Day 136,

Something that seemed off about this class that I could never quite put my finger on finally clicked today.  It’s a class of nineteen ranging in ages from 5 to 10, and presumably all, or nearly all, of the children on the island in that age range, which puts us in a six-year period averaging about three children born per year.  And I know Cass mentioned this is a smaller than average class size, but I can’t imagine it being large enough to make the average birth rate more than four or five per year.  The Village is small, but not that small, especially when you factor in the outskirts.  Sure that bizarre birth control going on with visits to the Blossom Field apparently being required for pregnancy is certainly a factor (assuming it’s not just tradition/superstition, but at this point there’s enough weirdness going around to make me doubt that), but that still feels… low.

Maybe I’m just overestimating how often people normally have kids?  Then again do spotty memories of a past life in another world really qualify as a good gauge of “normal”?

Wound up staying up too late going through the archival listings of births and confirmed that my current class of students are in fact the only children on the island of that age bracket.

It occurs to me that with all these records of births and deaths I could extrapolate a census of sorts.  Well, I have been feeling like I’m stuck in a rut lately.  That could be a new pet project to work on that’ll keep me busy as we start moving into the really heavy part of the rainy season.