freezing, miserable, and getting sick on Elective Hall

Asher Tallow

January 10, 2006 5:14 PM

You do? Funny, I meant to cause the exact opposite. by Asher Tallow

Asher's ears flushed warmly with the heavy rush of embarrassment. There was a good reason she didn't like Dai Oni, and having yet again been made an example of by the teacher hadn't improved that feeling in the least. She could have handled being dismissed so obviously, what with how Dai Oni proceeded to ignore her almost immediately and take on with the lecture.

But that Dai Oni had insinuated that she was some sort of cheat! That was something Asher couldn't handle in the least. Tallows didn't lie- at least, not when it counted. Not when they had promised something, or agreed to something. Lies were only used when absolutely necessary, and in those cases, the lies were no longer lies, because deceit when needed implies a good end. And everyone knows that lies only lead to bad things.

Obviously.

Logically.

Her ears were still burning once Dai Oni had finished her unimaginative and equally uninteresting speech. Asher squared her shoulders and proceeded to provide the asked for information, as well as any further details Dai Oni might request of her later. Naturally, Asher did so in as speedy a manner as possible.

"Mercury's orbit is highly eccentric; Venus has no magnetic field; 71 Percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water; Mars appears to lack active plate tectonics-" Asher paused to glare meaningfully at Dai Oni, daring her to disagree with anything Asher said. It was all being quoted word per word, after all, from the text. Not a single paraphrase in the whole of it. "-Jupiter radiates more energy into space than it receives from the Sun; Saturn is the least dense of the planets; Uranus is composed primarily of rock and various ices; Neptune's winds are the fastest in the solar system; and Pluto's equator is at almost right angles to the plane of its orbit."

With a barely controlled exhalation, Asher sat back down. She had finished her "assignment" as Dai Oni had requested, so there couldn't be any more assignations thrown about by the professor in regards to Asher's word. After all, Tallows never lied. . .at least, not really.\n\n

0 Asher Tallow You do? Funny, I meant to cause the exact opposite. 1466 Asher Tallow 0 5

Zack Dill of Alderaan, er, Aladren

January 11, 2006 1:21 PM

freezing, miserable, and getting sick by Zack Dill of Alderaan, er, Aladren

Zack loved Astronomy. He loved all his classes (well, except for CoMC because he was pretty sure that sooner or later they were going to have a guest creature try to eat him) but he really liked Astronomy. That he knew he'd impressed the teacher the first day only magnified that and made him want to do even better. So it was not the subject that had him sitting miserable and silent in his chair at the front of the classroom.

Now, Detroit was not an especially warm city, especially in the winter, but this was Zack's second year at Sonora and last year he'd been able to get away with staying inside over midterm and thus avoiding all the really cold weather. Consequently, his wardrobe this year was inadequate for the current temperatures, especially in this room which seemed even colder than everywhere else.

His coat was a thinly lined shell of a winter jacket and while he was ridiculously short still, it was getting to be a little small for even him now. He had no mittens or gloves and the closest thing he had to a hat was a Detroit Tigers baseball cap, which he had no clue how it had gotten into his bag in the first place because he didn't own one.

So he was wearing two t-shirts, a turtleneck, and a sweatshirt as well as the jacket under his school robes which gave them a strange bulky football uniform kind of appearance. Well, assuming someone made Sonora-esque football uniforms for guys who stood only four and a half feet tall and had absolutely nothing by way of muscles or body fat.

He wanted to raise his hand to answer Professor Dione's questions but moving would disturb the small bubble of body warmth he'd managed to generate. It was bad enough that he wasn't even taking notes. But holding a pen would require taking one of his hands out of the three sleeves they'd been tucked up inside and he'd rather not loose the limb. He liked his hands attached, thank you very much. His ears and nose were in enough danger of falling off without risking other body parts.

Calling out an answer wasn't really an option either because while he did, for the moment, have his teeth chattering under control, he couldn't guarantee it wouldn't start up again should he unhunch enough from his current position to actually look at the teacher.

Then he began to feel IT. His eyes widened in horror and fearful anticipation because he knew there was nothing he could do to stop its implacable approach. IT started a small tickle in his nose and just grew in discomfort and malice until it burst forth from him in a loud and violent sneeze that rocked his whole frame and burst the small bubble of warmth that he'd had trapped between the layers of his clothing.

A shudder of cold raked through him and the chattering started up again and he was forced to take his bare hands out of his sleeves so one could cover his nose and the other could search for a tissue, assuming he even had one with him. Holy Cripes, but the air out here was freezing. He could practically feel the blood congealing in his uncovered hands that were too small and too thin to hope to hold any heat in for themselves. This was why his doctor had always been so concerned about his underweight problem and the lack of a decent coat, hat, mittens, and scarf wasn't helping. He'd always hated winter in Detroit for this reason, and he'd thought he'd escaped it by coming here to Sonora.\n\n

1 Zack Dill of Alderaan, er, Aladren freezing, miserable, and getting sick 40 Zack Dill of Alderaan, er, Aladren 0 5

Professor Dione

January 13, 2006 12:12 AM

Ah, the joy that sarcasm brings by Professor Dione

The psychology of the human mind was fascinating. Something particularly interesting in that field was the information on learning curves and memory. As a student, it was important to study various ways to make her studying more beneficial. As a professor, it became even more crucial since her teaching method would affect her students’ progress. Stimulants increased the level of brain chemicals that allow for more rapid learning, though it must have sugar and not artificial sweeteners that would cancel out the caffeine’s effects. Depressants do the exact opposite by blocking the firing of brain nerve cells. More importantly, however, was the studying of the emotional factors of learning. Adding humor or even anger would increase the amount of learning due to the increased activity due to emotional stimulation. In Miss Tallow’s case, it seemed to work very well; she had rattled off fairly complex facts on each of the planets with only a pause to glare at her. Still, there were limits to this factor; too much would turn the students to focus on the emotion and not the material, something Dione would have to avoid.

“Excellent. I had only wished for you to focus on the jovian planets, but it looks like you’ve went a step further. You’ve shown improvement from your pre-test, and even your pre-test was above average.”

Back to the lesson…Even Dione, an enthusiast of everything outside the Earth’s atmosphere, realized how lackluster her lesson was. It was difficult to add much flair to the already-overused lessons on the solar system. Either they were dumbed down to an elementary school level or overcomplicated with specifics. She had tried to walk the line, but she felt places where she had slipped.

“Saturn is the second jovian planet and sixth from the Sun, the second largest in our solar system. It is the least dense of the planets with its gravity being less than that of water. Its structure is very similar to that of Jupiter with 75% hydrogen and 25% helium with traces of water, methane, ammonia and “rock” as is its core. Saturn also has bands of color, though not as prominent and are much wider at the equator. Saturn has seven rings in total: three that can be seen from Earth and four additional fainter ones. The rings are made of small particles of water ice and rock each in an independent orbit. Though the rings are 250,000 kilometers wide or more, they are less than one kilometer thick. Some of the moons, the “shepherding satellites” Atlas, Prometheus, and Pandora, are important in keeping the rings in place. In all, Saturn has 34 named satellites.”

“Uranus is next being the seventh planet from the sun and the third largest. First off, I would like to note that it is pronounced ‘Yoor a nus,’ not any other somewhat vulgar pronunciations that it might be confused with. Uranus is an interesting planet since there is some confusion over which of the planet’s poles is its north pole. The problem is that either the axis is inclined a bit over 90 degrees and orbiting in a clockwise motion or a bit less than 90 degrees and going counter-clockwise, also known as retrograde motion. Uranus is mainly composed of rock and various ices with 15% hydrogen and a bit of helium and does not have the rocky core that Jupiter and Saturn have. Uranus also has color bands, though extremely faint. Uranus’ has eleven known rings with its brightest known as the Epsilon ring. This planet’s rings were the first to be discovered after Saturn’s, and revealed that rings are common and not just a feature of Saturn alone. Uranus has 21 named moons and six unnamed ones.”

Allowing a pause for the students to catch up on note-taking, she asked another question, hoping to break the monotony of her speed-through lecture. “Now, Miss Tallow has already given us some information on Neptune and Pluto, but can anyone else add to that?”
\n\n

0 Professor Dione Ah, the joy that sarcasm brings 0 Professor Dione 0 5

Reggie Parker, Teppenpaw

September 27, 2012 10:01 PM

...This is not what I thought it would be by Reggie Parker, Teppenpaw

Reggie had only decided to take Divinations last year because she had recently been informed that she had the gift of ‘Sight’. She had wanted to learn more about this gift and see what it was and what it would bring into her life. She didn’t really think much of it, really, because all it was like so far was some déjà vu stuff. But, she figured, over time, if she really got a handle on it, it would be much bigger than just a simple dream that reminds her of something that might have happened. Of course, after the sudden intrusion into her life by her mother’s ‘thought you believed us dead’ relatives had her wanting to run away from the gift rather than be used by it, but her father said she shouldn’t blame her family for something that was a part of her.

Anyway, that was why she was here now. She wasn’t really sure what to think of the professor. For the most part, she was nice, but Reggie didn’t know if she was real. And by ‘real’, she meant, someone with the gift. She seemed to at least know what she was talking about, so that was something. Of course, Reggie had no idea about anything, so really, the professor could be talking hogwash and Reggie would have absolutely no idea.

She sat chatting with her friends while waiting for the Professor and wondered if maybe the class was cancelled and no one had told him, but the door soon burst open and the professor wandered in only to find herself smack on the ground. Reggie had to stifle a laugh having watched it all go down and, instead, did the Prefect thing and began to pick up the various things that had been thrown from the box while others helped the professor.

Once the Professor was upright and things back in order, Reggie sat down to listen to the day’s lesson… only to be mildly confused by it. They were just going to sit there and look over symbols and then write an essay on it? They weren’t even going to be told how to use them to tell someone’s fortune? Reggie was a practical learner. She needed to see it to really understand it, but the professor was just having them read and write? What a total lazy way of teaching. She was late and then just does nothing? What a huge disappointment.

Reggie went up to the desk and grabbed the offered papers. At her own desk, she sat there with the book open and a parchment ready, but she really didn’t care about the assignment. If this was what divinations was going to be like this year, she saw no point in continuing it. She’d learn about this in a different, more practical way. Instead of by clumsy space cases. Turning to her neighbor, Reggie whispered, “So, we’re just going to read and then write what we think or basically summarize what the book says?”

6 Reggie Parker, Teppenpaw ...This is not what I thought it would be 187 Reggie Parker, Teppenpaw 0 5