fandomhigh | How to Be Awesome, Tuesday, Period 3

This week, class was meeting in a regular classroom again, and Kate was perched on her desk, giving the students a little wave once they'd all come in. "Hi, and sorry about last week," she began. "Got sick, it was terrible. But I hope you had a good time with my boyfriend, and that he didn't blind anyone with his paleness."

Sorry, Bod, you really were terribly pale.

"Also since the topic was awesome in relationships, he probably undersold his own skills because seriously, dude came out here in my stead to teach you guys. He's awesome in relationships defined." It was possible your teacher was head over heels in love, kids, yeah. Feel free to double check that that cute ring really was on her middle finger instead of her ring finger. "Anyway, yeah, I hope you had a good time and that it was educational. 'Cause we're gonna move on now. And because my last week was decidedly unawesome with the sickness and all, that's what we're gonna cover today."

A beat.

"Uh, things that are unawesome," she clarified. "Not my illness, you don't need to hear crap about that. Anyway, yeah, sometimes you just need to be able to spot the things that aren't awesome in order to stay on a course of awesomeness. And that's not always so easy. Because things might seem super awesome when you're putting on a costume and posing for paintings and making like music videos and stuff, but it can turn out way less so when you have lame and skeezy dudes Skypeing you." True story. "So what I wanna discuss today is how to spot potentially unawesome things. Situations, relationships, maybe even just picking the wrong thing to drink at the wrong time, whatever you can come up with. Or you can just keep it general and talk about how something potentially unawesome might make you feel and how that could be a warning sign. Any ideas?"

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"People who assume they know things about you just because of what you look like," Alana volunteered. "Not awesome at all."

"Absolutely not," Ichabod agreed, and, thinking about his attempts at conversation with Edward, added: "And the same goes for making assumptions based on how you speak and and on you situation in life."

Alana nodded in conformation. "Right. It's not like that stuff totally doesn't matter, but surfaces only tell you so much about somebody. And you miss out on a lot of awesome people if you decide you don't like them because of their hair or their accent or whatever."

"I quite agree," Ichabod said. "It takes time to know someone's true character. Has that happened to you? That someone passed judgement based on your appearance?"

"Yeah, at home people thought I was some kind of Goth, and here" -- she raised her wings to lightly flutter them in Ichabod's direction --"some people here aren't used to anybody not from Earth."

"What about you?"

Ichabod had assumed that Alana's wings were some kind of costume - which wouldn't be stranger than women wearing trousers, really. So when he realized they were actually real, he blinked in surprise. "Can you fly?"

It distracted him from Alana's question.

"I wish. These things are pretty much vestigial," Alana said, and folded them back against her shirt. "Some soldiers who train a ton can fly okay, but I got wingbled way back when I was a baby."

She said this with no anger; the custom of wingbleeding girls had never particularly bothered her. Flying never seemed as much fun to her as it did to humans.

Ichabod was not familiar with the term 'wingbled', but it didn't sound like something that should be done to infants. Not wanting to stray close to unawesomeness however, he said: "What unfair assumptions do people here make about having wings?"

[I'm off to bed soon!]

Wingbleedng probably wasn't a great thing to do to babies, but it was the kind of custom Alana had never thought about too deeply.

"That we can fly," she said, making a little face so Ichabod would know she wasn't offended he had asked. "That we're really different. That I'm really different just 'cause I don't get the references here. I dunno, nothing huge, but it seems to be hard for people to forget."

"I am sorry to hear that," Ichabod replied. "As for myself I have been surprised at how helpful and kind most people here have been. Perhaps I have been lucky."

"Oh, no, most people on the island are totally nice," Alana reassured him. "Very awesome. But there are always a couple weirdos, and people off the island can be jerks. Have you been to the mainland yet?"

"I have," Ichabod said. "Miss Bowen took me to the the Science Center last Friday." He would get used to call her Celia even with other people, eventually, and perhaps not to blush when he mentioned her name. "I found people polite, apart possibly from the cab driver." You were playing with the window buttons, Ichabod.

How to Be Awesome, Tuesday, Period 3

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