2016-09-14: Educational Experiences

[robkelk]

Educational Experiences
By current and past members of the KanriKyara Project

---

The Masaki residence, Coquitlam, BC, Canada
September 14, 2016, 8:55 am PT


"If you'll come to order, class..." Garnett announced with a grin.

Everyone else looked up from their desks. Washuu-chan had pulled her classroom furniture out of storage where it had been since the Masu incident, and provided a room for Garnett and the younger residents to handle the necessary chore they had scheduled for today and the remainder of the week... and then she decided to take part in the lessons, as a student.

"Hai, sensei!" Sasami chirped in reply.

Garnett smiled at Sasami's eagerness to begin. "Let's start by reviewing the course syllabus. We won't cover everything that's likely to be on the high school equivalency exam, just the subjects that aren't focused on in Japan. Which means Canadian history and geography, and conversational English."

"But we all speak English now," Tenchi pointed out.

"You might have the skill, but do you know all of the technical terms? For example, do you know the difference between a noun and a gerund?"

"What is a gerund?"

"We'll cover that during the lessons, Aeka-hime. What we're going to review for the rest of this week and next Monday is what you would need to know in order to pass the immigration exam."

"That much?"

Simply by hearing that comment, Garnett knew that Ryoko was going to be her problem student.

---

5:27 pm PT

Just as Garnett was finishing up grading the practice tests that she had given to the people who were displaced to Coquitlam, a piercing scream cut through the evening air.

Garnett dropped her pen and made it to the source of the scream – the laundry room – in under fifteen seconds. "What's wrong?"

Inside, she found Mihoshi, teary-eyed and blubbering. With her was Aeka, her face ashen and her gaze vacant as she held up what look like a pair of panties... if a pair of panties had been attacked by voracious moths. And noxious chlorine fumes wafted out of the space.

"Oh, dear," said Garnett.

"What happened?" asked a voice behind her. She turned around to find Ryoko looking worried.

"Somebody asked Mihoshi to handle the laundry."

"It was her turn. Why?"

"She washed all of our underwear. And with far too much bleach."

Ryoko's expression changed from worried to annoyed. "How bad is it?"

Garnett sighed deeply. "Let me put it this way: how many clean changes of underwear do any of us have left in our closets?"

"Not enough for regular use."

"That was a rhetorical question... Well, it looks like we're going shopping after dinner."

---

Coquitlam Centre
7:09 pm PT

"Why are we going to the shop where we buy food?"

"There's more than just T&T in this mall, Aeka-neesan," Sasami replied.

"Think of the Coquitlam Centre as a shopping arcade and you'll have the right idea," added Garnett as the ladies walked past the bank at the mall's eastern entrance and made their way into the mall itself.

"And why are we not going to an actual shopping arcade?"

"The mall is still open, princess," Ryoko pointed out. With a salacious grin, she added, "Unless you were planning on going commando tomorrow..."

"You have made your point," Aeka said primly and quickly. Then she turned to Garnett, and as they continued walking, Aeka said, "These do not appear to be shops."

"You're right," Garnett admitted. She saw no reason to upset somebody who she had been hired to help. "The businesses in this corridor are all service providers. You'll see some shops once we're at the end of this row."

A few minutes later, they reached the end of the hallway and turned to the right. "We aren't going to that larger store?" Aeka gestured to the Sears that was now behind them.

Garnett shook her head. "You and Ryoko could probably find something that fit you there, but Sasami and Washuu-chan could only get what they call 'training bras' at Sears, and they wouldn't look good on them. And Mihoshi and I would have trouble finding anything that we could squeeze into."

"It is hard to find pretty clothes that fit women like us, isn't it?" Mihoshi commented innocently, causing both Ryoko and Aeka to glare at her. "And you're even bigger than I am." The glares shifted target from Mihoshi to Garnett.

"I don't know about that," Garnett said quickly, "but I do know that I'm wearing underwear that fits me properly. And here we are!" She stopped in front of a store that was simply named "Change".

"Oh, those are so pretty!" Sasami said while looking at the store's display.

"And it looks like they come in my size, too," added Washuu.

"Both your sizes," Garnett confirmed, trusting that anyone who overheard the comment would think she was referring to the two young-looking girls in the group instead of to Washuu's two forms. "I don't know anybody who needs an M cup, but they sell those here, too."

"An M cup?" Ryoko was amazed. "Is that really how big you humans grow?"

Garnett laughed quietly. "That's the far end of the size curve," she pointed out, "and most women who need that size have had cosmetic surgery."

The Juraians and other aliens looked at her in amazement. "Why?"

"Don't ask me," Garnett replied, not wanting to be glared at again by people who might be insecure about their self-images. That was another reason why she had brought her housemates to Change; the staff encouraged their customers to wear underclothes that both fit and made them look good, no matter what their body shapes were. "Let's just go in, get measured, and re-stock our underwear drawers."

---

The Masaki residence
September 15, 2016, 9:13 am PT

"Sorry I'm late," Washuu said as she hurriedly walked into the classroom. "I had to make some IDs for a group of displaced people in Ottawa."

"I thought that the girls from Academy City already had IDs."

Washuu nodded as she sat down. "You're right, Aeka-dono. But this set was for a new group of people from another reality altogether, who just moved into the Ottawa residence."

"We don't have room for anyone else here," Tenchi said quickly, not wanting to throw the harmony of the house out of balance.

Sasami gigged. "They aren't moving in here, Tenchi-niisan!" Then she turned back to Washuu. "Who are they?"

"Well, I could tell you before they're ready to be known to the rest of us," Washuu replied, "but then I'd be punished in the name of the Moon."

Sasami squeed in happiness. "I want to meet them!"

"Later," Garnett insisted. "After you've written the entrance exam, and after they're ready to meet other people who have been displaced here."

"Haiiiii..."

"So, what did I miss?" Washuu asked while sitting at her school desk.

"Iwasaki-sensei was telling us about the 1931 Statute of Westminster. There's something that I'm puzzled about, though. You asked the British Parliament for control of your own laws, except for your constitution?"

Garnett smiled at Tenchi referring to her by her family name; that put a bit of much-needed social distance between them. She nodded as she replied, "We couldn't agree on how to amend the constitution back in 1931. It took another fifty years before we came up with a system that both the federal and provincial governments could live with."

"A half-century?" Tenchi was very surprised. "Now I see why MacArthur insisted on writing the Sengo-Kenpō for Japan."

"That wasn't the only reason he wrote Japan's constitution, but it is one of them."

---

September 17, 2016, 8:03 am PT

"Tenchi!"

"Yes, grandpa?"

"Do you have classes today?"

The younger Masaki shook his head. "Iwasaki-san says they don't hold classes on Saturdays in Canada."

"Good." Katsuhito stood up... and abruptly threw a magazine at his grandson, who caught it easily. "You've been neglecting your physical training while you've been studying. It's time to correct that state of affairs."

Tenchi looked at the article that the magazine was opened to. "It looks interesting," he said after a moment, "but this says there are two sets of stairs so it isn't an uninterrupted climb, and the steps look to be gentler than the steps from the house to the shrine back home."

"You'll just have to jog up the stairs instead of walking, then. Go climb the Coquitlam Crunch. And climb it at least once a week while we're in this universe."

"Sure, grandpa," Tenchi replied, happy to get away from the women in his life for a couple of hours. "But where is it?"

"Have you forgotten how to read a map, grandson?"

"Oh, right. I'll go do that now."

---

False Creek, Vancouver, BC
September 18, 2016, 10:15 am PT

"I'll be honest with you," Garnett had told them. "I majored in business, not science. The only way I know to let you know what science we do and don't know is to show it to you."

So they spent an hour on the SkyTrain and went to Science World in downtown Vancouver.

"Yes, I know this wasn't the best choice if you're looking for a college-level introduction to science," Garnett admitted to Aeka while they watched as Sasami walked onto a stage at the museum. "But that isn't what we're here for. You already know most of this, and a lot more besides. What you need this week is an overview of what Earth doesn't know. Hang on, Sasami-chan finally has her hair loose and one hand on the Van de Graff generator."

Garnett got her cellphone out and started recording Sasami... just before the museum's staffer turned on the electricity and Sasami's ankle-length hair stood up on its own.

Aeka quickly moved her hand up to her mouth. It was only polite to hide her teeth, after all.

"That's the first time I've ever heard you giggle, Aeka-hime," Garnett said with a smile of her own, which she couldn't hide because she was too busy with the camera.

"We have the same kind of device back home," Aeka replied, "so I knew what to expect. Although of course we have a different name for them."

"It's an elementary application of electrostatic principles," Washuu added. "And Sasami looks like she's enjoying herself." Just then, they cut the power and Sasami's hair dropped back to behind her... and in front of her. Garnett was reminded of Cousin Itt from The Addams Family... but Sasami was cuter.

A moment later, Sasami was back with the rest of the group and Aeka was helping her put her hair ties back on. "That was fun! I wonder what I looked like, though."

"I got a video of you," Garnett told her. "Do you want to see it?"

"Sure!"

It took them a couple of hours to see all of the exhibits, at which it was just past lunch time. "Hey, have you ever had Cambodian food?"

"I don't think so," Sasami replied.

"I know that I haven't," Tenchi added.

Ryoko shrugged her shoulders. "Food is food. It's not like I care what it tastes like. Somebody forgot to give me taste buds."

"I didn't think you'd need them," Washuu admitted.

Garnett ignored the byplay that had become a recurring part of her life. "There's a Cambodian restaurant a couple of blocks away, and they make the best chicken wings in town. Want to see whether the lineup at Phnom Penh is around the block?"

"I suppose we could do that," Tenchi replied, at which point everyone else stifled their objections.

So they did, and the lineup was only a few dozen people long.

After they finally got a table, the Masakis agreed that the chicken wings were good, but so was the Thit Bo, one of the Vietnamese dishes on the menu.

"I see why this place had a lineup," Tenchi said. "Is this going to be on the test?"

"Probably not," Garnett replied as she reached for another chicken wing. "I just wanted to give Sasami a break from needing to cook a big meal today."

"Thank you, Garnett-neesan!"

---

The Masaki residence
September 20, 2016, 9:30 am PT

And then it was time for the newcomers to write their tests, either for their Adult Graduation Diplomas or their high-school placements.

All Garnett could do was wait... and hope she'd done a good job on her first big project.

---

September 22, 2016 3:49 pm PT

As everybody expected, Aeka, Sasami, and Tenchi were admitted into good schools and everyone else passed the Adult Graduation high school equivalency examination with flying colours.

As Garnett passed out the documents that had been couriered to her at lunchtime, she noticed one entry on Washuu's certificate. "You went with the Christmas Cake joke?"

"Why not? Don't I look the part?" Washuu grinned as everybody else sighed or rolled their eyes.

Garnett's reply was a simple, "Tenchi, here's yours."

"Thanks. Does this mean I'm an adult now?"

Garnett shook her head. "Sorry, but you don't legally become an adult until you're 19. Or 18 if you move east. Until then, Nobuyuki-san still has the final say over your life."

Ryoko teleported over to Tenchi and smiled seductively as she caressed his cheek. "You should have said you were 20, Tenchi. Then the two of us could have been adults together."

"Tenchi-dono would never lie about something like that," Aeka rebutted as she pulled Ryoko away from Tenchi. "Besides, I'm sure that he would be much happier if he wasn't dating an older woman."

"Three years isn't that much older! Not like some people..." With that, Ryoko glared at Garnett.

"You are certainly correct there." Aeka joined Ryoko in her glare.

Sasami stood on tiptoe and whispered to Garnett, "Haven't you told them yet that you aren't interested in Tenchi-niisan that way?"

"Twice to each of them and once to both of them, in addition to the times that you've heard," the redhead whispered back with a bemused grin. "I don't think they're listening."