No Ordinary Exchange

don't let this feeling fade

1. Perhaps you guys have heard about the good news about the COVID-19 vaccine! The good news being, well, there is a vaccine, and people are at last starting to receive it. While it's understandable to be nervous, I want to clarify a few things: vaccines do NOT cause autism. Severe reactions to vaccines are incredibly rare (like, one in a million rare). A majority of vaccines do NOT contain live viruses (they contain pieces of a dead virus, e.g. proteins, which means a vaccine CANNOT make you sick). Thimerosal and aluminum in vaccines are NOT harmful. Vaccines are incredibly important to protecting us from diseases, and it is crucial that as many people as possible receive vaccinations, as this creates "herd immunity" that protects people who cannot receive vaccinations for whatever reason (e.g. allergies) from those diseases. Vaccines are the reason there's no smallpox and polio anymore! Measles had actually almost been entirely eradicated in the USA until the anti-vaxxer movement started, which boosted measles infections upward as parents began refusing to vaccinate their kids. Moral of the story? Vaccines are safe! GET VACCINATED! (Information condensed from the 10-page report I wrote about vaccines, lmao, vaccines dot gov, and pretty much any reputable source about vaccines on the Internet).

Happy holidays, my friends!! To those who celebrate, I hope you had a very merry Christmas yesterday. If you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a great Friday anyways! This chapter is on the longer side, and I'd describe it as this: feel-good. Fun times and fluff abound! I hope you enjoy!

xXxXxXx

Callum's physics professor had submitted his recommendation. Callum himself had uploaded his transcript, filled out every informational form, and answered each personal interest question thrown at him with at least one paragraph. He'd also finished his essay, which had undergone three rewrites with the help of edits from his amazing girlfriend. For all intents and purposes, Callum's application to the KSU-XU exchange program was complete. Which meant there was only one thing left to do.

Submit it.

And Callum was absolutely terrified of pressing the little blue button at the bottom of his screen.

He knew he needed to get around to it soon. The application deadline was only a few days away, and there was no point putting off his submission any longer since there were zero changes he planned to make, but still. Actually submitting his application would make the possibility of going to Xadia all too real, and he wasn't sure he was ready for that. Submission meant the possibility of rejection.

Or, even scarier, acceptance.

If he got in, he'd live on campus at Xadia University, most likely with a roommate in his same grade. He'd take classes that aligned with those needed to meet degree requirements for his major. He'd be provided a stipend to help pay for necessities, too, that way more of his free could be spent actually interacting with Xadian customs and culture.

For him, personally, he imagined he'd spend most of that free time with Rayla. Hopefully by then he'd also be on better terms with Runaan and Ethari. Rayla had mentioned the other day that she'd been working to smooth things over with them - having the most success with Ethari, unsurprisingly - although Callum suspected the atmosphere might still be tense when the couple flew in for the championship.

Still. If Aunt Amaya could put aside her learned prejudice, he had no doubt Runaan could, too.

"Callum, are you agonizing over that application again?" Ezran demanded, standing in the doorway of the kitchen with Bait in his arms. "We don't have time for that right now! We need to leave for Claudia's party soon if we don't want to be late."

Callum placed his phone down, relieved to no longer have his thumb hovering indecisively above the submit button. "Ez, we can't leave until your friends arrive. And no, I was not 'agonizing' over my application." Yeah, that was a lie. He'd definitely been agonizing. "I was just having some... last-minute jitters, okay?"