Amanda & Finnick
"Mmm, yeah. I thought about trying my hand at sewing myself, but since I didn't really have any fine motor skills for so long, it seemed better to leave that to other people for the time being. Maybe when I feel more settled in the garden. It's been a really long time since I've actually had so much to learn. It's a little overwhelming, but...nice." She shrugged a little self-deprecatingly; she didn't mind so much reminding people of what her past had been, but it was always frustrating to be reminded of what her body had kept her from knowing, and not just in bed. "But you've obviously got a bit more to work on yourself than the rest of us. Your house is in good shape now, right?" She hadn't kept on that, distracted by her own past until recently.
She nodded at Finnick's comment about skill exchange. "There was a saying, from a people I studied. The translation isn't perfect, but it roughly equated to 'from one, many may learn'. I'd like to think we'll be putting that into practice far more than we might have back home. We all brought something with us that at least one other person might not know." While she wasn't sure how much her engineering experience would ever translate--she wasn't sure they'd ever reach the stars themselves, considering how long it had taken humanity when they had more advanced tools at their fingertips--Charles had started to make her feel like she did have more to offer, besides the knowledge of living in a body that had been less than normative.
She did laugh at Finnick's comment about being competitive. "Me too. Well, at least when it comes to chess. It was one of the few things that some people thought of as a real competition that I could actually even do, let alone excel at. I won't let you win, but I won't actually try to clean the floor with you either, at least not at first . It's been awhile since I've actually played with anyone who wasn't really experienced, maybe...since I was sixteen?" It didn't sound like boasting for her; it actually said something about how different she'd been back then. Because by sixteen she was in college and chess had taken a backseat to her degree.