Volunteering. on Library

Librarian Amelle Nicchi

May 19, 2014 5:53 PM

Looking for some Help. by Librarian Amelle Nicchi

Amelle returned from her parents’ residence feeling more drained then when she had been let out of the stuffy room with all her colleagues. Her parents were less forgiving of her inability to contact them than they seemed to be about her current choice of career. Apparently, they didn’t read the news or didn’t believe it. They just thought their daughter was using it as a way to not have to write to them. They claim to have found her a suitable husband, but Amelle did not want to be into a forced marriage. She did not understand why her mother would agree to terms that she had not done so herself. Amelle found this all to be rather ludicrous and was happy to return to the school that had trapped her for four months.

But now it was back to her duties. She had only stuck around the Returning Feast long enough to eat a quick meal before making excuses and headed back to the library. She had spent the handful of days before she left for the holiday straightening up the library and making it feel at peace again. Not that it was in shambles, but books weren’t where they were supposed to be and Amelle wanted the order before she left. Everything was still in order and the only thing that she had to do was put up the notice that she had been supposed to do back in September. She wasn’t sure if there was a point to it now, but with the Fifth and Seventh years behind, they’d likely be in the library catching up and Amelle would need help with keeping the area neat and tidy.

Students are encouraged to help out in the library during the school year. There are two roles that are available. The first role is that of the Library Monitor.

The Monitors help to check books in and out of the library, organize the books in the stacks, answer any questions that fellow students may have, and complete occasional errands that may be needed.

The second role is that of the Library Assistant. This role has fewer responsibilities. Their role consists of returning books to their rightful place in the stacks and assist the Library Monitors with whatever duties need to be filled.

If you are interested in either of these roles, please sign your name and the role that you are requesting. Prior experience will be considered for the role of Monitor. For any questions, please see Librarian Nicchi for assistance.

Subthreads:

Answering the call by Ava Fletcher with Chaslyn Brockert

Signing up by Henny B-F-R

I've been told there's honor in service. by Alicia Bauer

Volunteering. by Julian Umland

Giving some by Melanie Lennox

6 Librarian Amelle Nicchi Looking for some Help. 32 Librarian Amelle Nicchi 1 5

Ava Fletcher

May 26, 2014 3:46 AM

Answering the call by Ava Fletcher

On her way to classes the first day, Ava checked the board in the library wondering if there would be any notices up about tutoring or about the missed classes. She smiled to herself, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear when she saw a sign-up sheet for Library Assistant and immediately dug in her bag for a quill. She had signed up her first year, albeit a little bit nervously, but now felt a lot more confident. In her careful script, she wrote:
Ava Fletcher, Aladren, third year, Library Assistant

The idea of being a Library Monitor greatly appealed to her but Ava didn't know how up for that much responsibility she was just yet. Maybe next year she would but for now she wanted to focus on her studies, especially after having missed the last semester of classes. Satisfied with what she wrote, Ava tucked her quill away in her school bag and walked off to get a full breakfast before her first proper Intermediate class of the year, Defense Against the Dark Arts. Now that the teachers were back for good (or so she hoped) there would be time to go to the Hospital Wing and talk to Medic Eir after class.

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Chaslyn Brockert

June 12, 2014 3:54 PM

Signing up by Chaslyn Brockert

Chaslyn paused before the library sign-up sheet. Of course she had to do it, her mother wouldn't have it any other way. Now that things were back to normal at Sonora, extra curriculars would be resuming and she needed to be in all of them, as well as practicing things that weren't that she did at home. The first half of the year, Chaslyn had tried extremely hard to do everything, especially practice ballet. That was her favorite of everything.

Oh, how she wished she could be a better ballerina. One of the main drawbacks of Sonora was that the Crotalus no longer had formal instruction in dance. Not that she'd never practiced on her own before, it was expected of her to practice and build her skills when she was not in an actual lesson. However, Chaslyn was the sort who didn't just thrive on organization and structure, she needed it. Didn't know what to do without it. Last semester had been incredibly stressful for her that way. It was the first time in her entire life that every bit of her day hadn't been scheduled and she hadn't liked it one bit.

Plus, Chaslyn felt like she'd fallen short of expectations again. The first year should have done more to help out, risen to the occasion and been a leader at least among her own classmates. How was she ever supposed to be prefect and Head Girl if she didn't? Mother would be so disappointed in her if she wasn't, just like she was in Amity for not getting prefect. The last thing Chaslyn ever wanted to be was a failure in anything.

Just not doing something was considered a failure too. She was expected to be perfect in every way. To be in everything and excel at it all. Her grades could be nothing less than Os and not only that, Chaslyn was supposed to get the highest grades of anyone in her class too. Otherwise, she'd be letting her mother down and that was just...unthinkable.

There were two options for library helpers, monitors and assistants. Monitors had more responsibilities, and that's what her mother would want her to do. On the other hand, the sheet said prior experience would be considered for the role and Chaslyn didn't have any. That meant that the librarian clearly meant that first years were not supposed to sign up for it. If she did, was she going to get in trouble? She knew Mother would be mad at her if she found out that she hadn't signed up for the more difficult position. She didn't necessarily know that the librarian would be. Plus, it would completely enrage Mother and she didn't her to yell at her the way she had at Amity before the Aladen had run away to live with Aunt Alice and Uncle Robert.

Her heart beating in her chest, Chaslyn signed the sheet. Chaslyn Brockert, first year, Library Monitor. . She really hoped the librarian wouldn't view her poorly. She didn't want to get in trouble with any staff members either.

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Henny B-F-R

June 15, 2014 3:58 AM

Signing up by Henny B-F-R

Henny was a little surprised to see the library sign up sheet on one of her frequent forays into the study area. Not that it was unusual or unexpected in and of itself. However, was like many things (syllabi being handed out, new teachers introducing themselves) familiar, but out of place. Or out of time, really. Although last term had been strange, it had still happened. She very definitely felt like she had a semester of work behind her, and she had that cold-nosed, over-fed post-Christmas feeling, instead of that lightly brown, floaty-dress summer one. That mood and these events didn't belong together.

Nonetheless, he signed her name up under monitors. Amongst her extended duties last year, she'd kept up her shifts in the library. She was sure that even if she didn't put her name on the paper, she'd be showing up and shelving books out of habit by now.

That done, she settled down to her Potions homework – the reason she'd come in here in the first place.

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Alicia Bauer

June 25, 2014 9:22 AM

I've been told there's honor in service. by Alicia Bauer

As she got ready, only thrown a little off-balance by the sight of her schoolgirl uniform, for her second day back at school, Alicia drank the tea (a decent Formosa oolong; she was still easing her way back into the light teas she really preferred after getting so used to cheap dark stuff just before the tea had run out completely) her old aide Blinky had brought her and tried to remember the day before, only to find it had about as much of the quality of a dream in hindsight as it had had at the time. Part of that, no doubt, had come from just how little sleep, still reeling from the Returning Feast and anxious about what the morning would bring in terms of magical phenomena, she had been able to get on her first night back, but part had likely come from just how much it had resembled one of the dreams she had started having around October: sharply-defined tables of food contrasted with disjointed, hazy scenes of a past life she watched from a distance, wondering what on earth Past Alicia thought was so important about it all.

She had gone to bed almost as soon as curfew was called, and now felt much better. More lucid, anyway. As she finished her tea, she wondered if that was necessarily a good thing. From what she did remember, the day before seemed to have gone more or less smoothly because it hadn’t seemed real. Dealing with everything being back to the old normal, when she no longer felt like she could even fit into Past Alicia’s skin, when it did was not a thought which appealed to her very much.

Had to be done, though, and anyway, it was only for a few months. She could handle anything that long. Nodding to herself, she went out to check that nobody had destroyed the library overnight out of habit, completely forgetting that the librarian was back until she got to the front and saw first the state of the front desk and then the sign-up sheet. She bit the inside of her cheek for a moment, then sighed and took out a quill.

Alicia Bauer, Monitor, she signed herself, making her best effort toward her best penmanship despite the complications of signing something pinned to a wall compared to signing something flat. Then she went to breakfast.

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Julian Umland

June 25, 2014 9:38 AM

Volunteering. by Julian Umland

Overall, Julian thought her midterm might have been worse than the entire four months she had spent isolated from the outside world at Sonora, and though coming back to school made her a little nervous, it seemed preferable to staying at home, at least for now. She was hoping, devoutly, as she had been from the time she gave being falsely cheerful her best shot as she hugged her anxious parents and brothers good-bye at the wagon in Helena, that a few months away would let everyone regain their equilibrium and things just go back to normal by the time she had to go back to Calgary for Easter.

The state of things at Sonora quickly made her feel more optimistic about the chances than she had when she started hoping in the first place. There were still some differences – she could see that some people were still nervous in general, or edgy about food, and there was that business of honoring the upper years who’d kept things in order while the staff was gone – but by and large, the school seemed to be trying to pick up where it had left off in September and go about business as usual. If the teachers could bounce back so easily, with none of them seeming on the brink of catastrophic nervous breakdowns after months, she’d heard, in a little room together, then surely her family could, too, even if the clouds weren’t really the only problem at home right now. As far as she was concerned, that Other Thing was over with, too, and should be forgotten about even more easily than the clouds.

Her family was too preoccupied, she thought, with the past. Mom had had to learn too much history just to understand the literature she liked best, and she’d passed it along to the boys, except maybe Joe. Julian saw no reason to brood over things that way. Best to just keep moving forward.

In the library, planning to start some homework and a letter home to assure everyone she was okay and able to communicate, she saw the usual assistants’ sign-up sheet and decided to put her name down. She had spent a lot of time doing her best to tidy the library in the fall anyway, and it was just one more way of getting things back to normal. She signed as Julian Umland, Library Assistant, and then went back to what she'd come to do.

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Melanie Lennox

July 06, 2014 5:39 PM

Giving some by Melanie Lennox

Helping out in the library was something Melanie had done most years and especially last term when the staff was missing. She wasn't about to stop now, she loved reading and she liked to be helpful. Now that Valerie had graduated, she had less of the latter to do. Not that she'd had to help her sister with homework quite so much once her sister had gone on that new potion.

Not that Melanie didn't still worry about the former Crotalus. She'd been doing so what felt like her whole life. The worst thing about last term had been not getting the mail out. Especially at a time when Valerie was so stressed over getting married. The sixth year had even been worried that her sister would think she'd abandoned her but the elder girl told her over midterm that she and Ryan had figured it out pretty quickly when he hadn't heard from his brothers and cousins either. Both of them were so much smarter than they gave themselves credit for.

Of course, she worried about how Valerie was doing with her new husband. Jasper seemed like an okay guy, she guessed. It was just that Melanie wished her sister had someone who cared about her as Marcus did Melanie. She knew not all pureblood marriages were like that, and she felt almost guilty to have that special person when Valerie did not. Of course, her sister said it was okay, because she was just glad not just because she'd found someone willing to marry her, but because she'd lived that long. However, if Jasper hurt Melanie's sister, she was going to turn him into something nasty and if she didn't, her father or Ryan would.

As for own wedding, well, Melanie thought about that a whole lot. She tended to be fairly rational, fairly serious, but when she thought about Marcus and spending the rest of her life-and witches and wizards lived into their hundreds usually-with him, she turned all giddy and a silly,dreamy little smile would find it's way to her face.

Not that she would ever let this interfere with her classes or anything. She took them to quite seriously, wanting to do her best, though things usually came pretty easily to her. For one thing, she often had learned the material two years ago. Except Potions, which Melanie was taking and Valerie hadn't, so once her sister had gotten into Advanced classes, the sixth year no longer had to help her stay caught up. Still, the class seemed to go really well anyway, and she still got O's. Melanie had a lot of interest in the practical side, especially healing potions, and was extremely good at researching and essay writing. The one thing the Teppenpaw didn't really like doing-though would if she had to-was doing opinion essays where she had to argue her point of view. Who was she to impose her beliefs on anyone?

When it came to signing up for a position, there was no doubt though. She was one of the older and more experienced library helpers. The sixth year signed her name.

Melanie Lennox, Library Monitor

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