Sub Professor Adrian Meade
January 25, 2013 5:37 PM
Cry me a river! by Sub Professor Adrian Meade
Another year teaching and Adrian had begun to like the whole sedentary life. His apartment was now half-way decorated and it had never looked better than now. He had been in constant correspondence with his team in Burma, and he had used the summer vacations to catch up with them and spent a couple of months abroad. Adrian had missed the call of the adventure, but he had come to realize that he had missed his position as teacher at Sonora. It was a rather fierce debate between these new sides of him. So, he had compromised with himself and would stay at Sonora to see what happens and do his field research during the holidays. It wasn’t the best plan, he knew, but it would do. While he was in Burma he had missed the stability Sonora gave him and when he was in Sonora he had missed the adventures his nomad life gave him. Adrian was of the idea that there was time for everything in life, and maybe, just maybe it was time to stay in place and settle down.The Magizoologist was rather content inside the four walls of his classroom that now resembled a forest. Adrian smiled at his work for the beginner’s class. The classroom looked amazing in a reduced version of an Irish forest. Today they were going to study Augureys in their “natural habitat”.
And now it was time for class to start, and for Adrian to stop smugly staring at his work. “Welcome,” Adrian greeted the first students to stumble into the newly decorated classroom. He was sure some of them would be surprised to find themselves in the middle of a forest.
The professor waited for a few more minutes for the rest of the class to start. Once it was time for it, he locked the classroom. Adrian hated unpunctuality. The students should have learned by now that he didn’t let any latecomers into the classroom once the door was closed.
“As you can see, today will not be a common class,” he said grinning, still proud of his work. “Today’s class will be all about watching the Augurey in its natural habitat, well, as natural as it can be by means of magic.”
Adrian placed himself in the middle of the classroom, “Sit on the floor,” he instructed before continuing with his lecture. Once the students found a spot on the floor and got comfortable, he continued, “The Augurey, also known as the Irish Phoenix, is a thin and mournful looking bird, somewhat like a small underfed vulture in appearance, with greenish black feathers and a sharp beak. Its diet consists of insects, fairies and flies, which it hunts for in the heavy rain. Intensely shy, the Augurey lives in a tear-shaped nest in thorn and brambles.” All around the classroom were the nests he had described. A few low cries were heard in the classroom as the Augureys called to one another.
Adrian continued to talk, “It is native to Great Britain and Ireland, but is also found in Northern Europe. It was long believed that the mournful cry of the Augurey foretold death, and wizards would go to great lengths to avoid the nest. However, further research determined that the bird merely sings when it is about to rain. When it was known that Augureys could foretell the coming rain, they were used as weather forecasters.”
A deep breath was taken by the professor before offering a smile to his students, “Now, I left food for the Augureys all around the classroom. You can feed them and observe their behavior,” he cleared his throat. “And by next class I will expect an essay on what you observed and what you read from your book about these birds. Essays are to be written in pairs. Raise your hand if you need me.”
OOC: Posting rules apply. Have fun and you may or may not end up drenched by a small rain Adrian will conjure by the end of the class so that they students can hear their cry.
Subthreads: Beginner's class (nm) by Sub. Meade
Girls aren't supposed to cry in public. by Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus with Julian Umland, Teppenpaw, Virginia Bellrose, Ginny
An Irish Phoenix? Cool by Carter Browning with Charlie B-F-R, Teppenpaw, Carter
Bird watching by Amity Brockert, Aladren with Effie Arbon, Crotalus
Quiet and methodical by Francesca Wolseithcrafte, Aladren
Crying is for babies. by Adam Spencer, Pecari with Willow Collins,Teppenpaw, Adam
Being Friendly. by Rupert Princeton, Pecari
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Sub Professor Adrian Meade
Cry me a river!
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Sub Professor Adrian Meade
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Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus
January 27, 2013 8:21 PM
Girls aren't supposed to cry in public. by Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus
The class that Ginny was most excited about was Care of Magical Creatures. She knew that this would be perceived as a girlish thing to be excited for, but she would let that slide. Back in Ohio, Ginny had a cat. Well, really, it was her mother’s cat, but Ginny was able to play with it. She loved that cat so much. Being an only child and not having many people around for her to talk to, Ginny found solace in the cat. The cat was one of the reasons why she had explored so much of her manor’s backyard. Whenever the cat went out, Ginny followed.The cat was old though and died shortly after Ginny had turned six. Her mother had never wanted the animal and so, the cat was never replaced. Ginny spent the remainder of her time with the elves or the help or completely on her own for the next two years until they moved. At the community where she had been since she was eight (much to her parents resentment), Ginny had been able to be around many kids and animals. Her favorites were the goats. The younger ones would run around with her because they always thought she had food on her. There were two cows too for milking. They scared her a little bit because they were so large, but sometimes she helped milk them. Her mother was horrified and always made Ginny immediately talk a bath and made her swear that she would never tell another person outside of the community of what she had done. Ginny didn’t see the harm in it, but she had promised her mother anyway.
So, when she saw that Care of Magical Creatures was on her schedule that morning, Ginny became extra excited. Coming to school had been a completely new experience for her. One that she had been looking forward to because it meant time away from her parents and that she would finally be able to have and use a wand of her own. It also meant meeting new people. So far, she had met some really nice people and hoped to continue to do so. She also was able to learn her first spell in Charms and now, now, she was going to be able to see her first animal of the year….
Only to be disappointed that it was a bird.
A bird
She had been so excited when she walked into the classroom (although she thought this was the one core class taught outside) and discovered that it look like a forest. How amazing that had been! It almost made up for it not being outside as promised. But then he started the lecture and she discovered it was on Augueries. Boo. It was even an ugly bird to boot.
Ginny sat on the ground, uncomfortable with her legs folded to the side since she was in a skirt, and attempted to take notes (which was definitely not going to be happening considering she had no real hard surface like a desk to write on) and gave up after a few attempts. She would just look it up later and try to recall what was said in the lesson.
The sudden sound of the birds startled Ginny and she made a sharp intake of breath. It was really creepy now that she realized it to be sitting in a fake forest with weird bird cries happening around her. Ginny grumbled to herself when the professor ended his lecture and dismissed them to be off on their own. Already an essay to write? And a bird? Sighing, Ginny started to look around the room for either the food or the bird, but not finding a lot of motivation to find either. “I was hoping for something a little more active.” She commented to the person beside her. “And cute.”
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Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus
Girls aren't supposed to cry in public.
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Virginia Bellrose, Crotalus
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Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
January 28, 2013 3:26 PM
Unless it's a diversion, maybe. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
Julian had, in accordance with her vow to herself after the near-disaster with flying lessons, made sure to leave for everything since early so she was sure to have time to find her classrooms, especially since the problem of not being totally sure where they were hadn’t completely worn off even after a few explorations of the school. She had hoped it would be otherwise, but had known, really, from the start that she wasn’t the best with directions. She couldn’t count the number of times in her life she had bruised herself because she didn’t pay attention to where she was going and forgot that something in a room had been moved or rearranged from the way she was used to it being, and that was just in her house.Today, she got to her second period Care of Magical Creatures class with some of the fifteen-minute intermission between classes to spare, but stumbled as she started to walk through the door, looking around at what she was pretty sure was an indoor room which looked a lot more like a forest. Stopping where she was to look up at the things that looked like trees, she was simultaneously impressed by magic, a little scared by magic, and tempted to go touch some of the flora to see to how real it was, but before she could make up her mind which of the things was most important, Professor Meade said ‘welcome’ and distracted her into going further in to continue her gaping.
When they were told to sit on the ground, Julian trusted the ground not to be really dirty enough to sit down cross-legged on it instead of on her bookbag, since that had been at Sonora long enough to be constantly heavy with a combination of textbooks, notebooks, and library books and would no doubt be pretty uncomfortable to perch on no matter which way she turned it on the ground. Professor Meade’s lecture went into one of her two thick notebooks as close to word for word as she could manage while keeping her handwriting legible. When she studied for exams, Julian would have to write every word of her notes, along with those she took over the readings for classes, out again in her neatest handwriting, just the way her mother had always taught her to do, so it was helpful if the first copies were easy enough to read.
As she wrote, most of her attention was on the information and getting it down, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the birds they were studying. It wasn’t their fault they were, well, naturally associated with sounds and imagery that were pretty funereal. When she was done writing, she tried not to think about that anymore as she first tried to put her notebook back, then removed two textbooks and a library book to make room for it, then realized she might still need it and left the notebook out, putting the other books back in her bag instead.
When she finished, Julian straightened up again and was worrying about the prospect of asking someone to write an essay with her when the girl sitting beside her complained about the lesson. Julian smiled nervously. “Well, I guess we’ll get some activity looking for the food,” she reasoned, fidgeting with the piece of fabric sticking out at the bottom of the part of one of the straps of her bag where that strap’s length could be adjusted to fit the carrier better. “And their behavior could be really interesting, I don't know. I've never seen one before.”
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Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
Unless it's a diversion, maybe.
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Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
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Virginia Bellrose
January 30, 2013 8:42 PM
But that doesn't seem ladylike. by Virginia Bellrose
Ginny’s green eyes assessed the girl she was talking to. It was no more than a quick flicker of her eyes as she studied her. So far, Ginny had been okay with the people she had met. They seemed to be of the same status with her even if she couldn’t say for certain (there were just far too many names to remember), but they had still been kind and didn’t seem to judge her too much even if she made a few blunders along the way. This girl… Ginny wasn’t sure about it. It wasn’t anything with how the girl looked, but with her words and body language. Was she nervous? Did Ginny make her nervous? Or did the bird make her nervous? It was an ugly bird, so Ginny could understand being anxious over it.“You’ve never seen an Augurey?” Ginny asked the girl, looking surprised. “Do you know magic?” Ginny asked before quickly putting her hands up to her mouth as though she had just used a curse word. “Oh, I’m sorry, that was rude of me to have asked.” She apologized, hoping her face wasn’t red. Manners were everything to her mother and she would be appalled by Ginny’s blunt words. “My Great Grandmother has an Augurey back home. She likes to be appraised of the weather at all times. I’m not really sure why though, she never leaves her manor for it to matter much.” Ginny commented after some thought.
“We should definitely make finding the food an activity.” Ginny said to the other girl. “If all we are going to do is standing around looking up at the tree tops in hopes of watching a bird sleep or whatever they do when they’re in nests, we might as well make a game out of the food and really make it worth something.” She was talking mostly to herself and very quickly as she thought of things that they could do. Something with the food that would force the birds to actually do something. She certainly didn’t want to just hold out her hand and hope one comes flying out at her. That was scary. And sort of gross.
“Oh, I’m Virginia Bellrose of the Alberta Bellroses’.” Ginny said, remembering her manners (still needed to work on her timing with those). “But, I prefer to be called Ginny.” She added. At least she introduced herself correctly and even gave permission within her introduction. “Did you want to work with me?” Ginny asked the girl, looking hopeful. “I am making assumptions without asking and that’s impolite.”
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Virginia Bellrose
But that doesn't seem ladylike.
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Virginia Bellrose
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Julian U.
January 31, 2013 1:39 PM
Desperate times can call for desperate measures. by Julian U.
“It’s all right,” Julian said, excusing the other girl’s question about her background. It didn’t necessarily mean anything, since she guessed it was only natural to be curious about new people, especially when they were all meeting so many of them in their classes. She wondered what people’s families were like all the time herself. “I’m still learning magic, but, um, Mom and Dad are a witch and wizard, if that’s what you mean.”Well, they were. She saw no need to announce that Mom was Muggleborn, or get into the biological parent game, especially since she didn’t really know anything about that. Stephen was actually Dad’s second cousin or something like that, and John and Joe and Paul had the same mother, they knew that much about them, but Julian’s original parents just weren’t something that had ever come up that much. She was pretty sure at least one of them had been magical, but that was all. Mom and Dad had given her her name, even, so it wasn’t something she even thought about very often.
“That almost sounds like Dad’s grandmother, except for the manor part,” she said when the other girl mentioned her grandmother’s behavior. “But we live in the city, so keeping a lot of magical animals around would get us fined all the time, so we just don’t do it. That’s all.”
She looked up in interest when Ginny told her where she was from, but was then cut off by Ginny’s apologies for being impolite. Again. Julian hadn’t really noticed it this time, since she had kind of assumed they were working together, too, after talking this long, but she smiled anyway. “It’s all right, I was sort of assuming the same thing,” she said, getting up. “I’m Julian Umland, I’m from Alberta, too – from Calgary, but Mom grew up in Edmonton, so we’ve been there a lot, too.” Both her parents had family further east, too, but she didn’t want to overload a new acquaintance with elaborate information about her family. Maybe purebloods – as the introduction lead her to believe she was dealing with – were different, but she found that kind of thing, right up front, overwhelming; she had tried to follow on the first night when Willow had started explaining about her grandfather’s cousins and stuff, but couldn’t remember all of it since she suspected it would’ve been weird to start taking notes over a casual conversation even if she'd been an aspiring journalist.
"That's the weirdest coincidence," she said, thinking of how she had expected to completely stick out like a sore thumb here and how so far she had met someone else similar to almost every reason she had thought that. "I've already met someone who went to school with my parents in Canada, too, even though I think his parents are all Americans." Dad, thanks to his dad, was an American citizen, too, but it usually came up mostly in history lessons and vacations. "Do you mind if I ask why you came to school here?"
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Julian U.
Desperate times can call for desperate measures.
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Julian U.
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Ginny
February 03, 2013 8:31 PM
I suppose that could be true. by Ginny
“We’re all learning magic, silly.” Ginny commented with a wave of her hand, but she was glad that the girl’s parents were both magical. It meant that at least she understood what was going on around them and Ginny hadn’t offended her in any way. Or, that’s what she was hoping for. Sometimes it was hard to tell. “So then, you’ve just never had anyone who owned the bird before? I guess that would make sense. I’m not sure how many people own them. My Great Grandmother is an odd woman, so I suppose it’s possible that she owns something others don’t desire.” This comment was more to herself than anything as she tried to work out why this was. Ginny was curious about a lot of things and she liked to have the answers to things that had her curious to begin with.Ginny’s eyes went wide when Julian advised that she was also from Alberta. Ginny never thought that she would have met another person who was from the same location all the way down here in Arizona. What a small world that was! “Are you really?” She asked, more rhetorically than anything else considering Julian had offered the name of the cities she was associated with. “My father’s family is from Red Deer City, but they have their manor just outside of it. It’s charmed to keep Muggles away, but since we’re on the Magical side of the city, I don’t think it’s an issue. My mom is also from Edmonton, but I have never been there myself.” Ginny commented lightly. She hadn’t really been much to Canada really since she was a little girl. Her father tended to keep them away for whatever reason. There was a lot going on with her parents that they were keeping from her. Someday, she planned on figuring it out, but for now, they refused to tell her a thing, saying it wasn’t for little girls to worry about.
“Oh, that’s an easy question.” Ginny said, although she wanted to know what boy they went to school with also had parents who were associated with Canada. “My parents moved to American when I was a small child. I grew up in Ohio, but we’re one of the few who branched out of Canada. The main family is still in Red Deer.” Ginny explained, hoping that it made sense. “My Father felt that Sonora would be the best school for me to attend. How come you decided on Sonora?” Ginny was living in America, but Julian sounded as though she remained in Canada.
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Ginny
I suppose that could be true.
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Ginny
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Julian U.
February 06, 2013 3:17 PM
This isn't really a desperate situation, though. by Julian U.
“I wouldn’t mind one, but Dad’s not very enthusiastic about pets that won’t maybe get us in trouble with the law,” Julian said, since she still felt sort of bad for the auguries because they weren’t that pretty and people thought they were bad luck. “He says four boys in the house already make it a zoo anyway,” she added lightly, since that part was a joke; her brothers could be annoying, sometimes, and of course Joe was all over the place, but she knew she got on their nerves sometimes, too, and no one really got in trouble that often.She listened to Ginny’s family locations. “That’s too bad,” she said about the other girl not going to Edmonton. “I think Mom always wished we’d settled down there, but I don’t know, I guess Dad likes it better further south.” Her parents’ reasons for things were usually explained, but Julian sometimes thought about that one, which wasn’t, though generally, where she lived was just where she lived.
Ginny’s presence here, like Charlie’s father’s former presence at Julian’s brother’s and parents’ school, was made to make sense: though Julian thought Ohio was probably closer to British Columbia or the eastern schools than it was to Arizona, it would be crossing the border for Ginny, which, as Julian had recently discovered, could be kind of a pain sometimes. Probably not as much of one as it would have been if she’d wanted to go to Hogwarts or something, not least because she thought she could blend in better on the same continent than she could on the other side of the ocean, but still, kind of a pain sometimes. She shrugged when asked about her own presence in Arizona.
“My oldest brother didn’t like his school, so we decided to try something else,” she said. She thought she was closer to Paul than Stephen in temperament and tastes, but Paul had never been to school, so they hadn’t been able to use his opinions when having that discussion. “Dad’s sister came here ages ago – their dad’s from the state of New York – so that was how they knew where it was and all.”
She pointed toward something half-concealed beneath greenery. “Do you think that’s some of the food?” she asked, not sure herself and thinking Ginny might have a better idea what auguries ate since her grandmother had one at home.
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Julian U.
This isn't really a desperate situation, though.
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Julian U.
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