Log: Crystal and Laurie: Early Mornings

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When: Backdated to Thursday 27th September 2006 Time: 6:00am
Who: Crystal & Laurie
What Happens: Laurie manages to wake Crystal up while making herself some breakfast after her early morning run. The girls take the opportunity to talk.




Laurie yawned as she switched on the kettle and moved over to the small bench their suite kitchenette contained. It was somewhat early this morning and she was trying to be as quiet as she could to avoid waking her suitemates. Humming softly to herself, she reached up to pull a bowl from the cupboard and grabbed the box of rice crispies, only then noticing Crystal standing in the door to her room.

Laurie would be the first to admit that she had been somewhat of a hermit lately, not really getting to know the other girls that shared her suite. Now appeared like as good a time as any to remedy that situation.

"Sorry if I woke you." Laurie said, smiling. "Would you like some tea? Or maybe coffee? I'm sort of a coffee fan myself, but I think we've got some nice peppermint tea around here somewhere."

Crystal peered at her suitemate through bleary eyes. She was not the type to sleep until noon, but this was early even for her. There were plenty of hours later in the day for everything that need to be done without getting up at, what time was it? Six? "Sure," she managed to say.

Laurie quickly pulled another mug out of the cupboard and went about the various preparations involved in making coffee, the instant kind. She smiled at Crystal somewhat shyly as she handed her the mug. "Hope you don't mind instant."

Instant what, Crystal wanted to ask, but she refrained from doing so. "Thank you," she said, accepting the mug from Laurie. She looked at the dark liquid inside the cup. Did people really drink this every morning? Odd. It must be better than sugary drinks, though.

Laurie leaned back against one of the cupboards and picked up her own mug, leaning down to breathe in the aroma with a happy sigh.

"It's really quite good." Laurie offered, noticing the somewhat sceptical look Crystal was eyeing the cup with. "Although, the brewed stuff can be a lot better, it just takes way too long in the morning when I've just come back from a run."

Crystal blinked, hiding her surprise. She had assumed Laurie had just woken up. "You have already gone for a run this morning? What time did you wake up this morning? Do you have an appoinment you need to go to?"

"I think...um, 5am? And no, no appointment. Least, not an official one, anyhow. I used to do cross country running at my old school, to be any good at it you have to train a lot. Early mornings always seemed to best time to do it, that way I'd get some exercise in, have some breakfast and go off to school with a good adrenlin buzz. Although I suppose that could have been the coffee. Either way, first few classes of the day always seemed to go quicker. So I just sort of decided to continue the tradition, even if they don't have a cross-country running team here." Laurie replied, slowly circling the mug in her hands as she talked.

"Yes, a lot of practice is needed in order to be good at something," Crystal said, nodding. "Getting up extremely early does seem to make sense when you need to be in a classroom at a set time. I am still getting used to this idea. I did have specific times during which I was tutored, but I had plenty of time to exercise and practice on my own, even beyond appointed time for physical activity related classes."

"Were the classes very different?" Laurie asked, facinated. It was the first time she'd really gotten to speak to Crystal, and she'd never met royalty before. The whole idea of private tutors for an entire class, rather then just for catchup if you were having problems was interesting.

She wondered if it made any difference, having a teacher that didn't have to spend equal time with a whole bunch of students.

"It must be frustrating for the classes you're really ahead in." Laurie said, taking a sip of her coffee. "Although, I can think of things like History where having a large pool of opinions could make the class more interesting. Admittedly, I'm not great with speaking up in large groups but I've been told that getting to debate with a bunch of people can be fun."

"The school spoke to my tutors and we managed to create a schedule of classes that are either on my level of study or are subjects I have not yet studied extensively. For the most part, the lessons are able to hold my interest even though I still find the classroom setting a bit unusual and sometimes jarring." Noting that Laurie had started drinking her coffee, Crystal took a small sip from her own mug. It wasn't the first time that she had tried coffee, but her other attempts at drinking the sometimes addictive beverage had been few and had involved gourmet flavored varieties.

"What do you think?" Laurie asked, waiting to see Crystal's reaction to the instant coffee. A lot of people had rather concrete opinions on their coffee. Some went so far as to refuse to even look at instant. Laurie was one of those that could go either way, depending on how much time and effort she wanted to put in.

Crystal thought it tasted perfectly awful, but she certainly didn't want to say that. "It is quite...unusual," she said politely. She didn't quite understand how people would voluntarily drink this coffee on a regular basis.

"In other words, it's horrible and you're just too polite to say so." Laurie replied, grinning widely. "Although, most people use 'interesting', when they think something is perfectly awful so I could be wrong."

Laurie took another sip of her own drink, she'd long ago gotten used to the bitter bite of instant but it certainly didn't beat the stuff her Mum made.

"Next time there's a bus to New York, I'll have to take you to a proper Cafe so we can get you some real coffee. You might like Lattes, they've got more milk in them so the coffee isn't quite so bitter."

Real coffee? Was this supposed to be fake coffee then? How...interesting. "Why say that something is interesting if it is not?" Crystal queried. "I only say that things are interesting if they seem interesting in some manner. This does not necesarily mean that I find a certain subject to be fascinating, but it can mean that I find someone else's interest in it to be interesting. Let us take cultural differences, for example. I can say that I find a certain aspect of American culture to be interesting. This does not mean that I like it, nor does it mean that I dislike it. It simply...is. It is different from what I am used to, and for that reason alone I may find it interesting."

"I guess the reason people use 'interesting' is that they don't want to lie but they don't want to tell the whole truth either in case it hurt someone's feelings . Interesting is the kind of word that doesn't really say much about how you feel about something, so it's safe, you know? Only, interesting can also be used how you use it as well. It all depends on the situation, and the person saying it and the culture they're apart of."

The English language was confusing, even more so when you added in cultural differences and regional frames of reference. Laurie had often wondered how anyone managed to really understand anyone else with so many things that could be different. But that was the fun of it, wasn't it? Figuring out just where you fit in, and getting to know new frames of reference you might have overlooked had you not been shown a different way. It was what she was coming to love about the mansion the most, even moreso then Lorna's cooking, or the classes, or the fact that she was among people who didn't look at her like she was a freak.

Of course Crystal understood the importance of being polite. She would never actually say how she felt about the ways of the people at the mansion. She could accept the fact that her ways were different from their ways and that was just that. Maybe in time she would understand, but right now, she was just doing her best to get by.

"I do try to be nice to others," Crystal said carefully, "although that does not seem to be my impression of some other people here. It is hard for me to understand when apparent cruelty is seen only as a game and when it become something more." After the name-calling business with Kyle, she had resolved to never say anything more when it seemed that he was being teased. Apparently, it was all supposed to be in the name of fun, even though it didn't seem fun to her at all.

"Oh? What cruelty did you see?" Laurie asked, wanting to make sure she understood the situation before she commented. She couldn't recall hearing about any fights recently, but then she was still fairly new at the mansion and possibly wasn't on the 'list to be gossiped to' as it were.

"Well, as I said, from what I have been told, it does not seem to be intended cruelty," Crystal told Laurie. "It just seems...mean-spirited to me to poke fun at others based solely on the fact that, due to their individual mutations, they look different from others. So what if someone's physical appearance is not that of the average human? There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a visible mutant. I am sure that it may be hard for some, and I would think that they receive enough hardship from non-mutants. Must other mutants make it even harder?" Someone being teased then, there were a couple of students who liked to poke fun at each other but that was all it really was, as far as Laurie knew.

"Sometimes friends like to tease each other, and it can seem really cruel. Especially if it's poking fun at something like their mutation. But the thing is, if someone was feeling hurt then they'd say something about it." Laurie replied, trying to work out how to explain it. "I know that can be hard to tell the difference between, something that's just in fun and something that was said intending to hurt. I think the only real difference is the tone of voice it's said in and how well you know the person. I'd never try to tease someone I didn't know well, because I'd be afraid they'd take it the wrong way. But when you know each other well, then it's alright because they know you'd never deliberately try to hurt them."

Crystal nodded. "It is just hard to tell on the journals. Journals do not allow you to know what tone the words would be were they spoken out loud and not typed for everyone at the school to read." She had other thoughts on this matter, as well as other thought about what Laurie had said, but she felt that it was best to keep these things to herself. Crystal had no desire to get into a discussion of how people had treated her upon her arrival at the mansion. Laurie seemed like a nice person and hadn't been involved in any of the teasing or the pranks. "But, as I said, I do understand that some teasing is meant to be fun." Even if it does not seem fun at all to me.

"Yeah, everything is harder when it's just text on a screen. Although, sometimes it can be easier meeting someone in person if you've gotten to speak to them through the journals first. I don't know if I'd have been quite so social if I hadn't been reading the journals first." Laurie admitted, smiling wryly.

It was true, she probably would have been way too shy to really talk to anyone if she hadn't gotten to know everyone a little bit through backreading on the journal system. Laurie finished her coffee and carefully put the cup in the sink, she needed to get a shower and get ready for school.

For Crystal, the opposite was true. Reading old journals gave her a bit of a "going back in time" feeling and unnerved her a bit. Instead of knowing what a person wished to tell you, you could know whatever he/she had told people a year before. It wasn't very personal, and someone could portray one personality on the journals and then prove to be someone else entirely in person.

Crystal nodded, forcing a convincing smile to appear on her face. "The journal system here is very unique," she responded, thinking quickly and avoiding the use of a certain other word. "It is hard to imagine the school without it."

"There'd bit a lot less drama through misunderstandings but I also wouldn't have anything to read when English class got boring." Laurie replied, grinning. "And speaking of classes, I've got to start getting ready. Talk to you tonight?"

She definitely needed to start spending more time with her suitemates and now that the initial awkwardness of talking to Crystal for the first time had gotten out of the way, she could move on to hanging out.

Crystal nodded, a real smile replacing the forced one. "Yes, I too should prepare for the start of classes. We can speak again this evening."