Good thing I'm not afraid of these. on Care of Magical Creatures

Sub. Professor Adrian Meade

September 07, 2012 6:17 PM

Acromantulas [6 - 7 years] by Sub. Professor Adrian Meade

Adrian Meade had never been someone that liked to be in one place for too long. So, his career choice of magizoologist researcher had perfectly fit his hectic life. Adventures and being constantly on the move had been his life for the last 30 years. The Professor had just returned from an expedition to Malaysia when he was contacted to sub a class at Sonora. It had been a while since he had been inside a classroom and the idea enticed him enough to postpone his plans to stay in Arizona and help out. A change of scenery and pace would help him relax and see life in a whole new light.

And here he was.

The COMC sub was nervous. It had been a while since he had been with children in the same room. His work team consisted of young adults and older people. Children still in school were going to be a challenge, especially the younger years, but Adrian always loved a new challenge.

Days before he was due to arrive at school he had worked diligently on his lessons. He didn’t like doing things halfway and it was time for him to try new things. Well, not really new, but new in the sense that the last time he had been in front of a classroom teaching had been 25 years ago. The sense of freedom and adventure had always stirred his life, but he was old enough that he needed to think about another way of life. He wasn’t planning on retiring from his career, but Adrian needed something else. It was time for him to try and settle down. He was a single male that had published a lot of articles in renowned magazines. He had made a name for himself and sometimes he had the small itch to share everything with someone. Sometimes.

Adrian entered the classroom and began flicking his wand to stick the posters he had procured for the advanced class. He smiled nervously and waited for the class to begin. He had been told that the advanced class was a small one, so he was more at ease.

The Professor smiled as the last student came in, “Greetings, I am Adrian Meade your COMC sub professor.” He didn’t take roll call because his students were old enough to be responsible and he didn’t think it was necessary. If they wanted to be at class it was fine with him, but he didn’t want anyone disrupting it just because they were bored.

“Today we will talk about Acromantulas,” he said with a small grin. He pointed at the posters he had placed all over the classroom. The posters were of pictures of Acromantulas and their physiology. “It is a species of giant spider, native to the rainforests of Southeast Asia, particularly Borneo where it inhabits dense jungles. These giant spiders, with a taste for human flesh, were first spotted in 1794. The Acromantulas are believed to be a wizard-bred species, designed to guard dwellings or treasure hoards, and were created before the Ban on Experimental Breeding in 1965 as we can see by the date of their first spotting.”

He took a deep breath, “I hope you have your textbooks with you, because your homework and assignment for the class is to start a diorama of an acromantula with the important facts about the creature,” he looked at a desk he had set up near his. “The materials you will need are set up there. You can work in pairs or by yourself.”

“You can start now,” he smiled at the students and hoped they would have fun with this assignment.

OOC: Posting rules apply! Have fun and if you need Adrian for something just tag him!

Subthreads:

Good thing I'm not afraid of these. by Marcus Williams, Pecari with Jordan Adair, Crotalus

Erm... Must we? by Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw

0 Sub. Professor Adrian Meade Acromantulas [6 - 7 years] 0 Sub. Professor Adrian Meade 1 5

Marcus Williams, Pecari

September 09, 2012 9:06 PM

Good thing I'm not afraid of these. by Marcus Williams, Pecari

Marcus had no idea what it was that he wanted to do after he graduated from Sonora. Now that he was a Sixth year, he knew that he was really going to have to sit there and work it out because it wouldn’t be long before he had to submit college applications and prepare to go off into the real world where he would have to be responsible. This was the reason why he was taking the same courses he had the years previous. Since he didn’t know what he wanted to do, it was best to stay on task at all times so that he can get into college and have the right amount of credits for when he did finally decide on what he wanted to do with himself. He mother was hoping he wanted to become a doctor. Quite frankly, that did not really interest Marcus. He thought about becoming a Law Enforcement Officer (not an Auror as those seem more like special forces, but just a regular officer on the street in the Magical world), but his neighborhood had little faith in Muggle police officers, he couldn’t imagine it being any better in the Magical world.

Which meant, he was still at ground zero for figuring out his future plans. He wondered if anyone in his year really knew what they wanted to do. He knew what Valentina wanted to do; she wanted to be a dancer. And he really thought she could do it and he supported that gift of hers (although, he hadn’t spoken to her since the night of the concert when she broke up with him, but he still liked to watch her dance). Marcus knew better than to think he would become a professional basketball player or football or baseball player. It just wasn’t realistic. He would have needed to be excellent in High School to get a college scholarship to be noticed by scouts. Since he was not in a Muggle High School to play those sports, that scholarship was out. Those dreams were dead.

But, anyway, that was why he was currently in Care of Magical Creatures class. He didn’t mind animals all that much and knew that he would never go into a field of working with them, but he wasn’t sure if whatever it was he wanted to do would need credits in this field, so he was taking it for the sake of his future.

The new Sub for the class was having it in an actual classroom, that was strange, but he’d work with it. Taking a seat, Marcus sized the guy up and decided he didn’t seem too bad. At least not yet. Sometimes the professors liked to change tactics when they got the students all relaxed and comfortable with how things were going. Not that Marcus was really suspicious of his professors. The only one that really bothered him had been Professor Crosby/Brockert. She had been way too spacey and had handled his situation with Nova Wynn completely wrong. The others had seemed like normal professors who didn’t do much to make him think unkindly of them.

The lesson for the day had Marcus curious to see how the ladies would react. Marcus’s mother had a huge fear of spiders. She always had Raid in hand during the summer months and Marcus was the resident Spider Killer. Acromantulas were even scary to him. Spiders, in general, didn’t worry him, but he also lived in a city that didn’t hold dangerous spiders. Maybe if he lived in the South were they had all sorts of spiders or the Southwest where Tarantulas were, it’d be different. But the worst he would get were fat black ones that weren’t poisonous as far as he knew.

Marcus kept himself from groaning. Dioramas? He was hoping he wouldn’t have science stuff here. Sighing, Marcus made his way to the table where all the materials were. When someone else approached the table, Marcus turned towards them, “You want to work on this together?”

6 Marcus Williams, Pecari Good thing I'm not afraid of these. 180 Marcus Williams, Pecari 0 5

Jordan Adair, Crotalus

September 18, 2012 11:23 AM

That makes one of us. by Jordan Adair, Crotalus

As soon as Jordan entered the COMC classroom, she wished she hadn’t. The posters on the walls depicting giant spiders were not only creepy, but were also highly disgusting. Giving a small shudder, she made her way to one of the seats. She wondered if she had made the right decision to take this class. The only reason that she was taking it was to fill her schedule with something. Her grades for Potions hadn’t been up to par to continue with the class. Not that she would have anyhow. And as for Defense Against the Dark Arts, well, that was better left unsaid.

Oh, it wasn’t that she was dumb. She really wasn’t. It was just she wasn’t a brainiac. Anything that required more of her than she was willing to put in just didn’t interest her. She didn’t have the sort of drive that some others did to succeed regardless of the task at hand. Even when she did enjoy something, her attention span just wasn’t enough to keep a solid interest in it. Like gymnastics. She loved gymnastics and she had tried to take it up again. She had thought that maybe she could actually make a career out of it since she didn’t have any other ideas for a future. But no, she hadn’t stuck with that either. In fairness, though, it wasn’t like she lived gymnastics like actual professionals did.

So, now she had no future path other than listening to the sub talk about icky spiders. Seriously, there was nothing worse than sitting in your room reading or whatever and turning to find some gross eight-legged creature running up your wall. It gave her the shivers just to think about. And that type of spider was only about the size of their relative on the wall’s eyeballs! She couldn’t imagine living anywhere where she actually had to worry about ones that were larger than a household pet. Really, why would anyone choose to live anywhere where these spiders were?

It was horrible enough talking about them, as she pulled out a notebook to take notes on the lecture. Her quill paused when the professor mentioned they had a taste for human flesh. Ew! Even more reason to never live in Borneo. And they were wizard-bred? What wizard in their right mind would make such a thing? No, she supposed that she shouldn’t be surprised given everything that occurred throughout history. Personally, she would have been less worried about her treasure hoard than the spider eating her flesh. History could definitely show some great men, some great events, and some great inventions. It could also show some stupid ones. Seriously? Breeding giant spiders?

The brunette sighed even more when they were told they would have to do dioramas. The only thing she needed to know about the creature was where it lived so she could stay away from the area and they had already covered that. She really didn’t need to know anything else. But she did need a decent grade. It would be pretty pathetic to do poorly when you were taking the bare minimum of requirements.

Before she could check out anything on the materials table, Marcus turned around and asked if she wanted to work together. Oh, that was great! She liked Marcus. He was a lot of fun, which might make the project less un-fun. “Sure! Did you have anything in particular in mind?” Now, getting a better look at the table, she saw some things that could work. Reaching around him, she grabbed a piece of black fabric. “This might work really well for forming the body. We could probably stuff it with something. Maybe cotton? And then if we can create a harder outer shell. That could make it more dimensional. What do you think?”

0 Jordan Adair, Crotalus That makes one of us. 0 Jordan Adair, Crotalus 0 5

Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw

September 20, 2012 2:11 AM

Erm... Must we? by Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw

Arista knew that there was more to school that Quidditch, but there was something about the Teppenpaw 6th year that told her nothing was more important, especially this year. This was Captain Kirstenna’s last year and the red-headed Oregonian had decided THIS would be the year for Teppenpaw to win. She didn’t really care what it took. She’d do anything for a win for Kirstenna. They hadn’t had much luck the prior six years, and it was about to change.

At least if she had her way.

She knew that going into sixth year meant that she would be in advanced classes and pretty much had her choice of what classes she’d take. As the oldest of the Thornton children, she’d decided upon herself to take them all. She wanted to be able to tell her sisters what was good and bad about each so they could make up her own mind for what classes to take when it was their turn. Today’s advanced classes started with Care of Magical Creatures. She’d always been okay with this one, but she knew that advanced would mean much more dangerous stuff than intermediate. It worried her a little bit, there was no denying that fact. But it is what it is… she thought as she walked into the room.

She looked around at the small amount of students in the class and shrugged it off. These were advanced classes now, smaller, more compact and much more knowledge from the teachers to impart to the students. Arista was looking forward to the more one-on-one attention to learn as much as she could in her last two years. The CATS exam the year before had shown her that she had retained a lot of information and she was glad for it. But now she had to prepare for the next test, the year after. This one was worse than the first…

The RATS exam was a scary thing to any seventh year. She’d seen it herself the year before and she already worried about it. The thing about exams though, was that if you studied the whole year through you shouldn’t have a problem with it when the test came around.

Hopefully…

She’d already seen a change in Addison when it came to the tests. Arista only saw her sister with her nose in a book. Ris and the others worried about her even more. Addi had seemed very determined through the summer (once Arista’s scores came in) to pass the CATS herself. Even on the wagon to school the second oldest Thornton had her nose in one of her books. I hope she’ll be okay, but I’ll make it a point to tell Medic Bailey to try to keep an eye on her, especially since she’s not even wanting to be around us, I can only imagine what’s going through her head… With a shrug, she looked up at the man standing in the front of the room as he welcomed them and introduced himself.

Arista was expecting him to take a roll call. He didn’t however, but went right into what the class was going to be about that day. “Acromantulas?” she said in a whispered tone, that most people wouldn’t have heard her. Those are spiders… she thought as her eyes widened at the sight of the posters she should have noticed before, but didn’t. Shivering in her seat at what he’d been saying, she opened her book and took the notes until the words, ‘with a taste for human flesh’ were spoken.

Ris dropped her quill in shock a moment before picking it back up again to continue the notes, hoping to all the world’s Merlins they didn’t ACTUALLY have to see one for this lesson… She’d never really been scared of spiders before, but this wasn’t just ANY old spider either… These things had a taste for human flesh…

“A diorama?” she asked her neighbor, kind of confused in a sixteen year old sort of way. Haven’t made one of those since elementary school… Shaking her head slightly, she wondered how best to make a diorama about the creatures she wasn’t too keen on in the first place.

“Do you want to work together?” she asked her neighbor, not really seeing who it was till that moment.

0 Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw Erm... Must we? 0 Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw 0 5

Marcus

September 24, 2012 6:58 PM

I will admit that they are creepy by Marcus

Marcus was rather surprised to find that Jordan didn’t seem to mind working on making a diorama on a spider. He supposed just making a fake one was way better than actually seeing the real thing, but most girls that Marcus knew would be freaking out over having to study and learn the parts of a giant spider. Not just like a tarantula spider, which were pretty big and disgusting, but spiders that were the size of vehicles. He didn’t understand why wizards would think it was a good idea to create things like that (especially if they weren’t likely able to control them), but if the spiders were as big as the Professor depicted them as being… why had no one ever seen them before, or, better yet, why had they not taken over the planet?

Of course, he could probably say that for anything really in the Magical world. They could block off entire cities within cities and no one would be the wiser. They can expand buildings without disturbing the ground or the buildings beside it. They had dragons and they managed to keep those hidden. He supposed it wasn’t at all surprising that there were loads of magical creatures out there that somehow managed to stay hidden. How they managed it, Marcus probably would never really know or understand. There must have been a time though when the Magical creatures roamed the Earth because of the Fairytale stories that were around. These were the creations to many movies that Marcus had grown up watching just as much as he had grown up reading about them. Unless the Magical world purposes let these things slip… but he couldn’t see the point in that.

“Well, if we stuff it with cotton, we’ll probably need to use a wire or something so that it stays upright.” Marcus commented as he looked around the table. He liked Jordan. She had always been the least uptight girl that he had ever known while at Sonora. She knew how to have fun, she wasn’t clingy, and she seemed to have a sense of herself. Eliza was too into her own head, Renee was crazy, Valentina… as much fun as he had with her and he would gladly do so again, didn’t seem to have any idea about how to handle things. Jordan, at least, from their year, was pretty okay.

“What do you think we could make the outer shell from? I like the cloth idea, should we do something with a little bit of hair too? Large spiders have hair, right?”

6 Marcus I will admit that they are creepy 180 Marcus 0 5

Jordan

September 27, 2012 9:42 PM

Especially when they land on you. by Jordan

“Oh, I think they do!” Jordan said, snapping her fingers like Marcus had thought of the best idea ever. She looked around the table, shoving a couple other things aside and grabbed another piece of material that looked a bit furry. “We can use this for the hair. If we cut it into strips, we can mix it with the harder material, maybe we should so papier-mâché for the outer shell. Hmm, that might fall apart.” What to use? What to use?

She started digging around more in the pile. Her dark hair fell into her face and she hurriedly brushed it aside with mild annoyance. She didn’t have time to deal with that right now. Surprisingly, she was actually excited about the project. Okay, so it did deal with giant hairy spiders, but still, the art part of it was pretty cool. She would never be some amazing artist by any means, but this was definitely turning out to be fun.

“Ah, ha!” Jordan exclaimed in triumph, holding up pipe cleaners. “Okay, I’m still not sure what we can use to make the body harder, but these would be great for the legs.” She put the black fabric on the table with the black felt and put a couple of the pipe cleaners around it. “Can you picture it? Ooohhh, we can get some fake gems for the eyes. It would look really creepy cause it would have that shiny look to them. Maybe red ones? Oh, our spider is going to be the absolute best!”

“Let’s start working on the spider and then we can figure out the harder pieces later?” Pulling out her wand, she started severing the black felt into strips with as much precision as possible. She wasn’t great at having them perfectly even, but they seemed close enough. “Is there glue or something around that we can start sticking these to the material? Or perhaps we should stuff it first? I’m not sure which would be easier. Have you ever done a diorama like this?”

0 Jordan Especially when they land on you. 0 Jordan 0 5

Marcus

September 29, 2012 8:26 PM

It can give you the creepers by Marcus

Marcus had forgotten how much of a chatterbox Jordan was. Not that he minded. It was kind of nice hearing her go on and on about their project and it had him forgetting the fact that they were very different people. Of all the girls in the school, including Valentina, Jordan was the one who he felt he related to the best. Not because she had the same sort of background as he did, because she certainly didn’t, he knew that for sure, but because she had never seemed to care. Sara and him get on alright being Pecaris, but she was definitely Miss Princess. Eliza was alright, but he knew that she had an agenda with everything and even if he liked her, it would never have gone beyond a casual friendship while at Sonora. Valentina, she was cool to hang out with and he didn’t regret dating her at all… she just didn’t seem to really know how to have fun. The girls in his year were all very different, but Jordan at least didn’t seem stuck on herself or have motives. She just went with the flow of things and he liked that most about her.

“Just a couple on pyramids and stuff. We used sugar cubes though.” He watched her with amusement as she dug around for some ideas within the pile of junk the professor had left for them. Well, he probably shouldn’t call it junk…the pile of materials. “Here, let me see the fabric.” He took the black material and looked at it closely. He never would have shown any girl this knowledge that he had, but after Nova ripped his pair of jeans back in his first year, Marcus’s mother had taught him how to sew. She couldn’t repair his things while he was at school, so she wanted him to be able to do it in her absence. He was fine with that since he spent much of his time alone in his room, no one would know.

Except apparently, today. He had learned how to use magic to sew so that it was quicker. He outlined the body over the fabric twice and then cut out each body. He then cut out so that the legs could later be sewn in along with the pipe cleaners. Marcus grabbed a needle and black thread and pushed the needle into the material. He had turned it inside out and used his wand to sew around the entire body. It only took about a minute for him to do all of this, but once he was done, he turned it right side out again. “Don’t tell anyone you saw that.” He advised with a smile and handed her the body. It was big, about half the size of their faces, but he thought it was pretty good. “We can paste the strips on now, but it might be easier after it’s stuffed, that way, we aren’t stretching out the glue and weakening it. My issue is with the spider stuffed, the body will sag, so we might have to put something through the body and connecting the legs together. That way, the body has support.” Marcus looked thoughtful for a moment as he worked it out in his head. “We can do it with wire or something, before we stuff it. Is there wire or anything in the pile?” He asked her.

6 Marcus It can give you the creepers 180 Marcus 0 5

Jordan

October 07, 2012 2:10 PM

And jeepers. by Jordan

No way! Jordan watched with amazement as Marcus began sewing. Most guys she knew pretended to be tough, because they wanted to be a manly. Though, she supposed he was trying to do the same since he told her not to tell anyone that she had seen that. “I wish I could sew like that. It was like needle meet fabric. Done! If I tried, it would probably take me forever. Our project wouldn’t be finished until next year.” She was exaggerating, but only slightly. She had never needed to learn to sew. All of their clothes were taken care of by their house elves. Besides, she doubted her mother would appreciate her learning. She didn’t consider it to be among the important things in life, such as accessorizing properly or knowing what to say or not say.

“So, where did you learn to sew like that?” Jordan asked with a suspicious look. It was the type of look that didn’t equate to not trusting, because she did trust Marcus. He had never given her a reason not to. No, it was more the type of look that simply said that guys didn’t sew. It was practically unheard of. She couldn’t imagine any well-off pureblood doing something deemed beneath them, such as sewing. She thought it was absolutely fabulous that he could. She liked that he was different than anyone else she knew.

Frowning, Jordan studied the spider. Marcus was right that they needed something to hold the body of the spider up or else it would just fall down. “Oh! I know. We can use a metal stand and charm it to be invisible. That would make the spider look like it was floating.” Hopefully, there was a metal stand somewhere in the pile, but as luck would have it there was. Yes! “Oh, and look what else I found!” She pulled out some floss material. It was what was usually used around Halloween to make cobwebs and such. “We can put this around the spider either like the spider is coming down from the ceiling on its web or maybe make its layer?”

Bouncing around, the ideas kept floating out of her. “Or we could make an actual layer like a hole or something and put plastic spiders in it to symbolize her babies.” Jordan wasn’t quite sure when the spider became a she, but for the project it seemed right. As she talked, Jordan positioned the stand and the spider on top of it. Using her wand, she charmed the stand to be invisible. “See, isn’t that cool? Then, to the side, we can do the layer and such. Are we supposed to be labeling the spider as we go?” It was no surprise with the way she talked that she had a tendency to get ahead of herself and sometimes her ideas or words were all over the place.

0 Jordan And jeepers. 0 Jordan 0 5

Marcus

October 08, 2012 11:15 AM

Where'd ya get those Peepers? by Marcus

Marcus had a hard time not feeling quite smug after having sewn together the body (mainly with magic, but purely his skill none-the-less) by the reaction that Jordan had about it. He really didn’t think it was that big a deal. It wasn’t the greatest sewing ever in the world either. It was enough that it would hold together the spider for probably ever since it was just going to sit there, but for clothing, it would probably only last through a couple of washes before starting to loosen. Although, he hadn’t been trying too hard, he had just wanted to make the pouch to start the stuffing. He could have done a much better job of it. “I’m sure you could do it.” Marcus said with a shrug. “Once you get going, it’s easy to get the hang of it.”

Considering he had never planned on telling anyone (or showing them for that matter) that he knew how to sew, he had never really prepared himself on how to explain why he knew how to sew. “It’s just me and my mom. Mom works hard, but she doesn’t make a lot of extra money so I only get new clothes for my birthday and for Christmas.” Marcus explained. He wasn’t embarrassed about his living situation. He was proud of his mother and she worked so hard to give him a decent home and a great upbringing. She sacrificed a lot for him, so he did his best not to complain too much about not having the best things. When he did get things, it was usually a pair of expensive sneakers that he had really wanted. He loved his shoes, jerseys, and hats. He was not left wanting. “When we were first years, one of my nicer pair of jeans had ripped and I had to send it home for my mom to repair. After that, my mom wanted me to learn so that if anything happened, I wouldn’t need to send it home and wait for it.” Marcus shrugged. It seemed like a normal thing to know how to do.

“I got bored doing it by hand, so I learned the spell for it. But, I don’t use it much. I haven’t really ripped anything lately. At least I know that I can still do it.” Marcus said with amusement. He could never sew together an entire shirt. His skill was purely just for repairing.

He watched Jordan as she figured out a way to hold the spider up. Her constant flow of chatter made his head spin a little, but not in a bad way. Last year it had just really been him and Valentina. She was a quiet girl in class, but she liked to talk with him. Jordan was not a quiet girl in any way, but her excitability over a little project was rather cute. “It’s too bad I can’t take the spider home like this… my mom would freak.” Marcus joked, just picturing his mom having a cow over initially seeing a giant black spider floating above her counter. “But, yes, we are supposed to be labeling. How about you work on the layer and I’ll start labeling the parts of the spider’s body?” Marcus pulled out parchment and began writing down the different sections of the body. He saw toothpicks in the pile, so when he was done labeling, he ripped of the little tags of parchment and taped it to the toothpick. Using the toothpick, he stabbed the spider in each designated area, thus completing that portion of the diorama. “Think we’ll get an O on this?”

6 Marcus Where'd ya get those Peepers? 180 Marcus 0 5