Interview (tag Tabitha Hawthorne) on Sandbox

DH Skies

May 02, 2018 8:53 AM

Interview (tag Tabitha Hawthorne) by DH Skies

After the year she’d been having, Selina felt like she deserved a little bit of good news. And one such piece came in the form of a job application for the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Not that Daniel exactly seemed to resent how long term his post had become, or be in any particularly hurry to leave (though that had been before the half veela and the year of explosions and being forcibly detained over Christmas - perhaps she shouldn’t actually assume that he wouldn’t run for the hills as soon as he was able. She could hardly say she’d blame him if he did…). She hoped this counted as good news anyway. It rather depended on what Ms. Hawthorne was like. But still, applicants were a good start.

Normally, she would have invited Ms. Hawthorne in to see her in person, but that was currently impossible, due to the quarantine, and so she had arranged a time to floo call her instead. At the appointed time, Selina threw a pinch of powder into the fireplace and stuck her in, calling out the address she had been given. Her head spun for a moment, and then an unfamiliar room and person came into view.

“Ms. Hawthorne?” she clarified. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Selina Skies, Deputy Headmistress of Sonora Academy. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet in person, but thank you for agreeing to talk to me,” she had been over all the circumstances of the quarantine in her letter to Ms. Hawthorne, and if she read the wizarding news she would have been well aware of the illness currently going around, as it was not just Sonora but most of the US that was affected. Still, it was a slightly odd way to conduct an interview. She was very aware that she was currently a disembodied head, which was a very strange first impression to give someone. Said head was what could generously be termed late middle-aged, although Selina kept herself very well and didn’t particularly look her age. Still, she could not exactly be said to look young anymore either. Most of her students tended to see her as fairly strict, but she was more relaxed with staff members, and she gave her interviewee a friendly smile. “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself, and why you think you’d be a good fit for Sonora?” she invited.

Out Of Character (OOC) note - so you now write a response as Tabitha. You are free to assume general knowledge that she would have regarding the school, and that she and Selina have exchanged letters by owl to set up this interview. Beyond that, you are only allowed to write for your character. Posts must be 200 words minimum. If you’re not sure what to write about, trying describing Tabitha and/or the room she’s sitting in, as those are things that I can’t know/assume about without your input.

13 DH Skies Interview (tag Tabitha Hawthorne) 26 DH Skies 1 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

May 02, 2018 1:01 PM

Interview by Tabitha Hawthorne

Tabitha exhaled slowly, wringing her hands together as time crawled onwards, counting down the minutes until the interview. She wasn't a nervous person by nature but she really, really wanted the job and more than that, she needed it too. After being unemployed for far too long, she was now down to her final coins and was on the verge of returning, shame faced, to England and to her forever disapproving parents.

The interview itself was rather unorthodox. The Deputy Headmistress, Selina Skies, had informed her that the school was currently under quarantine as a result of the illness going around the US. She'd been reading about it in the papers and counted herself lucky that she hadn't experienced it. The whole thing seemed like a rather nasty - not to mention dangerous - business.

At the time of the appointment, exactly on the dot, her fireplace came to life and the face of the Deputy Headmistress of Sonora Academy appeared before her. Tabitha found the whole scene rather odd - she was alone in a dingy, grubby hotel room (it was all she had been able to afford) and there was the disembodied head of her potential future employer in her fire.

Reassured by the smile Selina had given her after the introduction, her nerves slowly dissipated as she answered the first question.

"Well, I'm 28 years old, originally from England... As you can probably tell by the accent!" she laughed before swallowing. Okay, maybe her nerves hadn't quite left her yet. "I was educated at Hogwarts and received Outstandings and Exceeds Expectations on most of my exams."

She paused briefly, remembering her poor result on her History of Magic exam but dismissed it quickly.

"I feel that I'd be a good fit for Sonora because I have a lot of practical experience with Defense Against the Dark Arts, having traveled to gain those skills. I want to pass on my knowledge to the younger generations so that they are prepared for their future after school. I feel that it's important to have practical skills and to be prepared for any eventuality and I feel that I could teach them from my own experiences, rather than just the textbooks."

OOC - I hope this is a good start! Thank you for the advice :)

20 Tabitha Hawthorne Interview 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5

DH Skies

May 03, 2018 8:39 AM

Tell me more by DH Skies

Selina focussed her attention on the young witch as she spoke, politely deciding that she hadn’t noticed the nature of the room she was looking into. It was rather on the bare and cheap looking side, but Ms. Hawthorne couldn’t help that Selina was having to call her, and thus it wasn’t fair to judge her on what the place she was taking the call looked like. Another Brit. Their Care of Magical Creatures teacher also hailed from that side of the pond, and they were around the same age. She might have to run Tabitha’s name past him, see if it rang any bells. Check she wasn’t responsible for burning down a dormitory, or that the two of them weren’t a failed item who couldn’t stand to be in the same building. Neither of those would be particularly desirable. Although, in the second case, she’d be tempted to tell them to suck it up and make it work, even if that meant drawing a line down the centre of the school and each sticking to their own half.

“That sounds excellent,” she nodded encouragingly, when Tabitha talked about travelling around and gaining practical experience which she wished to pass on. Certainly, very few branches of magic worked well from just book based learning.

“Why don’t you tell me a little more about some of the things you’ve encountered on your travels? There’s quite a few elements to defence - there’s creatures, there’s defensive spells, duelling… Are there any of those areas that you feel you gained more experience than others?” she asked.

OOC - great post! And then we just… kinda keep going like this!

13 DH Skies Tell me more 26 DH Skies 0 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

May 03, 2018 10:06 AM

It got a bit fiery... by Tabitha Hawthorne

Tabitha shifted slightly, feeling much more at ease. It felt like this interview was going well, which was reassuring to her. She just hoped that the room she was sitting in wasn't too off-putting. Thankfully, Selina seemed to have avoided commenting which was a small mercy. That was an embarrassment she'd rather avoid explaining.

Moving on to the experience and Selina's question, Tabitha winced briefly, remembering a particularly nasty incident in Fiji...

"I'd say that my strongest skills are within defense against creatures... Part of the traveling was deliberately to discover the various beasts and seeing if I could hold my own. I met fire crabs in Fiji, discovered a particularly nasty stray Runespoor in Africa and a Billywig bit me in Australia..." she rubbed at a spot just above her left elbow, absentmindedly. She hadn't enjoyed the particularly bitey insects that had a penchant for her skin.

"Generally, I was successful against most of them. I learned how to think on my feet and my wandwork improved greatly, as a direct result of having to use both offensive and defensive spells against the creatures."

She felt a strand of her dark brown hair fall from the ponytail she'd tied it up into and tucked it behind her ear before continuing.

"I'm a fair duelist but I didn't really come across any dark wizards on my travels. Truthfully, the only 'duel' I had as such was against a Frenchman who had drunk too much wine in Paris but I don't think that counts as he had tripped over his own robes before I had the chance to do anything but disarm him..."

20 Tabitha Hawthorne It got a bit fiery... 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5

DH Skies

May 03, 2018 10:38 AM

With the French wizard? by DH Skies

“Hopefully there aren’t too many of those around,” Selina nodded, when Tabitha explained she hadn’t met many dark wizards. Selina was well practised at keeping her face professional - a skill that had been put to the test in a number of exceptionally creative and stressful ways this year - although she allowed herself a small smile at the story about the French wizard, because talking to an interviewer with a face of stone was usually rather off putting.

“We do have a duelling club here, run by one of the students. Traditionally, the defence professor has acted as a supervisor and advisor to it. It’s not a mandatory part of the role, but it would be useful,” she explained.

“It sounds like you’ve had quite a few interesting encounters, and learnt to handle yourself very well.

“Thinking about some things you might face in the classroom that you haven’t on your travels…. Sonora aims to be an inclusive school. As such, we don’t exclude students with different heritages, such as part veela, or students with conditions such as lycanthropy. That means you might well face the situation that topics you have to teach are also members of your class. What issues do you think might arise there, and how would you deal with them?” she asked. It was a question which, on the surface, sounded pretty imposing, but she generally just wanted to check that Tabitha wasn’t a screaming racist who expected all halfbreeds and ‘dangerous’ types to be hounded from the building. Especially as it was a particularly pertinent issue at present…

13 DH Skies With the French wizard? 26 DH Skies 0 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

May 03, 2018 11:07 AM

Ha. That was just bizarre... by Tabitha Hawthorne

Tabitha was silent for a few moments, mulling the question over in her head. For the first time in the interview, she allowed her eyes to fall to her hands, one of which was playing with the fingers of the other. It was certainly a difficult question and there was no experience she could draw on to help answer. What to say... what to say...

Another moment of silence and Tabitha lifted her eyes to meet the ones of the Deputy Headmistress.

"I think..." she began, still trying to arrange the words in her head. "I think, it's important to make them aware that whatever a book may say about werewolves or veelas or any dark creature, that it should not define them. That it is important to remember that it is their decisions that influence whether they are good or bad, not their heritage..."

She paused, thinking of a potential student and how they could feel. While she could never truly understand their circumstances, being only a half-blood witch, she could imagine that a student could very well feel lonely, scared, maybe even like a monster. "My door would always be open for any student who wanted to talk."

She nodded to herself, confident in her answer before finishing off, "Most importantly, I would never treat any student differently because of their heritage. They will be judged based on the good and bad that they do, not because of some characteristics written in a book."

20 Tabitha Hawthorne Ha. That was just bizarre... 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5

Selina Skies

May 05, 2018 3:57 AM

Moving on then by Selina Skies

She was definitely a sweet natured individual. It wasn’t a very balanced answer, focussing only on one half of the problem - half-veela in her class or not, she would still need to teach the material to the other students. But perhaps she was taking that for granted. Selina was sure that after talking it through with Daniel, Tabitha would have a solid idea of how to handle the situation. Daniel was very pragmatic in his approach to Cleo, although not to the extent that she found him unfeeling. At least… She could not imagine him wanting to have to deal with Cleo’s personal drama, but only in the way that most young male professors probably didn’t want to deal with the personal lives and emotional meltdowns of their students, especially the female ones - he didn’t want to deal with her in terms of her being a teenage girl, rather than because of her being a half-veela.

“Good to know,” she smiled. “Those subjects would still be on the curriculum though,” she prompted lightly, in case Tabitha wanted to say any more about that. If she couldn’t come up with anything more than a ‘yes’ to that, Selina wouldn’t regard it as an issue. She wasn’t a flaming racist, and that was the main thing.

“Have you got any previous teaching experience? Or other experiences that you feel would be relevant to working in a school?” she asked, opening it out again to a more broad topic. Not everyone came in with a lot in that department, but it was definitely an advantage. Teaching something was a different skill than just knowing about it.

13 Selina Skies Moving on then 26 Selina Skies 0 5

Tabitha Hawthorne

May 05, 2018 2:15 PM

Uh... teaching experience by Tabitha Hawthorne

Tabitha, for a moment paused, realising something quite terrible and felt rather daft for only looking at one half of the problem. She had focused solely on the affected individual and their heritage, not the other ‘normal’ students and their feelings. Well, that was just daft...

“W-well...” she stammered, blushing as she tried to recover herself and her glaring error. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath before trying again. “I understand that the subjects would have to remain on the curriculum, if not only because they would be on the exams. Despite the potential negative bias of the books, the students would still need to learn how to defend themselves against such creatures and certainly in a situation if the...” she hesitated a moment, trying to find the right words. “...student with a negative heritage was to lose control...”

She trailed off. That had been a bit long-winded and she wasn’t entirely sure she’d recovered herself well enough. That’s when Selina asked her about any previous teaching experience. Oh, dear... Tabitha felt that her interview was taking a rather downwards turn. She laughed nervously.

“I have never been a teacher before, not professionally. The only experience of ‘teaching’ I have, would be from when I was in school in Hogwarts. I’d help my friends if they were struggling with spells, trying to find what they did wrong and then showing them the correct wand movements or pronunciation... Other than that, I’m afraid not...”

20 Tabitha Hawthorne Uh... teaching experience 1417 Tabitha Hawthorne 0 5