Logs:New Norm

New Norm
Dramatis Personae Kieow, Astrid
In Absentia	2020-11-02 '
Location <XAV> Classroom 1 - Xs First Floor
Desks arranged into neat rows make up this, a fairly typical classroom. Chalkboard in front, teacher's desk in front of that. Windows along one wall look out on the grounds, providing plenty of opportunity for distraction for daydreaming students. The final bell of the day has rung and most students in the classroom are quick to pack up their things, stuff their bags and move on to anything other than history. Astrid on the other hand is slow to move. She has set her pencil down on the desk at the very top and it rolls a couple inches down only to be caught at the top of her notebook. She turns to face the window, staring at the cold and dreary looking world outside for several seconds before removing her glasses and placing them down across the note scrawled pages. Both eyes are rubbed with the heels of her palms before the glasses are put back into place. She’s wearing a classic looking red and black plaid flannel, both sleeves rolled up just shy of her elbows. Her wavy hair is tucked behind both ears and her usual black beanie sits across the top of her backpack. Her jeans sit closer to the loose end of the style spectrum with a large tear at the left knee. Both legs end in a cuff just above her maroon vans, which are beginning to look rather worn. Kieow is slow to move as well, but rather than being stuck in her thoughts, like Astrid, she's sleepy. Freshly smelling like cedar, the organic girl pulls herself up a little straighter, stacking her class materials in front of her. She glances down at her notes and tilts her head to one side, rereading what her half asleep hand wrote. She shrugs and closes the notebook. She's wearing track suit pants that snap up the sides. Her shirt is an off white wrap shirt with three quarters sleeves over a long longer shirt in rainbow horizontal stripes. Her skin is mottled between gray and the pinkish red of cedar, with patches of prickly green needles poking up where hair might've grown. Twigs cover her head with additional leafing, causing her to look more like a tree. She leans forward and gently touches Astrid's back. "Hey. Penny for your thoughts?" “Penny for your thoughts?” Astrid softly echoes as she is gently tugged back into reality, leaving behind any remnants of lucid daydreams. “Oh, hey Kieow!” She twists around to face her roommate with that ever present toothy grin. She’s kneeling on the base of the chair with elbows resting across the back. “Sorry, was zoned out there. I find it so hard to concentrate this time of day. They should really shorten the school day to like four hours.” "I noticed. Your daydreams, were they nice or upsetting?" Kieow crosses her arms over her desk and relaxes into the position. "I don't know how I'm going to get through winter still. I've been finding some new plants that do survive, but... it's still... so cold and all I want to do is sleep. Which reminds me... My sun lamps aren't keeping you up too late? We can put up a curtain or something." “Maybe a little of both? The weather was making me think about back home, that is all.” Astrid moves forward slightly, dropping her arms across the back of the chair and resting her chin across the top of her wrist. “It’s definitely starting to get pretty cold, that’s for sure.” She chews on her bottom lip, pondering cold weather plants. “We could always get you a little rhododendron? Those seem to be resilient.” The last question is brushed off with a slight head shake. “No bother at all. I can sleep through anything. Plus I’d let you know if they did.” "Oh, okay. I'm not really used to that." Kieow begins to doodle idly in one corner of her notepad cover, not really looking at what she's doing. "Rhododendron? You have them here? We have them back home too. I didn't think to look for them. And I didn't realize they were so hardy, but I guess they are the national flower of Nepal -- so they'd have to be." She exhales as she thinks. "Anyway, how was your weekend? Did you go to the dance? I got teased for going back to my brother's... but I don't know. I still feel weird-- and Tomas came by the dorm with flowers and it was weird too..." Astrid laughs, lifting her head and arms from the back of the chair to lean back into the desk. “Yep, we got them here in the states. Though not sure here exactly.” Her eyes move to the window for a brief search before falling back to Kieow. A short yawn is quickly stifled. “Yeah, my weekend was decent. Skipped the dance and just watched horror films in our room. How’s your brother…” Astrid cuts herself short, head snapping to a slight tilt as her expression is washed over with a rare sober disposition. “Wait? Did you just say those flowers came from Tomas? When did that happen? Can I still punch him for you?” "Uhh. I don't know if punching will do any good with him. He came by to apologize, flowers in hand. I .. don't know. I couldn't refuse an apology even if he was very awkward about it. He has decided that I was in mourning the day he tripped over me and ran away, which... I don't know. I asked him why it took him two weeks to do it and there was no good answer." Kieow leans her chin on her free hand, rolling her eyes. "He's just... dense. can't pick up social clues and ... anyway. Um. Bua's a little better. He gets up, makes food.. eats it. So I'm less scared. I'm mostly .. sad." “Oh, I wasn’t going to really punch him.” She laughs, head shaking back and forth. “Well… probably not. Yeah, I haven’t talked to him much, but I guess I feel bad if he’s that dense.” Her gaze drops down to where the notebook was recently being doodled. “Better late than never?” She looks back up with an exaggerated shrug and half smile. “That’s good, right? For both of you? I’m sure there will be a part of Bua and yourself that will always be sad. I’d be worried if you weren’t. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes much longer before both of you get use to the new norm, right?” "New Norm?" Kieow laughs, head shaking as she also turns her eyes to the doodle beneath her fingers. It's nothing special, just curvy lines that twist and intertwin and swirl out in spirals sometimes, but it's small and close, so not really visible until she pulls her hand away. "The pandemic has brought some strange terms into our lives." Astrid nod’s as she looks back down to the doodle, reimagining the fluid movements it took to execute the small and precise spirals. “We are adaptable creatures, are we not?” Standing up, she starts gathering her belongings left on the desk. He black beanie is pulled over her head and school work shoved into her bag. “I’m hungry.” She simply states. “What say we swing by the kitchen real quick?” "Oh yeah! Sure!" Kieow grabs her bag as she stands, sliding her books into its canvas embrace. "At least the meatloaf was recent enough that it shouldn't be back on the menu yet, right?" Astrid laughs, slipping her arms through the bags straps and settling it squarely across her back. “From what I hear, we better hope not.”