fandomhigh | Coping With Change, Friday, Period 3

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coping with change

Coping With Change, Friday, Period 3

//Right then, back to it,// Jono said, arms crossed over his chest and leaning back against the desk as class began. //The syllabus was thrown out a window somewhere around the time I lost my head, but we've got a few weeks left to salvage this thing, so this week we're going to discuss setting goals.//

Good lord, that almost sounded like a legitimate class discussion topic, right there.

//Some changes, you have no control over. But the one thing you can control is your own reaction to that change, and what you do about it. I'm not even saying it's about attitude. I'm saying that if you're dreading a change that's going to happen, you have it in you to take measures to make that change easier on yourself or to influence how the change itself unfolds. And if something has happened, you can make choices, take steps, plan what you need to do in order to heal or get on with your life. The trick is to figure out where you want things to end up, and then figure out the steps you need to take in order to make certain that it happens that way.//

He was actually not so great at this one. But he was learning the appeal of trying, at least.

//I know goals are something that can vary wildly from situation to situation, and it's possible that any one scenario might require dozens of small goals on the way to a larger one, or just one… big one. Try to be realistic about them. If in the wake of getting my head back, my one, sweeping goal was simply 'cope,' I'd have been… very lost.// Yes. This was a true thing. //But if you take 'cope' down and break it into steps, things like 'seek out a trusted friend to talk,' or 'take some time to yourself to appreciate being whole again,' or even, 'seriously, take a few minutes and just have a bloody breakdown, you've earned it,' it doesn't seem like such a ridiculously impossible task.//

He had done all of these things, yes. Jono was at least drawing from life experience, there.

//So today, you're free to talk with the group about your goals. You might want to start with your one big end goal, and then delineate the smaller goals that you might need to reach on your way there. Or set out your big goal and ask your classmates for assistance figuring out what needs to happen in order to get from point A to point B. And, as always, nobody is obligated to talk about anything they aren't comfortable sharing with the class, though remember that this is a safe place. Respect your classmates or you'll be asked to leave. Whether or not you come back depends on how I'm feeling over the next couple of weeks.//

[Open!]

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With a goal in mind!

Paddra Nsu-Yeul

Celia Bowen

Cosette Fauchelevent

Cecil Gershwin Palmer

Joker Moreau

Eleanor Lamb

Mercy Thompson

Bay Kennish

Jono got his talkiness back! Cope.

Set some goals. Set some goals on the way to reaching your goals. Share your goals with the class, or ask them for help figuring yours out.

Notice how the word 'goals' starts losing any meaning when you say it too many times.

Yeul's goal was... nice and morbid at the same time?

"I do not often attempt to achieve many things," Yeul said softly, smiling slightly. "Perhaps this is a wish, instead of a goal, in that case, but I prefer to die seeing a happy future for everyone, rather than a sad one."

Well. There went Jono's heart, twisting in his chest. Ignore that he technically had neither. It still felt that way.

//Perhaps more a wish,// Jono agreed, because he knew exactly how much Yeul was going to actually do in order to see it happen, //but... it's a good one. A happy future is a wish worth making.//

"The future comes no matter what," Yeul said lightly, looking up at him. "If it is a happy one, then the view is better."

She tilted her head slightly. "Do you have goals, Professor?"

Edited 2014-04-11 12:33 (UTC)

//I do,// Jono replied, nodding faintly. It only seemed fair, he supposed, that his students ask him to share, given that he'd been getting them to all semester. //Most of them are on the way to hopefully finding solid ground and staying there. Communicate with friends more. Sort out what follows me around and holds me back and deal with it. Take time to remember the places I've been...//

That last one was a big one, for someone who had been mindwiped and rewritten as many times as Jonothon had.

Celia had started idly twisting her left ring finger halfway through the lecture, clearly nervous even as she was deep in thought, and finally managed to formulate her question a few minutes later.

"Can one's goal be to...not fulfill a goal that's already been outlined?" she ventured, a little shy. She didn't quite know how to even begin to think about it, but...it was tempting. "What I mean to say is -- say a parent has outlined your life's goals already. Mother desperately wants you to become a doctor, or something of that sort. Is the determination to follow your own will, as nebulous as that might be -- can you call that a goal, even if it's not very easily defined as to what that means, yet?"

Her mother didn't want her to become a doctor, obviously, but she'd been giving more and more thought as to how to break the contract. With as much as she'd been learning here...it didn't seem unfeasible.

//I think,// Jono replied, tilting his head at Celia curiously, but deciding not to pry if she wasn't going to volunteer specifics of her own personal situation in front of the class, //that it can very well be a goal, yes. Not to not fulfill a goal, so much as to take control over your own path. Actually, that's a very worthwhile goal to set. Have you any idea where you might start, on your path to not... become a doctor?//

She smiled, a little, pleased that she wasn't actually as out on a limb as she'd initially thought. "I think it'll take research," Celia said thoughtfully. "So I suppose that's where I need to start. And it might help to actually determine another path, wouldn't it, so that I'm not just aimlessly...not doctoring?"

And aside from talking to her father, that part scared her the most, really. All she'd ever known was her training for the challenge.

//Research and time,// Jono replied, nodding his agreement. //And some measure of flexibility. Some people don't figure out what it is they do want to be until well after they've settled into something else. There's no shame in up and changing your path if you've come to the realization that you set yourself down along the wrong one, either.//

The corners of his eyes were betraying the fact that he would have been smiling, then, were he really able.

//Whatever the case might be, you've got the resources to manage it, I think. Research is easy, and you have friends here who can help, right?//

"Sort of," she hedged. "It might be a bit more complicated than...just changing my mind and telling my father about it. I'm magically contracted to do something, and have been since I was five. So it'll take some doing to break the contract, I'd imagine. I'll have to figure out how to do that, and where I can find someone else with magic to help me."

She only knew one other person on the island who was a strong enough magician to help, really. But it might not even matter -- Celia was starting to suspect she was better with her gifts than Hector was with his.

//Ah, magic,// Jono replied, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets and bunching his shoulders a little. //I'm afraid I know next to nothing about that myself, but you're in a good place to start looking for a way out, at least. I know several people with some manner of magic who might be able to help, though magic from different realities tends to interact in unpredictable ways, at times.//

"You absolutely can," Eleanor said, firmly. "For a long time, that was my goal. Not to be what Mother was making me into."

In case any of them had forgotten the abomination that had been creeping them all out in class, a few weeks back.

"I managed it," she added. "That means you can, too."

"It's harder for me," Celia said mildly, though she smiled. "Not that you breaking away from your mother is anything to overlook, not at all, but it's not just a matter of free will, for me. I'll have to do some research on how to break the contract, if there's even a way."

She shrugged. "It's worth trying, though, isn't it?"

"No, I understand," Eleanor said quickly. "It isn't -- it's not the same. I just meant ... you will break free of this. We'll find a way."

The we there might be presumptuous, but it was deliberate.

"My goal is to grow up and to get my boyfriend to have sex with me again?" Cecil shrugged. "And not get killed by librarians. Or anybody else, really." So, pretty much the same as always.

"Can I have 'get tentacles and an extra eye back' as a goal?" That was the only new thing he could think of.

Jono wasn't going to facepalm at Cecil so casually talking about sex in the classroom. But it was a near thing.

Respect Cecil's goals, Jon. Respect them.

//I'm really not in any place to say no,// Jono pointed out. //Your goals are your goals, mate. Is there a way to get tentacles and another eye, realistically?//

"There must be; I mean, I got them once, right?" Cecil pointed out. Then he frowned. "Well, twice - no, three times - if you count that two others mes each got them, and then I got them by being other mes. ... Is that four times, or does it only count once for me?"

//Er, strictly speaking, I suppose it's however many times it feels like,// Jono offered. //It's likely doable, though I wouldn't know where to begin...//

"At least one of the mes thought he might have gotten the tentacles from Evocation class!" Cecil pointed out. "I'm trying to see if anyone will teach that here."

He was trying to convince Kenzi. He wasn't sure it was working.

"I ... don't ..." Eleanor bit her lip, trying to put her thoughts into words.

"I don't know what my goals are," she said, a touch helplessly. "For the longest time, it was just to escape. And now I have, and ... and I have the whole rest of my life spiraling out ahead of me. I never had a place to go towards, I was just headed away. I don't know what my towards would be. I don't ... even know how to think about it."

//A bit overwhelming, isn't it?// Jono sounded sympathetic. //You'll be here for a while, right? Perhaps that's part of the good that'll come from being here. You've got all of reality spread out to explore, and a couple of years to look, luv. If you set a goal now... maybe it ought to be to experience all you can, figure out who it is that you want to be, and how you want to achieve that.//

Eleanor frowned for a second before laughing. "I ... it's odd," she said. "I never realized before ... that I get to be someone. Like when little kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up. I ... could be something, if I wanted to. I mean, I can."

Doctor, ballerina, firefighter. Mother had told her that she was going to be an ethical psychiatrist. And now ... now the world was a series of open doors before her.

"I know I want to travel," she admitted. "See places I've only ever heard of. And ones I haven't."

//There is something to be said for travel,// Jono agreed. //I've done my fair share of it, and that's one of the things I've done that I have no regrets about.//

The travel itself? Awesome.

Most of the bullshit that came with it?

Er. Less awesome.

"I want to make a place for myself," Mercy said quietly. "Away from all the places I don't fit, so I'm not always reminded that I don't belong there."

//I have every faith that you can,// Jono offered gently. //And know that you can always come back here, if you need to take a breather while you do what you can to make it work. There's someplace where you do fit, Mercy.//

Mercy shrugged. "And if there isn't I'll have to make one," she said. "But it's good to know I can come back here for a while if I need to."

"Goals?" Joker asked. "Goals are easy. I'm going to be the best pilot in the galaxy. Not a good one, not a great one, but the absolute best one."

//Ambitious,// Jono replied, sounding impressed. //Now, is that the best one ever, or simply the best one in your era?//

He wasn't even going to suggest it couldn't be done. Around here, he'd seen far stranger.

"Well, ever, I don't know. I'm not going to be going up against the Red Baron in my spaceship."

//Around here? You really can't rule that out,// Jono pointed out. //Though I suppose it's a dogfight that's not terribly likely to happen, either.//

"Also not one that's gonna last very long," Joker pointed out. "But... pilot-a-pilot... dunno. Get me a biplane and we'll see. If I break something trying to wrestle the yoke, though, that's all on you."

"Well, I just got notice Pace waitlisted me, so my goal is to convince them to pull me off the waitlist and let me go there in the fall," Bay said briskly. If there was an undertone of feeling sorry for herself to the briskness -- well, she couldn't quite shut that out.

//Sorry to hear that,// Jono replied, with no small amount of sympathy in his voice. After all, disappointment was disappointment, and this was clearly something she'd been hoping for. //If that doesn't pan out, have you got any other options? I know it's a little late to start applying around, granted.//

"Thanks," Bay said wryly. "I figure it was probably Dominic's fault somehow, since he sent in the portfolio."

She shrugged. "But I got in at University of Missouri's KC campus, so worst case I go and chill at my parents' place and feel sorry for myself for a while. UMKC's an okay school, it's just not what I'd kind of set my heart on."

She knew how petty this was next to some of the other goals being discussed, but she figured a goal was a goal and a disappointment was a disappointment.

Really, she was talking to a man who had spent all of a week at the ESU, an undercover mission that had resulted in mutants being kicked off campus indefinitely. He knew all about school-related disappointment.

It sucked.

//Well, at least you've got a game plan,// he noted. //I think in this case, a little self-pity is understandable. This is one of those big steps meant to determine the rest of your future, after all.//

If he's in today!

He is!

Who still wonders why the hell anybody thought he was qualified to teach this thing.

He shoots, and - GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

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Coping With Change, Friday, Period 3

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Lecture!

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Talk to Jono!

OOC!