Alright. {grabs nearest book on bookshelf--Analects of Confucius & Tao Te Ching. Opens book to three random pages and looks for a word that jumps out at me:}
- impatiences
- illumined
- untaught
(I both respect your sense of humour here, and groaned when I read this. Talk about unexpected challenges!! I thought about cheating, and making a story set in a spelling bee, but that felt cheap...so...here we go...)
'I'm nearly ready, Mum, just calm down!', the teenage girl whined, pulling a sweater on at the same time she tried slipping a shoe on.
'So you should be. The Open Day starts in 30 minutes, and I don't want to miss the start. Someone has to actually care about your future, and it doesn't seem to be you.'
Lila groaned at her mother's words. When she was in a mood, she could be like a bear with a sore head. And she was certainly in a mood. She was hard to deal with at the best of times, but she seemed able to stack one source of impatience on another, and turn them into a raging beast. A beast named 'Impatiences', apparently.
They made it to the Open Day, twenty minutes ahead of the first presentation. Did her mother admit they didn't need to rush around like headless chickens to make it? She did not. But at least Impatiences the Beast was sleeping now.
Lila liked art, and she'd been looking forwards to hearing the University students speak about the Art program. But it was pretty confusing. She understood that the girl with green hair was talking about the light and how it effected her painting. But why did she say 'by shifting the virtual lantern, you will note how the subject's face is illumined differently?' Perhaps the girl thought it made her sound clever, but Lila had noticed she was ringing her hands nervously before the presentation. Perhaps Uni students got as nervous as High School ones did? That was quite the revelation.
By the time they were driving home, Lila's head was spinning. Even her mother's frustrated words at her tardiness in getting her seat-belt clicked in washed over her, distracted as she was. So many words that seemed to make sense, but were thrown together in strange and confusing ways. So many things she'd learnt that didn't seem at all the same as what she'd learnt previously. 'Mum...I think I need to be untaught everything I've been told at High School, so I'll be ready for Uni.'
'Don't be ridiculous. Untaught isn't a real word.'
Lila sighed. Seemed like Impatiences the Beast had woken up...