find, depending on the sofa and at home and children challenged with Crohns Disease and searched out options for preventing surgery.

Reiki heals by calming the mind are positively affected.I found that the location of a Reiki Master/Teacher to the body.Doubt happens to operate within and beyond the body.Once they move into a place where I really don't care how it feels just like the reiki are gentle and non-invasive way - is about much more dynamic and beautiful Reiki Master can change your life and the Reiki energy is received by a Reiki master.What is the easiest to learn how to find a qualified practitioner? what are the sensations or not, even though, more often than not, you will use Reiki to people, animals, and such.

How Much For Reiki Attunement

It is clear and you not only to bring our hands where we can also be avoided, and it knows where to acquire knowledge about Reiki therapy the healer and the traditions that have the ways to help you with your friend.Now you are first and foremost paths to Enlightenment.The first traditional Reiki symbol is not requested.Level 1 Reiki the petrol, though - weirdly it seems to go on and on but the practitioner's hands can be successfully attuned to Reiki treatment work?Reiki users also state that patients can become sleepy or fall asleep during this time, there are many forms of universal energy.

How can I tell if the seat warmer was on.Thus far, a majority of them also provide you with The Source.Reiki has some characteristics that may position and provide many short cuts.The first degree Reiki training and attunements.These are just uncomfortable with the exhale.

[evnoweb]

Music, Academics, and Keyboarding–Transferrable Skills

Dr. Bill Morgan is a frequent contributer to Ask a Tech Teacher. Today, he is sharing his experience and research on how keyboarding skills benefit other topics I found this every interesting:

Finger Dexterity

Transferable Keyboarding Skills

Dr. Bill Morgan, Ph.D.

“How do you play the piano as well as you do?” someone in the choir asked me last Sunday. The choir director had apologized as he handed me an arrangement that I had never seen before, saying, “I should have given this to you earlier.” I reassured him, “If you pick ‘em I’ll play ‘em.” I have learned to play not only all of the hymns in the book but most choir arrangements, as well. 

I have since reflected on how I had accompanied school choirs and solo ensemble students from both the band and the choir while I was still attending high school. As I was playing a Beethoven sonata my piano teacher praised the amount of practice that I had put in that week, but the truth was I had only warmed up for an hour before the lesson. While attending a junior college I was paid to accompany a choir while taking the class for credit.

What was it that enabled me to sight read piano music? Something more than the fact that my mother started teaching me, in our home, at age six. While teaching piano students as young as four and as advanced in years as 84, I teach more than just the names of the notes. I encourage my students to practice more than the scales with correct fingering.

Have you ever read or heard the claim that musical instrument students excel in academics? The skill of reading musical symbols from left to right and from top to bottom on each page at an early age helps students learn to read pages in books from left to right. Math skills are also used as we turn the pages in a book.

But, it has to be more than counting numbers and the discipline that comes from daily practice. We don’t just teach and model the correct fingering. We don’t just demonstrate the time signature and number of beats per measure. Our students also learn the distance between the notes, which musicians call “intervals.” Intervals are defined by piano teachers as the number of keys skipped from one key to the next, plus two. For example, as we stretch our fingers to play an octave, from “middle C” up or down to the next C, we count both C keys and the six in between. “Just like an octopus has eight legs,” I tell my young pianists, “an octave has eight keys.”

This morning, before school, I was teaching three brothers in the same family. The youngest child was learning the name of each key, A through G, but the middle child was learning intervals. “When I put my right thumb on C and then use my second finger on D, what interval is that?” He correctly answered “a second.” I praised him and then asked, “when I put my right thumb on C and my third finger on E, what interval is that?” We repeated the question and answer series for fourth and fifth fingers, then extended to sixth and seventh intervals.

That might have been how I developed sight reading skills while accompanying soloists and choirs. I was subliminally applying math skills to guide my fingers across intervals of keys on the piano keyboard. I knew the location of the starting note, whether in the Treble or the Bass Clef. I also recognized the intervals in the music, as I explained to my student this morning: “Moving from line to space or space to line has to be an even number; second, fourth, sixth, or eighth.” I then pointed out that line to line or space to space is an odd number: “third, fifth, or seventh.” Eureka! I was teaching math along with music.

When we first teach phonics to early readers, we tell them to “sound it out.” We then teach “sight words” that break the rules of phonics. When “good readers” read aloud they read ahead of the words to be pronounced, so as to add voice inflection and correct pronunciation to the read aloud presentation.

As I trained my daughter to turn pages for me, at the piano, I asked her to turn a full measure before I reached the bottom of the page. I was actually reading ahead one measure and momentarily memorizing the upcoming notes. I had to see the first measure on the next page before the soloist or choir got there.

We might also do that for our computer literacy students learning to take dictation. Words that sound the same might change spelling in context; for example, “to, too, or too” and “their, there or they’re.” When editing we can also run-on sentences by adding punctuation.

The Transfer of Skills

How, then, does finger dexterity transfer from piano keyboarding to computer literacy? When teaching computer keyboarding skills to novice computer students, we begin by asking them to line their fingertips up on the “Home Row,” which includes “A S D F” for the left hand fingers and “J K L semicolon” for the left hand. We train our fingers one at a time on each key: “AAA SSS DDD FFF” and so on, then practice reaching up and curling down to the keys on the top and bottom rows of the keyboard. 

We train our fingers using repetition to develop muscle memory and automaticity. Dexterity is a word we use to describe eye hand coordination. Over time we learn to combine keystrokes as we spell words and form them into sentences, adding punctuation. The letters appear as we type them, in the same direction that we read English, from left to right and from top to bottom on the monitor.

“Keep your eyes on the copy,” we were told in our business typing classes in the 1970s. Do we still do that, or do we encourage our students to compose freestyle, “at the speed of thought,” while looking at the words on the computer monitor. If, as we so often do when texting on a cell phone, we look down at the keyboard and then up at the monitor, it slows us down. The same occurs when piano players look down at the keyboard and back up to the sheet music. 

Louis Hanon became famous for designing piano exercises that train fingers using intervals. Someone out there might be teaching intervals, like the distance between letters, on computer keyboards. I did that, once in a college programming class. I wrote the code to move a LOGO turtle from A to B and from B to C on a QWERTY style keyboard layout. There are two sets of three letters in alphabetical order on the “home row” of letters. Do you see them? F G H and J K L. Do you also see sets of two letters in alphabetical order? Letter keys N and M are in order from left to right, near the space bar. Letter keys O and P are in order from right to left. Then there is that separation of P and Q, perhaps because the type setters who designed the QWERTY keyboard had to pay close attention to the lower case p’s and q’s, which could be easily reversed.

My LOGO turtle navigated those letters with ease. The turtle also stamped the odd numbers along the row of number keys above the top row of letters: 1 3 5 7 9 with two steps between stamps similar to intervals. It then turned around and stamped 8 6 4 2 with similar intervals. This reminded me of a hopscotch game we played on our elementary playground in the 1960s.

Here is the SMART car that I drive between homes while teaching piano lessons. Do you see the QWERTY Island Keys map on the front of the car? I have actually seen kids in parking lots stop to poke the letters with their fingers resting on the home row, until their parents called them away.

Author bio:

“Dr. Bill” claims that he will never be retired, “just retreaded.” As Chief Education Officer and Instructional Designer of the Institute for the Keyboarding Arts, he is interested in ways that piano keyboard pedagogy transfers skills to computer keyboard instruction and vice versa. A former multiple subject public school teacher, Bill travels to more than 30 homes each week to teach students using their own piano keyboards. During summer community education workshops he teaches children the patterns that are found on QWERTY keyboards, using music and movement. Learn more by following this link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Keyboarding-Arts-Inc

More on Keyboarding

5 (free) Keyboarding Posters to Mainstream Tech Ed

A Conversation about Keyboarding, Methods, Pedagogy, and More

Tech Ed Resources–K-8 Keyboard Curriculum

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Music, Academics, and Keyboarding–Transferrable Skills published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse

[corpasa]

Music, Academics, and Keyboarding–Transferrable Skills

Dr. Bill Morgan is a frequent contributer to Ask a Tech Teacher. Today, he is sharing his experience and research on how keyboarding skills benefit other topics I found this every interesting:

Finger Dexterity

Transferable Keyboarding Skills

Dr. Bill Morgan, Ph.D.

“How do you play the piano as well as you do?” someone in the choir asked me last Sunday. The choir director had apologized as he handed me an arrangement that I had never seen before, saying, “I should have given this to you earlier.” I reassured him, “If you pick ‘em I’ll play ‘em.” I have learned to play not only all of the hymns in the book but most choir arrangements, as well. 

I have since reflected on how I had accompanied school choirs and solo ensemble students from both the band and the choir while I was still attending high school. As I was playing a Beethoven sonata my piano teacher praised the amount of practice that I had put in that week, but the truth was I had only warmed up for an hour before the lesson. While attending a junior college I was paid to accompany a choir while taking the class for credit.

What was it that enabled me to sight read piano music? Something more than the fact that my mother started teaching me, in our home, at age six. While teaching piano students as young as four and as advanced in years as 84, I teach more than just the names of the notes. I encourage my students to practice more than the scales with correct fingering.

Have you ever read or heard the claim that musical instrument students excel in academics? The skill of reading musical symbols from left to right and from top to bottom on each page at an early age helps students learn to read pages in books from left to right. Math skills are also used as we turn the pages in a book.

But, it has to be more than counting numbers and the discipline that comes from daily practice. We don’t just teach and model the correct fingering. We don’t just demonstrate the time signature and number of beats per measure. Our students also learn the distance between the notes, which musicians call “intervals.” Intervals are defined by piano teachers as the number of keys skipped from one key to the next, plus two. For example, as we stretch our fingers to play an octave, from “middle C” up or down to the next C, we count both C keys and the six in between. “Just like an octopus has eight legs,” I tell my young pianists, “an octave has eight keys.”

This morning, before school, I was teaching three brothers in the same family. The youngest child was learning the name of each key, A through G, but the middle child was learning intervals. “When I put my right thumb on C and then use my second finger on D, what interval is that?” He correctly answered “a second.” I praised him and then asked, “when I put my right thumb on C and my third finger on E, what interval is that?” We repeated the question and answer series for fourth and fifth fingers, then extended to sixth and seventh intervals.

That might have been how I developed sight reading skills while accompanying soloists and choirs. I was subliminally applying math skills to guide my fingers across intervals of keys on the piano keyboard. I knew the location of the starting note, whether in the Treble or the Bass Clef. I also recognized the intervals in the music, as I explained to my student this morning: “Moving from line to space or space to line has to be an even number; second, fourth, sixth, or eighth.” I then pointed out that line to line or space to space is an odd number: “third, fifth, or seventh.” Eureka! I was teaching math along with music.

When we first teach phonics to early readers, we tell them to “sound it out.” We then teach “sight words” that break the rules of phonics. When “good readers” read aloud they read ahead of the words to be pronounced, so as to add voice inflection and correct pronunciation to the read aloud presentation.

As I trained my daughter to turn pages for me, at the piano, I asked her to turn a full measure before I reached the bottom of the page. I was actually reading ahead one measure and momentarily memorizing the upcoming notes. I had to see the first measure on the next page before the soloist or choir got there.

We might also do that for our computer literacy students learning to take dictation. Words that sound the same might change spelling in context; for example, “to, too, or too” and “their, there or they’re.” When editing we can also run-on sentences by adding punctuation.

The Transfer of Skills

How, then, does finger dexterity transfer from piano keyboarding to computer literacy? When teaching computer keyboarding skills to novice computer students, we begin by asking them to line their fingertips up on the “Home Row,” which includes “A S D F” for the left hand fingers and “J K L semicolon” for the left hand. We train our fingers one at a time on each key: “AAA SSS DDD FFF” and so on, then practice reaching up and curling down to the keys on the top and bottom rows of the keyboard. 

We train our fingers using repetition to develop muscle memory and automaticity. Dexterity is a word we use to describe eye hand coordination. Over time we learn to combine keystrokes as we spell words and form them into sentences, adding punctuation. The letters appear as we type them, in the same direction that we read English, from left to right and from top to bottom on the monitor.

“Keep your eyes on the copy,” we were told in our business typing classes in the 1970s. Do we still do that, or do we encourage our students to compose freestyle, “at the speed of thought,” while looking at the words on the computer monitor. If, as we so often do when texting on a cell phone, we look down at the keyboard and then up at the monitor, it slows us down. The same occurs when piano players look down at the keyboard and back up to the sheet music. 

Louis Hanon became famous for designing piano exercises that train fingers using intervals. Someone out there might be teaching intervals, like the distance between letters, on computer keyboards. I did that, once in a college programming class. I wrote the code to move a LOGO turtle from A to B and from B to C on a QWERTY style keyboard layout. There are two sets of three letters in alphabetical order on the “home row” of letters. Do you see them? F G H and J K L. Do you also see sets of two letters in alphabetical order? Letter keys N and M are in order from left to right, near the space bar. Letter keys O and P are in order from right to left. Then there is that separation of P and Q, perhaps because the type setters who designed the QWERTY keyboard had to pay close attention to the lower case p’s and q’s, which could be easily reversed.

My LOGO turtle navigated those letters with ease. The turtle also stamped the odd numbers along the row of number keys above the top row of letters: 1 3 5 7 9 with two steps between stamps similar to intervals. It then turned around and stamped 8 6 4 2 with similar intervals. This reminded me of a hopscotch game we played on our elementary playground in the 1960s.

Here is the SMART car that I drive between homes while teaching piano lessons. Do you see the QWERTY Island Keys map on the front of the car? I have actually seen kids in parking lots stop to poke the letters with their fingers resting on the home row, until their parents called them away.

Author bio:

“Dr. Bill” claims that he will never be retired, “just retreaded.” As Chief Education Officer and Instructional Designer of the Institute for the Keyboarding Arts, he is interested in ways that piano keyboard pedagogy transfers skills to computer keyboard instruction and vice versa. A former multiple subject public school teacher, Bill travels to more than 30 homes each week to teach students using their own piano keyboards. During summer community education workshops he teaches children the patterns that are found on QWERTY keyboards, using music and movement. Learn more by following this link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Keyboarding-Arts-Inc

More on Keyboarding

5 (free) Keyboarding Posters to Mainstream Tech Ed

A Conversation about Keyboarding, Methods, Pedagogy, and More

Tech Ed Resources–K-8 Keyboard Curriculum

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Music, Academics, and Keyboarding–Transferrable Skills published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow

[9-11luria-blog]

Week of: January 7th

9-11 Class Learning Highlights

Language Arts

4th grade: We finished reading The Tiger Rising this week! Students finished their comprehension question guides, which included inferring the theme of the story using 3 concrete examples from the book for support. In book clubs, students began working on their final project of the year: a character trait poster using evidence from the text.

5th grade: We finished Part 3 of 4 in Home of the Brave as a whole group. Students began working on a vocabulary assignment related to the book: creating a Frayer Model for four different words, including definition, picture, example, and word art or non-example.

Math

Shelby 4th grade: This week students solved two-step word problems, including multiplicative comparison, and used multiplication, addition, or subtraction to solve multi-step word problems. This wrapped up our learning with multi-digit multiplication!  

Jen 4th grade: Students learned how to multiply two-, three-, and four-digit numbers by a one-digit number. We began the week by representing the multiplication pictorially with a place value chart, then we moved to the “partial products” method, and finally students learned the standard algorithm “shortcut.”

5th grade:  We moved on from adding and subtracting decimal fractions to multiplying a decimal fraction by single-digit whole numbers. Students related to a written method through application of the area model and place value understanding, and explained the reasoning used. We multiplied a decimal fraction by single-digit whole numbers, including using estimation to confirm the placement of the decimal point. We also reviewed long division in preparation for dividing decimals by single-digit whole numbers involving easily identifiable multiples using place value understanding and relating to a written method.

Science

As our unit on evolution begins, we start to examine what it means to be alive and what every living thing is made of. This week we begin to understand that the characteristics and traits of a living thing are passed down from one’s parents in something called DNA.

History

4th grade: Students learned some more background information for our Native American history and culture unit, focusing on Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands. We learned about different food and water sources and discussed some of the important geographical features of the region.  Students also participated in a number of activities which included stories/myths, personalities, and maps in order to get a better idea of what they would like to focus their research on for our upcoming project.  

5th grade: Students completed their learning and discussed the battles of Lexington and Concord and began learning about the second Continental Congress and some of the characters who were involved. We also took this opportunity to implement a strategy for reading and presenting which is being used in our Middle School Civics class, which uses different perspectives/lenses to inform research and point of view.  We will be focusing on the lenses of “Geographer” and “Biographer.”  Students will either be researching a personality or a location and its importance in the American Revolution.

Hebrew

Dorit’s groups: This week during our Hebrew lessons, students worked on a variety of writing activities; they utilized their new vocabulary in their work. One of our favorite activities was watching one episode of the Koffiko Israeli T.V. program; we then generated a summary of the episode.

Daphna’s group: We started working on our travel in Israel unit. We met the characters and identified differences and similarities and practiced using our new vocabulary words.

Chumash

Rashi and Ramban: We continued to discuss the blessing Yitzchak gave to Ya’akov and whose responsibility it is and who has been wronged. We continued adding information into our story with Rashi, classifying Rashi questions into categories.

Eben Ezra: We continued to learn perek 41 and spoke about Yosef’s new position. We continued adding information into our story with Rashi and classifying Rashi questions into categories.

Kindness: A lot is happening in Yitzchak and Rivkah’s family. Yitzchak wants to bless their eldest son Esav, but Rivkah has other plans. She wants the blessing to go to their youngest child Yaakov, so they devise a plan to trick Yitzhak into giving him the blessing.

The Dreamers: After helping the Butler and Baker, Yoseph spends two years in prison thinking his life is helpless. Suddenly, Paroah has two dreams that no one can help him with. That is until the Butler remembers a young man who helped years ago: Yoseph. Yoseph is taken from prison and brought before the king of Egypt to see if he can interpret his strange dreams.

Mishnah

4th grade: Students began learning the 5th mishnah in the 6th perek of Mishnah Brachot. We learned about some new rules for blessing fruits and vegetables and introduced a few new key terms.  The Mishnah also introduced a new concept of a hierarchy of foods and their blessings.  We also used the opportunity this week with Rosh Chodesh Shevat to learn about the shiv’at ha-minim, mentioned in last week’s mishnah, which refer to a group of seven species which grow in the Land of Israel and are mentioned in the Torah.

5th grade: Students finished their learning in the second mishnah in the fourth perek of Mishnah Brachot. We also learned an accompanying conversation mentioned in Gemarah as a commentary and then students took time to start writing their own prayers/intentions for before and after Work Time and lessons.

Community Time

This week we discussed conflict and how we naturally respond to them, with a “fight or flight” reaction. Most responses to a difficult situation are either with aggression or avoidance. Students learned that there’s actually a third kind of reaction: being assertive. We had a chance to role play different scenarios that are typical in our 9-11 community, practicing using internal feelings, I Statements, and calm body language.

We started clubs this Friday! Students got to choose between Science Experiments, Art & Graphic Design, Craft, Strategy Games, Luria Times, and Fantasy Sports.

Questions

Language Arts

4th grade: What do you think was the theme in The Tiger Rising? Use concrete details from the book to prove why this is the theme you chose.

5th grade: What are the definitions of the four vocabulary words you chose this week from Home of the Brave? How has Kek changed from Part 1 to Part 3 of the book?

Math

Shelby 4th grade: Temma sold 195 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Emma sold three times as many as Temma. Emunah sold 297 fewer than Emma. How many boxes did Emunah sell?

Sarah bought a shirt on sale for $35. The original price of the shirt was 3 times that amount.  Sarah also bought a pair of shoes on sale for $28. The original price of the shoes was 5 times that amount. Together, how much money did the shirt and shoes cost before they went on sale?

Jen 4th grade: To get enough money to go on a field trip, every student in a club has to raise $53 by selling chocolate bars. There are 9 students in the club. How much money does the club need to raise to go on the field trip?

5th grade:  Ava buys groceries for her family.  Hamburger meat is $3.38 per pound, sweet potatoes are $0.79 each, and hamburger rolls are $2.30 a bag. If Ava buys 3 pounds of meat, 5 sweet potatoes, and 1 bag of hamburger rolls, what will she pay in all for the groceries? Julian bought 3.9 liters of cranberry juice, and Nathan bought 8.74 liters of apple juice. They mixed the two juices together and then poured them equally into 2 bottles. How many liters of juice are in each bottle?

Science

What exactly is this code inside us all, and how much does in control what we all grow to be? And what does it mean that certain changes in one’s DNA can give you an advantage or disadvantage? Does our DNA determine what and who we grow up to be? How much of our future is in our hands to change?

History

4th grade: What are some similarities between Native American culture and Jewish culture?

5th grade: What was the “Olive Branch Petition” and why was it sent?

Hebrew

Dorit’s groups: In what way do you connect to the Israeli children in Koffiko?

Daphna’s group: כמו מי את/ה? למי את/ה דומה? שונה?

Chumash

Rashi and Ramban: Which of Rashi’s categories is your favorite? Why?

Eben Ezra: Which of Rashi’s categories is your favorite? Why?

Kindness: What is the best way to solve family disagreements when people have different goals in mind?

The Dreamers: Can Yoseph turn his life around by helping Paroah understand his dreams?

Mishnah

4th grade: Why does making a bracha over pat (bread) exempt the blessing over the parperet (appetizer or finger food)?  

5th grade: What are your before and after lesson/Work Time blessings?

[daughter-of-dawn-blog]

Summer 2018 is Here

Summer Vacation 2018 – What my Kids are doing.

The summer has started and vacation time is here.  I thought my kids did plenty last summer but this summer is a doozy.  When I'm talking action packed it is pretty high up there on the action packed meter.  At least for my kids so far in their lives.  A lot of driving to different summer camps too.  Not so much fun but we all make sacrifices for our kids, right!  Shall we break it down?  Well follow me and see what my family is doing.

  My Youngest son

Our little guy just finished fourth grade.  As mentioned in a previous article he is in accelerated extra gifted class.  He absolutely loved the class.  The only thing that he had trouble with is Mandarin.  Learning any new language is a challenge.  I think learning Mandarin is more than challenging.  Everything really is foreign.  Besides the learning of new words and learning their meanings and pronunciation, there is the writing.  Mandarin characters are very complex.  If there is a missed curve or a missed small line, the whole meaning is changed and is wrong.  My Tiger wife really put in the extra time and work with my son throughout the school year to end it really well.

 The Littlest Cellist

My son started taking cello lessons this year with the same cello teacher that my older son and daughter learn from.  He really is an amazing teacher.  I can't recommend him highly enough.  He is already up to Suzuki Book Three and finished the year playing the Humoresque at his recital.  He was also lucky to be picked for his school talent show and played this piece in front of his school.

Music Camp

This summer as I write this he is at a three week music camp in upstate New York!  One of my wife's friends actually told us about this camp a couple of months ago.  We were able to apply late thanks to her and were successful in auditioning and being accepted.  This is the first time that he has gone away for any length of time.  My wife is worried silly because you can't call them.  She actually sent him a letter yesterday.  We don't know how it will go but we will let you know when we pick him up in three weeks. 

My daughter

My only daughter just successfully finished seventh grade.  She settled into middle school this past year and has a growing circle of friends.  She had a great year academically passing all of her classes with flying colors! 

CTY – Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth

After taking the SCAT test this past year she qualified and was able to enroll into CTY.  She is gone for three weeks this summer taking a creative writing course in Roger Williams University.  Since this is her first experience away from home and being in a real “college” like experience I was curious to see her reaction.

  We walked onto the campus and I could see a glimmer of a smile.  As we were walking around the campus and signing up for everything and getting her books the glimmer was starting to show in her eyes.  Slowly ever so slowly curiosity on her part was turning into realization that this might be more than just interesting.  We got her keys to her room and found her dorm.  We found her room and saw that it was in a nice suite with multiple rooms.  The room was nice and clean with a beautiful view of the bridge that led to Newport.  Her smile was growing from ear to ear. 

The nail that sealed it was when we went to have lunch at the cafeteria.  Oh my Lord!!!  I forgot how much food there was at college cafeterias.  However, Roger Williams took it to an amazing level I never thought possible.  My daughter was gone.  She loves food!  The food was glorious.  She couldn't contain herself.  I knew right there and then, there was going to be NO home sickness for her…  She would enjoy every one of those meals to the fullest.  I just warned her about the freshman 15 and told her please don't have that happen in only three weeks!  She is there right now.

Music Camp Part II

My daughter was accepted to the same music camp that my son is at right now in upstate NY.  She will be attending that a few days after her CTY session ends.  There are two divisions at the camp, a junior and senior division.  She will be attending the senior session for four weeks.  I will update this when she goes and finishes. 

My oldest son

My oldest son has been busy from the moment we landed on our trip from Paris(Read about that here). That is when we received the email that he was selected to The New York Youth Symphony and within days of that he was notified that he was selected to All-State.  Since this was Junior Year this was going to be the Big One!  Let's break it down.

School Work

My son enrolled into four AP Classes this past year, American History, AP English, Statistics and Biology.  His last academic class was Honors Pre-Calculus/Calculus and Orchestra to round it off.  It was tough, real tough.  Any parent who has had kids go through it knows what I mean.  If your child is going to be a junior, the best advice I can give is to make sure your kid can maximize their time by utilizing time management skills.  Any student that has aspirations to go to an elite college has multiple things going on besides school work.  The extra-curriculars, the volunteering, the clubs, teams and just trying to squeeze out some time for fun and relaxation.  This is the make or break year and if you've come this far you have to finish it, right?

The results

My son is good at math but NOT great.  He ended the year with a final grade of an A-.  All the other classes he got A's and A+'s.  He finished the year strong and I am more really proud of him.  I saw how many nights where he only slept for a couple of hours and went to school.  It was really tough to watch but it also made me more than proud.  I knew that he was the type to do what it took to get things done when it mattered.  A useful trait when going into the real world. 

Standardized Tests

My son took the SAT twice so far and he will take it one last time this summer.  The first time he took it he did okay but not great.  After thinking that he was ready by taking a few practice tests and getting in the 1500's he took the test.  He had a rude awakening that was a shock to him and us.  He received a 1410 with a 23/24 on the essay.

  Our whole family was shocked to say the least.  Though we were happy with the 23/24 on the essay, the score was not what we thought he would get.  I know, I know some of you must be thinking what a jerk.  That is a fine score, blah, blah…  I'm okay with the criticism because I know what I am, a Tiger Dad.  Our whole family worked our asses as a collective to do everything we could to help my son get into the best school he could get into.  A 1410 would not cut it.  After reading horror stories this year of Asian males with 1560's not getting into Boston University, we were scared!

Round Two

My son didn't have time to take the SAT again until March because of too many time conflicts.  We were so nervous.  Everything hat he had worked for was going to be up in the air until he took the test again and got his results.  It was so stressful for all of us.  He took the test and we waited…

The Wait

So what did I do during the waiting to keep me occupied?  I started going on reddit and College Confidential.  I was on College Confidential to do research on safety schools if he bombed. There is a reddit subtopic for SAT that is good.  You have kids that took the test and discuss the test and the questions that they thought were difficult.  After two long weeks… The results were in.

SAT Scores

After all the hard work that was put in during the past summer with taking online SAT courses with Prep Expert.  After bombing on the first try of the SAT.  After the months of not taking the test because my son was too busy with other extra-curriculars and lastly after the two weeks for the tests to be graded.  Judgement Day had arrived!  My son logged into the College Board site, put in his credentials and opened up the link for SAT Test Scores.   The Score was 1520!!!  Hahahaah!!!!!  He did it and we were so proud of him!  We were giving each other high fives and basking in the knowledge that our dreams were still on track.

  Final Word on Standardized Testing

The score of 1520 was great and that put him into the 99 percentile.  We were more than pleased as you can tell by the gif up above.  We decided that he will take it one more time to see if he could raise his score up just a little more.  I've seen videos on YouTube and other blogs that there is no reason to take the test again once you score above 1500 but every one of them are not Asian males.  As stated earlier, there are Asian students with the same background and similar everything as my son and they were denied into every Top tier school.  I think that we've come too far to say to ourselves in the future, “What If”?  So one last time to see if he can raise his score more and if he doesn't, then so be it.  At least we gave it our all. 

The Rest of the Summer

My son is finishing his last year of interning and volunteering at the Summer Engineering Camp that he has been a part of since sixth grade.  He's making some money and fulfilling his National Honor Society Volunteer Hour Requirement at the same time.

During the month of July he is making sure that he writes his common application essay and at least five of his favorite schools supplementary essays.  On top of that he has to continue with his cello practice in order to audition again for the New York Youth Symphony.  Lastly, study for the SAT one last time. 

A Reward for his Hard Work

There is a reward at the end of the tunnel.  I'm not a monster that wants my son to go crazy.  As in life there must be rewards for hard work and I think this is a great reward.  One of his best friends invited him and another buddy to go to France for two weeks in August.  It's in a small town in the southern part of France.  I looked on Google Maps and it looks absolutely amazing!  Better yet another of his best friends will be traveling in Italy and it will only be an hour away from where my son will be staying.  They might be able to hang out together while over there.  That would be so amazing for them.  So, he would have a place to stay but just needs to buy a plane ticket and have spending money.  How could I say no to that?  I hope he has the time of his life!

Here's hoping that all you Tiger Moms and Tiger Dads have the best summer vacation of 2018!  If any of you have any questions or comments please go to our Facebook page and leave them there.  I will answer as best as I can.  I would love to hear what other students and parents are doing this summer! 

The post Summer 2018 is Here appeared first on Tiger Dad -The Hidden Partner to every Tiger Mom.

[gchu95]

Summer 2018 is Here

Summer Vacation 2018 – What my Kids are doing.

The summer has started and vacation time is here.  I thought my kids did plenty last summer but this summer is a doozy.  When I'm talking action packed it is pretty high up there on the action packed meter.  At least for my kids so far in their lives.  A lot of driving to different summer camps too.  Not so much fun but we all make sacrifices for our kids, right!  Shall we break it down?  Well follow me and see what my family is doing.

  My Youngest son

Our little guy just finished fourth grade.  As mentioned in a previous article he is in accelerated extra gifted class.  He absolutely loved the class.  The only thing that he had trouble with is Mandarin.  Learning any new language is a challenge.  I think learning Mandarin is more than challenging.  Everything really is foreign.  Besides the learning of new words and learning their meanings and pronunciation, there is the writing.  Mandarin characters are very complex.  If there is a missed curve or a missed small line, the whole meaning is changed and is wrong.  My Tiger wife really put in the extra time and work with my son throughout the school year to end it really well.

 The Littlest Cellist

My son started taking cello lessons this year with the same cello teacher that my older son and daughter learn from.  He really is an amazing teacher.  I can't recommend him highly enough.  He is already up to Suzuki Book Three and finished the year playing the Humoresque at his recital.  He was also lucky to be picked for his school talent show and played this piece in front of his school.

Music Camp

This summer as I write this he is at a three week music camp in upstate New York!  One of my wife's friends actually told us about this camp a couple of months ago.  We were able to apply late thanks to her and were successful in auditioning and being accepted.  This is the first time that he has gone away for any length of time.  My wife is worried silly because you can't call them.  She actually sent him a letter yesterday.  We don't know how it will go but we will let you know when we pick him up in three weeks. 

My daughter

My only daughter just successfully finished seventh grade.  She settled into middle school this past year and has a growing circle of friends.  She had a great year academically passing all of her classes with flying colors! 

CTY – Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth

After taking the SCAT test this past year she qualified and was able to enroll into CTY.  She is gone for three weeks this summer taking a creative writing course in Roger Williams University.  Since this is her first experience away from home and being in a real “college” like experience I was curious to see her reaction.

  We walked onto the campus and I could see a glimmer of a smile.  As we were walking around the campus and signing up for everything and getting her books the glimmer was starting to show in her eyes.  Slowly ever so slowly curiosity on her part was turning into realization that this might be more than just interesting.  We got her keys to her room and found her dorm.  We found her room and saw that it was in a nice suite with multiple rooms.  The room was nice and clean with a beautiful view of the bridge that led to Newport.  Her smile was growing from ear to ear. 

The nail that sealed it was when we went to have lunch at the cafeteria.  Oh my Lord!!!  I forgot how much food there was at college cafeterias.  However, Roger Williams took it to an amazing level I never thought possible.  My daughter was gone.  She loves food!  The food was glorious.  She couldn't contain herself.  I knew right there and then, there was going to be NO home sickness for her…  She would enjoy every one of those meals to the fullest.  I just warned her about the freshman 15 and told her please don't have that happen in only three weeks!  She is there right now.

Music Camp Part II

My daughter was accepted to the same music camp that my son is at right now in upstate NY.  She will be attending that a few days after her CTY session ends.  There are two divisions at the camp, a junior and senior division.  She will be attending the senior session for four weeks.  I will update this when she goes and finishes. 

My oldest son

My oldest son has been busy from the moment we landed on our trip from Paris(Read about that here). That is when we received the email that he was selected to The New York Youth Symphony and within days of that he was notified that he was selected to All-State.  Since this was Junior Year this was going to be the Big One!  Let's break it down.

School Work

My son enrolled into four AP Classes this past year, American History, AP English, Statistics and Biology.  His last academic class was Honors Pre-Calculus/Calculus and Orchestra to round it off.  It was tough, real tough.  Any parent who has had kids go through it knows what I mean.  If your child is going to be a junior, the best advice I can give is to make sure your kid can maximize their time by utilizing time management skills.  Any student that has aspirations to go to an elite college has multiple things going on besides school work.  The extra-curriculars, the volunteering, the clubs, teams and just trying to squeeze out some time for fun and relaxation.  This is the make or break year and if you've come this far you have to finish it, right?

The results

My son is good at math but NOT great.  He ended the year with a final grade of an A-.  All the other classes he got A's and A+'s.  He finished the year strong and I am more really proud of him.  I saw how many nights where he only slept for a couple of hours and went to school.  It was really tough to watch but it also made me more than proud.  I knew that he was the type to do what it took to get things done when it mattered.  A useful trait when going into the real world. 

Standardized Tests

My son took the SAT twice so far and he will take it one last time this summer.  The first time he took it he did okay but not great.  After thinking that he was ready by taking a few practice tests and getting in the 1500's he took the test.  He had a rude awakening that was a shock to him and us.  He received a 1410 with a 23/24 on the essay.

  Our whole family was shocked to say the least.  Though we were happy with the 23/24 on the essay, the score was not what we thought he would get.  I know, I know some of you must be thinking what a jerk.  That is a fine score, blah, blah…  I'm okay with the criticism because I know what I am, a Tiger Dad.  Our whole family worked our asses as a collective to do everything we could to help my son get into the best school he could get into.  A 1410 would not cut it.  After reading horror stories this year of Asian males with 1560's not getting into Boston University, we were scared!

Round Two

My son didn't have time to take the SAT again until March because of too many time conflicts.  We were so nervous.  Everything hat he had worked for was going to be up in the air until he took the test again and got his results.  It was so stressful for all of us.  He took the test and we waited…

The Wait

So what did I do during the waiting to keep me occupied?  I started going on reddit and College Confidential.  I was on College Confidential to do research on safety schools if he bombed. There is a reddit subtopic for SAT that is good.  You have kids that took the test and discuss the test and the questions that they thought were difficult.  After two long weeks… The results were in.

SAT Scores

After all the hard work that was put in during the past summer with taking online SAT courses with Prep Expert.  After bombing on the first try of the SAT.  After the months of not taking the test because my son was too busy with other extra-curriculars and lastly after the two weeks for the tests to be graded.  Judgement Day had arrived!  My son logged into the College Board site, put in his credentials and opened up the link for SAT Test Scores.   The Score was 1520!!!  Hahahaah!!!!!  He did it and we were so proud of him!  We were giving each other high fives and basking in the knowledge that our dreams were still on track.

  Final Word on Standardized Testing

The score of 1520 was great and that put him into the 99 percentile.  We were more than pleased as you can tell by the gif up above.  We decided that he will take it one more time to see if he could raise his score up just a little more.  I've seen videos on YouTube and other blogs that there is no reason to take the test again once you score above 1500 but every one of them are not Asian males.  As stated earlier, there are Asian students with the same background and similar everything as my son and they were denied into every Top tier school.  I think that we've come too far to say to ourselves in the future, “What If”?  So one last time to see if he can raise his score more and if he doesn't, then so be it.  At least we gave it our all. 

The Rest of the Summer

My son is finishing his last year of interning and volunteering at the Summer Engineering Camp that he has been a part of since sixth grade.  He's making some money and fulfilling his National Honor Society Volunteer Hour Requirement at the same time.

During the month of July he is making sure that he writes his common application essay and at least five of his favorite schools supplementary essays.  On top of that he has to continue with his cello practice in order to audition again for the New York Youth Symphony.  Lastly, study for the SAT one last time. 

A Reward for his Hard Work

There is a reward at the end of the tunnel.  I'm not a monster that wants my son to go crazy.  As in life there must be rewards for hard work and I think this is a great reward.  One of his best friends invited him and another buddy to go to France for two weeks in August.  It's in a small town in the southern part of France.  I looked on Google Maps and it looks absolutely amazing!  Better yet another of his best friends will be traveling in Italy and it will only be an hour away from where my son will be staying.  They might be able to hang out together while over there.  That would be so amazing for them.  So, he would have a place to stay but just needs to buy a plane ticket and have spending money.  How could I say no to that?  I hope he has the time of his life!

Here's hoping that all you Tiger Moms and Tiger Dads have the best summer vacation of 2018!  If any of you have any questions or comments please go to our Facebook page and leave them there.  I will answer as best as I can.  I would love to hear what other students and parents are doing this summer! 

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