Nathan Xavier
August 11, 2017 11:43 AM
First Year Orientation by Nathan Xavier
Nathan greeted the students as they disembarked from their wagons, helping anyone with the last big step who needed it, and telling them to leave their luggage for the elves. For the first years - or rather anyone he didn't recognize from teaching last year, though he hadn't heard of any transfers this year so presumably they were all first years - he then invited them to follow the signs through the Garden paths to Orientation. For second years, he welcomed them back and told them the library and Cascade Hall were open for use until the feast later that night, or they could go to their dorms. Prefects or staff should be in the Hall if they needed a password. Everyone else presumably knew the drill so he just welcomed them back and hoped they had a good summer.Once the last of the wagons arrived, he followed the first years through the Gardens, collecting the "Orientation this way ->" signs along the way, as well as releasing the staff members or prefects posted at path intersections to prevent unsupervised wandering to go and enjoy the rest of their afternoons. The designated path led into a large clearing with a fountain and a banner exclaiming "Welcome to Sonora Academy!"
There were tables beneath the banner laden with snacks, both healthy and unhealthy, sweet and salty, light and filling. Cupcakes, cookies, breads of several varieties, pretzels, potato chips, cheese, crackers, fruits, vegetables and dip, small sandwiches, and more were all available. Cups of water, pumpkin juice, and fruit punch filled another table.
An additional staff member was posted within the clearing, encouraging new arrivals to get some food and collect a packet, and prevent anyone from wandering away or or swimming in the fountain or otherwise causing trouble. The packets the students were told to grab were thin green folders, the same shade as their uniform robes, that contained useful things like the first year class schedule, a map of the school, and a list of school rules they would be expected to abide by. Most of the later would be covered by the Head of House speeches later, but it never hurt to have it in writing.
He gave the students from the final wagon time to get food and mingle a bit before he cleared his throat to get their attention. It wasn't a notably large class this year, so he didn't bother with a sonorus charm to amplify his voice, but he did motion for them to gather closer so he wouldn't need to project to the far corners of the clearing or compete too much with the splashing of the fountain.
"Hello and welcome to your first year at Sonora Academy. My name is Professor Xavier and I'll be your Herbology teacher this year, and your orientation guide today. First, I'm going to tell you a bit about your new school," it wouldn't be anything novel or exciting for anyone who read the school brochures sent out with the acceptance letters, but there was no guarantee those had been read. "Then you'll have some time to meet your fellow yearmates, get more snacks, and ask questions if you have any. At five thirty, we'll start a tour of the school which will culminate at the Cascade Hall, where you will all be sorted into your Houses and then the Welcoming Feast will begin."
The first few times he'd done this, he'd had a whole speech planned out, memorized, and rehearsed in front of his cat. As this was now his fifth time running Orientation, however, and since he'd become more comfortable talking in front of large classes over that time, he was mostly winging it today.
"So, Sonora Academy of Magic is a seven year secondary school. You're expected to already be able to read, write essays, and do basic math. If you can't, or you have trouble with those things, we do have an academic support program run by Professor Skies, which includes language help for anybody who doesn't speak English fluently. Additionally, each professor holds office hours a few times a week in case you need a little extra help with their specific subject."
"As first years, you will be taking beginner level classes. The core classes Sonora offers are Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Defense against the Dark Arts. These beginner courses will continue into second year, and the two beginner year groups sit classes together. In third year, you will advance to intermediate classes and be permitted to pick up elective classes and independent studies if you so choose, in addition to those core classes that you will start this year. Intermediate classes last through fifth year, at the end of which you take your first major exam call the CATS - the Critical Assessment of Talents and Skills. Depending on how you do on those tests, you may move into advanced classes for your sixth and seventh years. At that point, you may drop the courses that are not of interest to you or for which you did not pass the CATS. At the end of seventh year, you will sit your last major exam, the RATS - the Ridiculously Anal Testing of Skills. You need to pass two RATS to graduate, and most colleges require a minimum of three."
He took a breath then continued, "Obviously, that's still a long way off, but that's the overview of academics here at Sonora. You should have your schedule for beginner lessons in the green folders you picked up. If you didn't get one, they are over there," he pointed to the appropriate table.
"Extracurricularly, Sonora has a number of student led clubs, including a Dueling club, an Orchestra, a Choir, an Art club, a Baking Club, possibly a Book club," they hadn't had a part in last year's Concert, so he wasn't sure if that was because they ceased to exist or because Book Club didn't lend itself well to a stage performance, "and a Sports club. If none of those tickle your fancy, you can always make your own. Depending on participation rates, we may also have House Quidditch teams competing for the Quidditch Cup. Quidditch is a wizarding sport played on broomsticks. Oh, on that note, as first years, you do have one more class beyond the core classes called Flying Lessons where you'll learn to fly on a broom."
That was the bulk of the information he was supposed to disseminate right now, so he began his wrap up, "As for living arrangements, you will be sorted into Houses, which each value certain positive personality traits: Aladrens value learning; Teppenpaws friendship; Crotalus believes in respectability and responsibility; and Pecaris are often adventurous. There are other traits each House seeks, so this is a bit of a generalization and not everyone fits neatly into one or another, so try not to put too much stock into House stereotypes. But you will be sorted into one of them, and you'll share a room with anybody else sharing your House and gender. Your Head of House will look out for you and serve as your adult guardian while you're here. Each House has three prefects who are also appointed to help you with any trouble you may encounter. And each student has the opportunity to gain House points for good behavior and exemplary class work. Likewise getting in trouble can lose your House points. The House with the most points at the end of the year wins the House Cup to display in their Commons for the following year."
He mentally ran through the important topics one more time and thought he'd hit most of them. "That's about it, the Cascade Hall serves breakfast from 6:30 to 8:30, lunch from eleven to one, and dinner from five to seven. Those times should also be on your schedules. Between those times, you can get light fare like sandwiches and snacks. It opens at six and closes at ten. Ten PM to six AM is curfew and you should be in your House areas during that time. Unless there are any questions, you are free to mingle until the tour."
OOC (Out of Character):
Welcome first years to Sonora! You can post a reply here to ask staff questions or meet your new classmates. This thread is intended for first year students to have a chance to try out posting and get acclimated to the site before we throw you into the big Opening Feast, which is open to the entire school population and can be a bit overwhelming. So post, enjoy, have fun! Everyone here is happy to help out, so if you've got a question, put it on the OOC board or try to catch somebody in the Chatzy and we'll try to get you an answer as quick as we can. Have fun and glad you could join us!
Subthreads: I have arrived. by Jasmine Delachene with Parker Fitzgerald
Freedom? by Jehan Callahan with Dorian Montoir
As long as there is sugar, I'll be okay. by Tatiana Vorontsova with Gary Harper
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Nathan Xavier
First Year Orientation
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Nathan Xavier
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Tatiana Vorontsova
August 14, 2017 9:39 AM
As long as there is sugar, I'll be okay. by Tatiana Vorontsova
Tatiana could have gotten down from the wagon herself, but she accepted the assistance the fat man (some kind of servant, she assumed) offered because she knew that was what Mama would want her to do. Mama scolded her often about how she had never jumped about as much as Tatiana did when she was eleven, or even when she was younger still, because it was not pretty.She could not seriously argue against Mama’s point about prettiness, but she didn’t think Mama could argue against her when she thought that however it looked, jumping about was quicker. While she was occupied with being a lady and thanking the fat man in her heavily accented English, Tatiana lost track of her new American friend and for a moment almost froze. It was one thing to hear English, one thing even to speak English herself, but now there were what looked like hundreds of people moving around her and they were all speaking it at the same time. So many voices together melded into a cacophonous babble, incomprehensible gibberish, and she wanted to cover her ears, but the fat man was saying something….
Follow signs. She understood that. She could do that, as said signs were clearly visible. She sounded the English letters on them out in her head: ore-ee-enn-tay-tee-on. Orient – that meant something about placement. Sounded like the place for her.
There, she saw two things: food and a sign with different English writing on it. The former was less complicated, so she went and got a tiny cake with a tall pile of what looked like whipped cream on top of it before she started reading the sign. To her delight, she didn’t have to sound it out. Happily, she used a fork to break off a bit of the tiny cake and then did a double take in surprise when she tasted the whipped cream. It was thick and grainy with sugar and yet not like a thick glaze at all - it was very dry-feeling - it was peculiar….
It was, however, good, she thought after a few more cautious, tiny samples. The cake itself was another story; it was crumbly and rather bland, with no fruits or filling of any kind, and she did not like it much, but ate it anyway because it would be strange to only eat the not-whipped cream. Looking around for something else that looked familiar, she spotted a plate of what looked like ponchiki and decided she had nothing to lose except her dignity if she spat out a poor imitation. To her relief, that did not occur; indeed, the ponchik, or whatever its makers would call it (she had not learned all the words for sweets; Anton Petrovich said that most of the specific dishes wouldn’t exist in the south anyway), almost tasted right. It could have used a dusting of orange rind in the glaze over the top, to be sure, but it was clearly some kind of fried, yeasted, fairly rich dough and it had creamy filling inside. Maybe, she thought, if these people had ponchiki, they weren’t so strange after all.
In her absorption with figuring out what American sweets tasted like, she almost missed the fat man beginning to speak to them and looked around in surprise when she heard his voice again. She was in for another surprise when he revealed his function; he was the Herbology teacher. She flushed when she deciphered the bit of the speech about English fluency, an embarrassment which was only compounded when she didn’t understand the word Anal, which seemed to be part of the name of a test. She decided she’d find someone to ask later, since it seemed this test was a long way off anyway. She brightened up when she heard something about Quidditch and flying; those were not only amusing, but things that she knew how to do.
Once the man – Professor Zay-vee-er, it had sounded like – stopped talking, he seemed to want them to talk to each other. Tatiana spotted Parker talking to a girl with a pretty necklace and, touching her own necklace to make sure the largest pearl was still centered and not resting on her collarbone or something stupid-looking like that, was about to go to speak with them when another person spoke to her first. “High,” she said, remembering that Parker had used this informal form and thus reminded her of its existence. At best, she imagined some of her classmates might be her own social equals, which did not entitle them to formal forms in Russian. She assumed some similar principle worked in English. “My name is Tatiana Andreyevna. How do you do?”
Tak mnogo slov! she thought. So many words! It was much quicker to get to the point in Russian. At least, she thought, all these words would make it apparent that she knew more or less how some of English worked….
OOC: The foods Tatiana describes are, respectively, a cupcake with American buttercream frosting on it and a Bavarian Cream doughnut.
16
Tatiana Vorontsova
As long as there is sugar, I'll be okay.
1396
Tatiana Vorontsova
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5
Gary Harper
August 17, 2017 5:52 PM
Sugar is good. by Gary Harper
Gary was grinning like a fool when the flying wagons landed on the school grounds. That ride was awesome! He'd never really though about what kind of magical transportation wizards would use. Teleportation sure when the resources were available, that was a no-brainer, but they had to have something other than that, why not flying wagons? The stocky boy stood and stretched his legs before pulling his haversack onto his back. He started to lift his trunk, but the man who had accompanied them on the wagons told him to leave it for the elves.Elves? Right, the information page had said that there were 'prairie elves' that did much of the work around the school. He knew all about High Elves, Wood Elves, Dark Elves, and may other variants, but Prairie Elves was not a classification he was familiar with. The boy wondered for a brief moment what they were like, since none of the other groups he was familiar with were likely to help out with 'menial labor' without darn good cause. He shrugged and hopped down from the wagon, his pack jostling on his back. He'd meet them eventually and find out, for now the man was herding all of the first year students into the huge labyrinth Gary had spotted from overhead. This was going to be great!
It wasn't that great. There were signs pointing the way, and people standing at intersections to make sure he and the others made it to their destination. They had a huge labyrinth to do an initial test on the students right away to see what each one was made of, and they didn't use it? Strange. Perhaps there was some sort of deeper test going on here, he'd definitely need to stay alert. He was alert enough to spot the large welcome sign, and the tables of food and drink. "What sort of game are they playing here?" he wondered to himself.
The other kids were milling about, getting food and drinks. Another adult was encouraging them to do so. Alright, time to figure out this test, he walked up to the food table and carefully examined its contents. There was a wide range of variety and there didn't seem to be any immediately apparent pattern. Cupcakes, doughnuts, and cookies lay scattered among vegetables, sandwiches, and fruit. He had to hand it to them, they had hidden this test well under the disguise of a welcoming party. He'd expect no less from them though. What was the test? The other students were taking things without to much thought, the majority seemed to be selecting sweets over the healthy foods.
Perhaps part of the test was how long it took to take the test. When that thought struck, he decided on balance being the safest route. Gary picked up one of the little sandwiches and a creme doughnut, then wandered away from the table to see if he could observe any results of his selection. None of the adults seemed to be paying much attention to him directly, or any of the other kids for that matter. The evaluators must be scrying from afar. He ate the sandwich and picked up a cup of water from the drink table, that choice had been fairly easy, when the man from the wagons called for their attention and began speaking.
Gary almost spit out his water when the man introduced himself, but he caught himself. That may have been planned to weed out those who had read to many comic books. Still, he wondered if the professor's first name was Charles. He listened attentively, and only when it was mentioned did he notice the table of reading material. Nuts! How could he have missed that!? That was going to count against him. Well, he'd have to wander over casually later and pick them up. Try to make it look like he had known they were there and was just getting around the them now. Hopefully his bluff skill was up for that.
Gary noticed that the professor didn't list a 'gaming club', maybe he'd have to start one. He'd read about the houses in the brochure, it seemed like an odd way to run a school, but if it works, it works. Dad had guessed that Gary would wind up in either Pecari or Aladren, Gary said it hadn't really mattered to him. Then the professor told them to mingle.
That wasn't going to happen, he didn't know anyone here. Nobody. Something about that thought hit home, it pierced through his previous mindset and he looked around the garden again as if for the first time. There were lush green plants growing in the middle of the desert, kids of all types starting to mill about aimlessly, a few adults supervised, there was a fountain, a table of food and drink and a welcome banner. It looked so normal, but was completely foreign and bizarre. To top it off, there was no one around that he knew. What was he doing here? A wave of panic washed over him. He had rode here in a flying wagon, and according to the speech he had just heard from Professor X, he was going to learn how to cast charms, mix potions and fly on a broom! Was he actually going crazy?
A quiet voice in the back of his mind was screaming at him to reign it in, get it under control. Still he glanced around wildly in all directions searching for a familiar face, a familiar anything. Then he saw his mother and that halted him in his tracks. With the momentary break in the negative feedback loop, the voice in his head solidly took control again. Reason had returned once more and it had something to investigate. Gary quickly composed himself once again, hoping the wizards wouldn't count the momentary panic against him to harshly, as he examined the girl.
Obviously she wasn't his mother. She was the same age as him and alive, but the likeness was incredible. It was mainly the hair, and maybe the nose. Her profile had been the thing he'd noticed. Her eyes were completely different and the more he examined the less similarities he actually saw. Perhaps it had just been a valiant attempt by his subconscious to break him out of the panic state. Regardless, they were supposed to mingle, another test perhaps to evaluate cooperation skills. She was as good as anybody else around here that he didn't... He quelled the thought as he could feel the panic begin to rise again.
Casually, he strolled over to the table holding the schedules first and picked up a folder. He opened it, doing his best to look bored at the contents, and moved towards the girl. The thing right inside the folder was the schedule, so without really looking at her he asked in her general direction, "So, what do you think of these classes?"
When she turned and introduced herself, he mentally kicked himself and dropped his presumed test scores again. Of course you start with introductions. No time like the present to make up for it though. "Nice to meet you Tatiana. My name's Gary, Gary Harper." He should really say something else, and he wasn't sure if she had caught his question about the classes, so he couldn't ask that again. "Are you from around these parts?" Then he once again mentally kicked himself because they're in the middle of the desert and no one was from 'these parts' except the teachers maybe and some wildlife.
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Gary Harper
Sugar is good.
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Gary Harper
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Tatiana
August 17, 2017 11:44 PM
I'm glad you agree. by Tatiana
Tatiana tried to work out if this one had a patronymic or not. She finally decided it didn’t much matter. They were both children, which meant it was acceptable for them to call each other ‘Tatiana’ and ‘Gar-ee.’ Papa said being old enough to go to school meant she was old enough not to automatically allow people to call her Tanya or Tatya, though, so she would have to get to know these people better before she gave them permission….It occurred to her, belatedly, that she didn’t even know if Americans used names the way she did. She knew they had no patronymics, but did they really use their full names all the time? What would such names as she’d heard today even reduce to?
She was distracted from this worry, however, by puzzlement over what Gary said. She frowned, trying to parse it and failing. “These parts?” she repeated. “What parts?” Parts were what her diamond earrings were, fractions. She was not around any parts that she could see…at least not that made sense in the question, anyway, she thought, looking around. She was one of the parts of the class, there were parts of plants and rocks around, and of course all the people and their things and everything else was made up of parts, but of course she was around those. All the parts were around each other, including him. She had a feeling she was missing something, some definition of the word ‘parts’ that Anton Petrovich had never taught her.
16
Tatiana
I'm glad you agree.
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Tatiana
0
5
Gary Harper
August 19, 2017 8:23 AM
Rumors abound about the perils of excess though by Gary Harper
Tatiana's response gave Gary pause for a moment, then he remembered the part of the professor's speech about language assistance for those not fluent in English. Maybe Tatiana wasn't a native English speaker. Maybe he could salvage that question after all, without sounding like a complete fool. "Sorry," he began considering his approach. "I'm from Illinois, a little outside the city of Chicago. Where are you from?"Something about the question didn't quite sound right as he said it. It was a bit blunt, maybe? What if she didn't want to tell him for some reason? What if she took offense? He sighed internally, why was charisma his dump stat? Well, according to the people that decided he needed to be here, he was a wizard, not a sorcerer.
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Gary Harper
Rumors abound about the perils of excess though
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Gary Harper
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Tatiana
August 19, 2017 6:23 PM
Eh, you only live once. by Tatiana
The second iteration of Gary’s question made more sense. Tatiana filed away this new meaning of parts - shorthand for ‘parts of the country’. She nodded her understanding.“I come from Alaska,” said Tatiana. “From Volshebnaya Derevnya - wizard-village,” she added, though it felt strange to translate the name of a place. Things had names and those were their names, but English-speakers were peculiar and seemed to like to change them, as they had changed her family name on the paperwork. “We talk in Russian there, so - “ bah, English plurals - “it is real name is Volshebnaya Derevnya.”
She looked at the foods Gary had with him and pointed to the pastry he had that looked like the pastry she had eaten before Professor had spoken to them. “Those are good,” she informed him. “Better at home, though. We call them there ponchiki. What you say here?”
At home, Mama scolded Tatiana for asking people too many questions and seeming undignified at social occasions, but this was school and school was like lessons, where she was supposed to ask questions to understand things better. She could be a brilliant society hostess who was always in control of every conversation she was in later. Right now, she just had to communicate at all.
16
Tatiana
Eh, you only live once.
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Tatiana
0
5