While winter break was a good thing, like all good things it was coming to an end. Soon everyone would be heading back to classes, whether at school or at college, but there were plenty of surprises to be found.
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Sophie, Roland, and Buzz were able to travel back to Dino City with little to no problem, but it was who was waiting for them that was a big surprise. Quetzal was easy to spot because of her height, but Buzz had a little bit of trouble focusing on her head/face and not just because of her height. As it turned out, she was coming to them for flight lessons, which was a bit of a surprise since Sophie and Roland weren't really teachers, not to mention Buzz hadn't fully completed his training.
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On Heiya Island, Mizu and Muxing were able to meet up with Nuregami, who had become Mizu's guardian. While she did spend Brush Council meetings in a glass urn full of water, that was more like a symbolic thing similar to Tachigami's blade. Since Tachigami was one of the judges at the Year of the Rat Celebrations, Itegami would be one of the judges at this year's Year of the Ox Celebration. This year (since oxen weren't really great climbers) the final challenge would be more like an obstacle course race, with most of the other competition being about strength and endurance, with one challenge inspired by old-time plowing.
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There was a new episode of Fun and Fins where Susan and Tzan (clearly against her will), as well as Chipper and Brazen, were meeting all the new "hippies" that were moving to Mieni Atoll. While Susan and Chipper were excited about meeting new people, Tzan and Brazen were noticeably less so. Although it was kind of funny watching the hippies react to the Mieni Atoll authorities destroying their stock of marijuana.
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Another new thing was a sneak peek on the website of the proposed Greek colony. While the overall theme was "classical Greece", there were some clever ways of introducing modern amenities to an otherwise ancient society. For example, there was a "Craftsman's guild" which was, in a way, responsible for all the "advanced" technology that had been found in and at Greek ruins and shipwrecks, such as the Antikythera mechanism.
While there were those who were excited about a colony inspired by classical Greece and Greek Mythology, there were enough lewd comments about the "steamier" parts of Greek Mythology on the website that these had to be removed. Of course, the top "advisors" for the colony as a whole were Heracles and Megara, since they had the most experience/knowledge of such things, much to everyone's surprise.
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There were a few new things that were considered surprising, but these were mainly with either brand new members or relatively new members.
It was the official announcement that Hunni Bunni had an extremely high IQ that was the most surprising, mainly because she was known for acting like a "bodybuilder bimbo". The psychologist who made the announcement had to phrase the IQ test as a "game" because the word 'test' seemed to upset her quite a bit.
Meanwhile, Gloria von Something-I-can't-pronounce (she was irritated that she was saddled with that unwanted nickname) had applied at Animalia Community Theater. While her conversion to an Animalian did help her get her mood swings under control, she was one of those whom Dr. Jones labeled as 'not all the way back'. That didn't matter too much to the staff since they now had a star (or former star, to be more precise) actress to not only take part in Animalia's planned plays, but also act as an advisor.
Elsewhere, Milla V. had taken up with Ella and Simone at the Kat's Klub. The Klub had done well enough to warrant an expansion, much to both Ella and Simone's surprise. But Milla had some very surprising advice, suggesting that they add a second floor. Fortunately, adding extra floors wasn't too difficult or expensive due to Animalia's construction crews. But while they did agree to her plan on how to handle society's social media addiction problem, her plan would have to wait until the Pandemic was a bit more under control.
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While most people, especially young children, weren't happy about returning to school, there was no getting around the fact that there were very few jobs that didn't require a high school diploma at least.