Curse Of The Kookith

     One of the most prime examples of this is a Blumaroo named Asha. Asha is a student at a local private school, one that is very costly but provides an amazing education and has a top-notch reputation. Asha's family works extremely hard to make barely enough money to pay the tuition, her mother and father each pulling fourteen-hour days just to get by. They live in a small apartment on the dark side of Roo Island, nearby to Deadly Dice and the evil Count Von Roo, where they get by on meagre rations of rice, beans, and other cheap grains.

     Asha's mom, a factory worker who produces souvenirs for all the boardwalk shops, wants to send her daughter to this elite private school so that she can have a chance of breaking free of the rough lifestyle they are currently living. She dreams of a better life for Asha, but she also hopes that Asha can achieve greatness and help pull her and her husband up out of this neighbourhood as well. Asha's father, a hardworking seaman who provides boat tours to tourists, has always been proud of his daughter and just wants her to be happy, regardless. A lot of pressure on Asha comes from her mother.

     "Asha, dear, how is your homework coming along? Are your grades improving?" Asha's mother, Karen, was preparing a dinner of curry lentils with rice and homemade bread. The smell of the curry was filling the whole house with a delicious, savoury scent that had all the neighbourhood stray dogs whimpering below their window, begging for scraps. Karen was an incredible cook, and it made life so much more bearable since the family couldn't afford to eat out at fancy restaurants or anything. All of the meals were homemade, everything down to the bread, because it was the cheapest way to obtain these things. It took a little extra time, time that Karen was already short on, but this was how she took care of her family. "You know I work hard to take care of this family, once you graduate and get a good job it will be time for you to take care of us Asha!! So you need to study hard, put in extra hours like the rest of us do!"

     Asha felt the burden of her mother's desires, and she always felt the constant pressure that was being put on her. She tried to reconcile with it, knowing her mother and father were also under immense pressure, that they were doing the best they could to provide for her and ensure her success.

     "Yes Mom! I just finished my writing assignment," Asha replied. Writing was Asha's passion, the only way she wanted to spend all her days. She would write anything that came to mind, fantasy stories, historic articles, poems, if there was something to write about, she would write about it.

     "Writing?? What about your math homework?" Asha's mother was less enthusiastic about the writing, believing math and science should be the priority. "You need to get into a good college, how will writing help you become a doctor or a lawyer?? There is no money in books!!"

     "I'm doing my math homework next, don't worry," Asha was resilient to her mother's words, but they still took a toll on her. Her dream was to grow up and become a famous author, to sell her books in every book store and to have her stories inspire young readers everywhere, the way she had been inspired by all the books she has read growing up. She closed up her notebook and went downstairs to have dinner, fully prepared to settle into her math homework with a stomach full of her mom's famous curry.

     "You're too hard on the girl," Asha's father Nicholas said to Karen as they sat down at the table. "Let her write, she is doing fine in school."

     "Fine is not great, fine is not what gets you into the best universities in Neopia!! She needs to do better than fine or we won't ever get out of this place."

     "Don't put all that pressure on her, dear. She's doing the best she can."

     "I know what she is capable of, she can do better and she will do better," Karen exclaimed. "Now, enough, let's eat."

     Asha sat quietly, uncomfortable knowing that her parents were arguing over her grades. She wanted to do better for them, to help them get along better. They've been married for twenty years, and they had the strongest relationship that she had ever seen, going through all of this poverty together and then bringing a child, her, into the world. But tensions have been high lately, and she knew it was because she wasn't achieving perfect scores on all her tests. Her grades in writing were at the top of her class, but in the other subjects she was only near the top, and she knew that wasn't good enough for her mother.

     "I'll take a break from writing, I'll make sure all my grades improve," Asha squeaked out.

     "I know you will, honey, I know you will," said Karen, smiling at her daughter.

     The family continued the rest of their dinner with silence, no one wanted to break it for fear of starting an argument. This wasn't how every meal went in their household, but over the last year it had become more and more common. Asha was only one year away from having to pick a university, so her test scores were now more important than they ever have been. She finished up her dinner and retreated to her room so that she could focus on the rest of her homework and studying and revising.

     Asha sat down in front of all of her math work and spent a couple of hours doing all kinds of problems, trying to master all the different equations and solutions. Math, in a lot of ways, makes perfect sense. There is a problem, and there is a solution, and there are set ways to get to the solution. Math is full of rules and standards, and if you follow those rules you will find the answer every single time, there isn't really a grey area or any chance to get creative. As long as you memorize and learn all the techniques, you will succeed. Something about that never really clicked with Asha, her brain thrives on the creative, on the open-ended, in the grey areas. That is why writing is so appealing to her, it represents absolute freedom. Anything she wants to write down on the paper, she can, and she can make it make sense in her own way and create her own rules. There is a certain structure and method to writing, but those are more like guidelines, as opposed to math which has hard set rules that you cannot stray from. She knew that she needed math to succeed in her mother's eyes though, and she had a big test coming up the next day, and so she tried to clear her head of all the creative thoughts and all the sparks of inspiration that made her want to write instead so that she could focus on math. This test was really important because it would decide if she would be able to enter advanced math courses, something her mother insisted was crucial for her to accomplish so that she would get accepted to a good school. "It looks good on your applications!!" She could hear her mother's voice echoing in her head. "Do you want us to keep living in the gutters? We work so hard to pay for your schooling, work hard for us too!" It was all so much pressure to put on such a young girl, but she did what she could to stay afloat. Writing was her outlet, her way to break free of all the pressure and frustration, but she put that aside for now.

     "Math, I need to do well in math," Asha whispered to herself quietly, working late into the night. All of this work would surely give her a Maths Nightmare, but she thought that at least that would still be extra practice for her exam.

     To be continued…