Thirty Years

Skills

"Try this one."

"No, actually this one."

"Wait, just try both!"

Watching her brothers with a helpless smile, Via quietly sat down on the soft leather couch of the clothing store.

"You realize those shirts all look the same right?" Maix and Asa turned away from the clothing display and gave her offended looks.

"Sister. . . of course these are all the same but that's why it's so hard to only pick one" staring at Maix in disbelief, Via completely gave up on making her brothers see reason. 

For the last two years, Via worked nonstop. She took online college courses during the day while developing her programming skills and helping her brothers with their schoolwork at night. Now at the ages of twelve and sixteen, both her brothers tested out of Theradin and were pursuing college degrees.

While they valued education greatly, the Dos siblings were not solely academics. At this point, they all understood the value of education, but also knew that studying had to be done in moderation. Thus, Asa and Maix were excited to go out and take a break from studying when they heard of the new mall opening.

Via, on the other hand, struggled with this concept. In her past life, she was able to test into Theradin solely because of her hard work. Although it seemed as though she was a gifted student, her first-ever standardized test scores were simply in the 70 percentile, a bit above average. But with her own determination, Via was able to raise her grades. Now, even though she passed her college courses easily as she was taking them for the second time and had the advantage of her experience in getting accepted to Medical school from her past life, Via struggled to find balance in her life. 

She was finally able to study what she was interested in: computer science and virtual reality. In the beginning, Via spent hours working through the small problems, making sure she understood each line of code as she wrote it. Then as she became more comfortable with programming, she found that she was able to tackle harder, more complicated, but more exciting topics. 

All in all, Via was completed entranced by it. She couldn't believe that one subject could allow anyone, as long as they had a computer, to create virtually anything. Even years after she first started programming, Via still found the subject new and refreshing, she never wanted to stop. Luckily, she had her brothers around to remind her to take breaks.

Asa and Maix, similarly, were not naturally gifted. They didn't have photographic memory, and they weren't quick problem-solvers--at least not initially. They just had the advantage of Via's help and their incredible work ethics. They were fortunate to have found their passions early, and they understood that formal education was necessary to help them fully pursue their interests.

All this time, all these fools needed was encouragement. 

In her past life, her brothers also went to Theradin, earning grades above average, but not excelling at the school. They weren't able to find their passions at school and with had no one to tell them that passions could be found elsewhere, they chose their careers based off of what they were taught at school: they chose their jobs according to what paid the most. As a result, they were never able to find, not to mention pursue, their passions before they were taken down by Sophie.  

Via silently shook her head watching her brothers. Although she had the mentality of an adult, her brothers did not; regardless of how many courses they took, they were still young and found such long periods of intense focus draining. Thus, when they suddenly suggested visiting the mall, she gave in to their pleading and left with them.