fandomhigh | Coping with Change | Tuesday, period one

//Morning, class,// Jono greeted as today's class began. //Last week we talked mainly about change that you can control. This week, we're going to discuss the opposite, those changes that hit hard and fast, without warning. The sort that you can't really prepare for, because the world isn't the sort of place that you can predict, no matter how good you are at preparing for the worst.//

He was back out of the bandages this week, fire tousling his hair, flicking up wildly around his face. Maybe because he was more comfortable, physically, this way. Maybe because he just wanted there to be no question as to whether or not he knew a thing or two about sudden, devastating changes.

"Sometimes," Cecil pointed out, "you might even try to prepare for something, but then the street cleaners are more brutal this time than last, or there are more bears at Christmas, or all of a sudden your station is bought out by scary people serving a terrible smiling god, instead of the usual eldritch management, and you've prepared for the wrong thing entirely."

//And sometimes you expect something good, are told to strive for something in particular and come to expect it to work out a certain way, and it... well... blows up in your face,// Jono added, more than a little wryly. //And if you're lucky, you'll be able to walk away from it. Everyone will be able to walk away from it. But that isn't always how things work out. Not that I need to tell most of you that, I'm sure.//

"So what are some sudden changes you've all had?" Cecil asked. "What did you do? Like, I remember this time they built a subway, and I went into it to report and saw eons all at once in lunch time, and coming back was kind of weird, because the weather hadn't even changed! So I just sort of went back to work and sorted it all out like that, because routine can help, right?"

Jono blinked once at Cecil, but then sort of shrugged his shoulders and went with it. That was actually a fairly good point he was making, even if the anecdote itself was... perplexing. Lord, Cecil, your home would forever worry Jonothon.

//Routine can help. Something familiar when you've just had the rug pulled out from underfoot. Or, like we discussed last week, reaching for a change that you can control, to remind yourself that not everything is out of your hands. When this,// Jono gestured to his face, to the fire pouring out from his open chest, //happened to me, I fell back hard into music, mostly collecting and listening to the familiar, even though I couldn't do as much to create it as I once could. The familiar. I also chose to go somewhere else, to a place that would be better suited to my personal needs at the time. Taking control of something, even though nothing was going to undo this.//

And now it was caring and sharing time with your teachers, apparently.

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Abruptly!

Dante

Roscoe Kaan

Ada Miller

Kaylin Neya

Your teachers, ladies and gentlemen.

Have you faced any sudden changes in your lifetime that you're willing to share with the class? How did you cope with them? How do you wish you had coped with them? Are you still coping now and would like some advice? Share with the class! Or just sit back and listen, it's all up to you.

Waking up on his own in a strange bed with no memory of his life up until that point.

Dante shrugged casually, slouching back in his chair. "Still only coming around to puberty there," he said. "Sorry."

That was the least sorry sorry ever.

"Oh, that's a good one, though!" Cecil enthused. "There could be all kinds of changes you can't predict. I mean, you can sort of vaguely plan for bodily changes, but there's no telling which new parts you might end up with, right?"

"Beard or boobs," Dante said flatly. "That's about it."

He'd be more laidback about it usually, but he still wasn't quite over a few weeks ago.

"Well, or an extra head or eye or tentacles," Cecil pointed out reasonably. "And there was one girl in my high school class who got an extra ear, which is a little more unusual, but still, you never know, right?"

He was sort of missing the undercurrent.

"You see anybody with an extra ear in this class?" Dante asked.

Seriously, how many daggers could you glare at a guy before he got a hint?

This was Cecil. He either got it immediately, or pretty much never.

"Not that's visible," he allowed, "but you never know where it might turn up, or when. As my scoutmaster used to say, not all eyes look forward!"

Ada was going to be part of the slouch-in-you-chair-and-listen team today, thank you kindly. Sharing on this topic was not going to happen.

When they ping in!

Cecil was here! And ready to listen!

Jono was also here, and had basically just done enough caring and sharing to last him a lifetime or three. But he would be happy to talk if anybody needed to.

Once he pings in!

Flamingo!

Coping with Change | Tuesday, period one

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Listen to the lecture

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Talk to the teachers

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Talk to the TA

OOC!