Mundane-ish

Mana

     The rest of the day went just about as abnormal for me as I would have expected. Aiden, Chang, and I actually had our first class together. Math, or technically honors math because that was the one Chang was in and supposedly, he wasn't going to give that up. We entered the classroom at a fairly decent time, also on the insistence of Chang. Which meant we had to eat quickly, or rather Aiden ate quickly as I still could hardly stomach the stuff, so I was ready to go when they were. We managed to nab a few of the top ten best seats in the class.

     I guess I was still expecting some sort of professor or lecturer to show up anytime, but what we got was two math worksheets on our desk. I had already taken trig by the 8th grade so I knew at first glance this would be no problem. It was practically just a worksheet taken from any given math textbook. There was an example, then a walk-through problem, and a few practice problems. I was halfway finished with the second worksheet when I realized Chang was racing me. Which kind of sparked some kind of competitiveness in me, but I ended up pretending I didn't notice and letting him finish his sheet first.

     Aiden on the other hand was a different story. He was still trying to make since of the example problem from sheet one after we were finished, so Chang and I spent the rest of the class time coaching him on both worksheets.

     At the end of class I took our sheets up to the slot again, this time being way more cautious at the recommendations of Aiden and Chang. The bell rang and we were off to our next classes. Which I did not have with them. It was languages. Chang and Aiden walked me there because their next class was closer by, but I entered the class alone. Aiden said there were multiple language halls I could go to but suggested this one because it'd be easier for them to connect with before lunch.

     Aiden also told me I had the best time for languages, which was the main reason he didn't change it on my schedule. He told me only language track kids had the language lab first thing on Monday's and because we were new freshman with no actual track, the language lab may be filled with language track upperclassman doing some extended time in the labs.

     The room was a lot different from a regular classroom. Instead of desks, there were a bunch of cubicles like things lined up in rows. The only advice I had was to get as far away from the door, ceiling vents, and floor drains. That was kind of hard to do, the room was already so full of upperclassmen, and the good seats I did see open when I walked in, were quickly snatched up by someone from another booth who was stalking for a better seat during the change up. Now I was thinking, even though Aiden said I'd be better off surrounded by a bunch of upperclassmen, if I was the first target out of these guys, from what I've seen in homeroom, they'd let me be whatever diversion I need to be so they could make their escape.

     I went ahead and took the best seat I could find. As I sat in it, I noticed Lilijian come in only moments before the door slammed shut. She aimlessly walked to the closest open booth she saw and sat down. I shook my head sympathizing with what I gathered she was going through, but what I gathered is everyone in here is going through something, some sort of loss or pain and this was the best option for them. It was the best option for me I realized.

     As I was contemplating a worksheet appeared next to me. I looked at it, and any high I was riding based on my triumph over my worksheet in my previous class quickly vanished. It was for sure Mandarin, I think, and not the Latinized version. The legit Chinese characters. I sighed and put my head in my hand, staring down at the worksheet. There were blanks spots, for answers I assume, but I wouldn't be able to begin to guess what to put in them. I opened my notebook Aiden gave me and began to copy down the worksheet. As I was copying, I began to hear whispers. I looked all around me, trying to figure out exactly where it was coming from. It seemed close, as if the person was right next to me. I went back to my work, focusing on getting the characters just like I saw them on the paper and the voice came back. I didn't understand it, they were talking in Mandarin. I stopped, looked around again, and went back to work only for the voices to come back. I did this a couple of more times before I realized the voices were talking to me, I presume to help me learn Mandarin, but I couldn't understand them, so it wasn't helping me now, while I was trying to focus. Once I finished copying it in my notebook, I decided to copy the characters next to the blanks in the blanks. Afterwards I just sat the paper back in the tray it appeared in, I couldn't figure out what to do otherwise.