Dear Diary,
It is I, your favourite writer Daria Reynaldy. I noticed that I haven't told my friends my nickname yet, nor have I told you. Wei Wei is what sometimes my mum would call me, it's also what my family from the great Qing Dynasty would call me in their letters. I can't wait to tell my friends about it and the interesting letter my great aunt Bai Lu xi sent me. Oh and I am ever so grateful for having found my watch back, of course I'll keep it safely at home in my drawer. Now I have to go to school, Cameron is waiting for me downstairs. Oh Cameron's nickname is actually He di. Will write back again soon, He di is getting impatient.
Daria was sighing all the way to school thinking that she will have to sit in the boys' row again and next to Rei. As she lay her slate down on her desk, she felt someone tapping her shoulder from behind and that slightly made her jump since she was rather deep in her thoughts.
"Hehe, surprised much? Anyway what are you doing in this row girlie? The girls row seats are over there. Heard there was a shuffle of some sort for seats, did something go wrong?" Asked Faris who was grinning from ear to ear.
"Tell me about it, the professor put me in the boys' row on purpose, says I'd talk too much with the girls, but I don't and I swear Rei interferes in my concentration in each lessons." Replied Daria.
Just then Rei made his flashy entrance with a rose in his mouth and carrying a basket of red roses. That made everyone laugh as he was clacking his feet while offering a rose to every girls in the class until he's reached his seat. "I'm sorry Dari, I don't have a rose for you cause you know girls are seated in yhe girls row seats, but you aren't so that makes you a one of us buddies right." Said Rei.
"What kind of logic is that. I am a girl and I do not need your lousy rose." Said Daria.
"And don't call me Dari! I have a proper nickyand it's Wei wei, but you don't need to call me by any nicknames."
"Wei wei? I prefer calling you Dari, so you're Dari to me." Said Rei.
"Ay stop bickering will you? Wei wei, do you happen to want to swap seats with me? You see I just sent word to have new glasses made and they haven't arrived yet so I'd like your seat if you don't mind." Asked Raees politely. Daria nodded and happily changed seats with Raees, surely any seatmate would be better than the mischievous Rei.
"So Wei wei, how come that's your nickname?" Asked Faris who was now Daria's seatmate.
"Well it's a nickname my great aunt Bai Lu Xi gave me, she's from the great Qing."
"No wonder, I wish to one day visit the great Qing, heard many stories about it and I also heard that the sights are spectacular." Said Faris.
"Oh they are, I went there once when I was little but the journey is so long. I remember at great aunt's place she had a huge garden with over a thousand peach blossom trees. It was called the peach blossom array." Said Daria with a far away nostalgia in her tone and eyes.
"No way, who would plant all these?" Asked Rei.
" I just received a letter from my great aunt and she has told me the story behind these peach blossoms. Have you ever heard of the great sage Bai Jing Ting? He planted them to show his sincerity and love to his beloved fiancée Zhao Miao Yi, since she loved the scent of peach blossoms and she would make perfumes, insence powders with the flowers and even fumigate her robes with peach blossom perfumes, she also used to make jam, and pickles with the peaches, also often dried them to eat as snack or made into a dried peach powder which she used in her cooking. She was a herbalist and treated women of her village at the times of plagues." Said Daria.
"I did hear of the legendary Bai Jing Ting and his peach blossom array but i didn't think it would be like this, how romantic." Said Rei.
"Yes and the sage Bai Jing Ting is my aunt's father." Replied Daria.
"What a lineage!" Exclaimed Raees.
" We have biology as soon as the class begins so let's prepare for the class. I say I love biology and chemistry, I shall become a doctor one day" said Faris.
"I thought you wanted to be a train engineer and an artist" said Daria.
"Well I did, but I also would like to be a doctor, or a pharmaceutical engineer. All sounds so interesting you see, I shall decide when I am seventeen. There's still five years before that and I shall enjoy my boyhood right now." Said Faris.
"Wait, you're twelve? I am thirteen." Said Daria.
"I'm thirteen too" said Rei.
"You don't actually expect me to call you big sister Daria now or Jie jie do you shortie?" Asked Faris with a smirk on his face.
"Who are you calling short? I'm still growing! No there's no need to call me Jie jie or anything, just Daria will do."
"Well you're a lot shorter than me, I think, like Rei, I'll just call you Dari. What do you say Raees?"
Raees nodded his approval and burried his head in his biology textbook.
They had an interesting class about blood circulation and blood cells and how oxygen is transported through the blood stream into veins and arteries to the heart and out. However impatient they were for luncheon break, the little students were deeply immersed in their lessons. Having fun learning that when the blood is oxygenated it is bright red and when it is deoxygenated it is dull in colour while also learning the different components of blood which are red blood cells, two different white blood cells, plasma, platelets, haemoglobin and iron three plus ions found in haemoglobin.
"I never knew how complex blood was until today, it's rather interesting, I really think I should be a doctor or a pharmaceutical engineer." Said Faris.
"There you go again." Said Rei.
"Hey at least it's a profession where I can help people and treat them!" Exclaimed Faris.
"Well though the class is interesting it's two minutes before break and I am jolly hungry, so my brain has stopped concentrating about ten minutes ago." Said Rei.
"I couldn't agree more..." Sighed Raees.