Professor Aaron McKindy
November 17, 2010 9:35 AM
Charms 1&2: Who Are You? by Professor Aaron McKindy
The thing Professor Aaron McKindy missed most about his original home in upstate New York was the drizzly January days, when the weather hadn’t quite decided to snow but hadn’t quite decided to rain either. The climates of Arizona and Colorado didn’t really lend themselves to too many drizzly days, days when you could just curl up with a good book or some homework (not that he had that anymore, of course), which Aaron felt was a huge loss to the inhabitants of the state. It hadn’t taken much to Charm windows into his office and quarters that reflected the current weather in upstate New York, though, and when Aaron had woken up that morning it had been the sort of drizzly January day he loved. On the other hand, when he stepped out of his office and into the real world, he was forced to come to grips with the fact that today was, as usual, one of the ‘sunny Arizona’ variety.Still, he had a class to teach, which was why he headed into his classroom anyway. The real bummer was that the activity he had planned for his first and second years today was definitely a rainy day sort of activity. After a few minutes of set-up in his classroom, the black-haired Italian checked his watch. He still had an hour before the kids would arrive. It might be pushing it, but--
When the first students for his Beginners class began to arrive, Aaron was deeply focused on a medium-sized window that had appeared over the bookshelves at the back of the room. No more than five minutes after the first kids had arrived, the window was portraying a steady drizzle of rain outside of it. The man smiled at his work and put his tophat made of pink bubbles back on top of his head, then strolled to the front of the classroom, stopping to chat with students on the way. His first years had come a long way and seemed to be more-or-less comfortable in class now. The second years, of course, knew that Charms had a relaxed environment. Not that Aaron made it an easy class; he just enjoyed what he did and loved to share that with his students.
Since about mid-October, the Beginner class had been learning different types of movement charms. They had worked on object moving for practical purposes (mobile levitation and the levi- group of spells) and object moving for not-so practical purposes (with Aaron’s patented ‘sugar cookie’ lesson, in which the students baked cookies and then Charmed them to do things like wink). Today, they were going to focus on making two-dimensional objects move. It was a bit of a tougher lesson and Aaron knew of a few who might have problems with it, but he hoped that it would be a fun one nevertheless.
Hands deep in the pockets of his Muggle blue-jeans, a t-shirt with a Hungarian Horntail on it—a gift from Jessie, his eighteen-year-old biological daughter who was currently studying at Colorado University Boulder Campus to become a Muggle vet despite the six years she spent at Hogwarts before dropping out—Aaron leaned against his desk and waited for the class to settle down. Once they had, he began.
“Good morning guys,” he said with a friendly smile, grey-green eyes sweeping the room. At the back, atop the bookshelves and under the new window, were stacks of Muggle magazines of every sort imaginable. Jessie had helped him gather those. Despite his time spent living as a Muggle, Aaron was still a little bit uncomfortable with many Muggle things. He could function, but anything too complicated like magazine subscriptions and he just got confused.
“Today we’re going to work on animating two-dimensional things. I know it seems like that would be easier than the three-dimensional animations you’ve been doing for the past month, but I’ve found that it’s actually a little bit more difficult. Does anyone remember how we did mobile levitation?” A few hands went up, and Aaron called on one of the students. They gave the correct answer—something about the levi- family of spells—and Aaron gave them a thumbs-up. He had a smart group of kids here. They usually caught on pretty quick.
“Right. Well today we’re going to work with another family of spells, called the lapsi family. It works the same way as the levi group except that instead of mobile levitation, it makes the thing in question move slowly in an action that would be natural to it in life. There are ways to determine what it does, but that’s more advanced so for now we’re not going to touch on it. So for example, if you took a photo of a cat,” Aaron held up a large photo of the family cat, Godric, who seemed to have taken up following Melody around as opposed to attacking the ankles of people around the house, something everyone was thankful for, “and enchant it--Lapsicattus--then it should—there we go,” the photo-Godric slowly looked at the class disdainfully and began to lick a paw.
“So that’s what we’re doing today. But to make it a bit more fun, I want you guys to make collages about yourselves. What you like, the things that make you you. There are a bunch of Muggle magazines in the back and some wizarding magazines over on that side table. The wizarding magazines don’t already have moving pictures in them,” it had been hard to hunt those down; moving pictures had been all the rage since that developing potion had been discovered in the ‘20s that made two-dimensional movement much more durable than the charms his kids were learning today, “so don’t worry about that. There’re scissors and paste on both tables and poster paper should be under each of your desks. On your collages, there should be at least five pictures that move. You’ll have two class periods to finish this so don’t worry about time today, but when you guys are done, I want to hang them up in the hallway,” Aaron smiled at the group. He was really excited for this project.
“Anyway, go ahead and get started! Just raise your hand if you need any help,” the dark-haired man said. The class began to move around, getting ready to start their collages, and he smiled. He loved his Beginner class.
|OOC|
Minimum ten sentences, please! But the more you do, the more House Points your House gets. Be creative and have fun! Tag me in your subject line if your character needs Aaron.
Subthreads: I think therefore I am by Samantha Hamilton with Marcus Williams (Pecari), Samantha
You're my teacher - you should know who I am. by James Owen with Kate Bauer, Teppenpaw, James
Someone who doesn't want to do this. by Autumn Collins, Crotalus with Sam Bauer, Crotalus
I don't know! by Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus with Sophie Jamison [Pecari]
I'm Kirstenna by Kirstenna Melcher,Teppenpaw
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Professor Aaron McKindy
Charms 1&2: Who Are You?
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Professor Aaron McKindy
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Samantha Hamilton
November 17, 2010 4:07 PM
I think therefore I am by Samantha Hamilton
Samantha liked the way her charms classes had gradually built on themselves, developing each week but on the same topic. She wished some of her other classes would follow a trend like that; the Aladren thrived on routine and predictability. It was nice to have some sort of stability at school seeing as her home life was pure madness a lot of the time. Her mom and step-dad had spent practically the entire of midterm arguing, and her actual dad had only seen her and her brothers for one day of the whole holiday. Samantha was pretty much annoyed with the whole lot of them. She'd cried saying goodbye to her mom, but overall she was glad to be back at Sonora.She liked Professor McKindy, and she especially liked his pink bubble top hat. He was wearing a dragon t-shirt today that looked like something her brother might wear, and that made Samantha smile. The second year tended to live in jeans and t-shorts herself, many of them being cast-offs from her older brother. Today was no exception, though her clothes were covered by her uniform robes. The only parts that weren't hidden away were here slip-on black shoes and her light brown hair that had been neatly tied back into a ponytail.
Samantha approved of the class today. She liekd the idea of making a collage that was all about her. Where to start, though? Sports were a must. Quidditch was only a recent development, but samantha had played soccer and baseball as long as she could remember, and she was pretty good. Magic was also a big part of samantha's life right now - she was sure one of the magazines had to have something that would show that side of her. She wasn't sure what else she would put on there, but now she had some ideas in mind, Samantha went to the Muggle magazines first. She brought back one that looked like it would have good sports pictures in, and one that was a familiar teen magazine that she could probably relate to in some way.
She sat at her desk and started flipping through the first mag until she found a picture of a baseball game, the pitcher about to make a throw. That would do for a start! Realizing that someone else at her desk had the scissors, Samantha politely said, "Could I please use those when you're finished with them?"
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Samantha Hamilton
I think therefore I am
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Samantha Hamilton
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Marcus Williams (Pecari)
November 22, 2010 7:55 PM
That is very Rene Descartes of you. by Marcus Williams (Pecari)
Since returning to Sonora, Marcus began to act like a shell of himself. Quiet and withdrawn. Not the loud, fun-loving eleven year old he had always been. This school had changed him and not in a positive way. He knew that by choosing to come back here instead of staying within the Muggle world was the best option for him and his mother, but it didn’t make it any less easy to have picked. He missed his friends back home. He missed the normalcy of it all. Even the gang violence was normal to him. This place… this place couldn’t even be brought to life properly for a movie.So, leaving the cold blizzard-like snow that often accompanied the winters of Western New York, Marcus found himself sitting in the Charms classroom. He didn’t really dislike Charms. He could understand why this class could potentially be necessary in his every day life (although he didn’t understand why some of the lessons ended up the way they did…) and the fact that the professor had a set plan that ran throughout the course of the year helped. In his muggle school, they always had schedule of what they did. A theme for the year of sorts. His charms class had that same way of things that Marcus felt some sort of normalcy to.
He sat close to the door in case he had to make a quick escape. After everything that went down last term, Marcus wasn’t taking any chances. The first sign of something bad happening, Marcus was skipping out. It was easier to get into trouble for not being there than for being in the middle of it. He had learned his lesson. The other professor had taught him that much.
Listening quietly, Marcus scowled. He had seen the portraits and things under the charms that he was teaching, he still didn’t quite understand the purpose – giving non-living things the idea of living – but whatever, he could go along with it. But why, why, do they have to make collages of themselves? Marcus hadn’t had to make one of these since he was in the third grade. And then he was going to hang them out in the hallway? Display their utter humiliation of having to have to do this project at all? He was nearly twelve. They should be building rockets in science class, taking care of mealworms to understand nature, read The Giver in English class, and building a Native American home in History. They should not have to make a collage as though they were only eight.
He walked directly over to the muggle magazines. He still didn’t know much in regards to the magical world and the rate in which the teachers were actually explaining the how and the why of things, Marcus would never know anything about the magical world. Only the spells he would need to bake cookies, turn beetles into buttons, and how to make pictures move.
Marcus grabbed a few sports magazines. These would have everything that he was connected to in the other world. He flipped through the first magazine until he found a football player in mid-catch. It wasn’t his team, but it would do. He was in the middle of carefully cutting the player out when he heard a girl speak to him. He hadn’t even been aware of sitting with someone. He blinked somewhat suspiciously at her. A random thought of evilness popped into his head of how she would take the scissors and stab them straight through his hand. He had no idea where the thought came from as he wasn’t a cynic and she certainly hadn’t done anything to deserve the thought. Marcus summed it up to the sadist he had met before Christmas. She made him think sourly of everyone now.
“Yeah sure.” Marcus replied, giving her a grin to be polite as his mom always said he should smile when meeting new people. It made him look nice. Glancing at her magazines, Marcus noted that most of them were of non-magical things. “Are you from a non-magical family too?” He asked. She was one of the few that he has met who would have been.
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Marcus Williams (Pecari)
That is very Rene Descartes of you.
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Marcus Williams (Pecari)
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Samantha
December 02, 2010 8:43 AM
I think he was onto something by Samantha
The boy said he would pass the scissors when he was done, which samantha had been expecting - it wasn't as if he'd need them all class. Then he said, "Are you from a non-magical family too?" Samantha followed his gaze to her Muggle magazines."Yes, I'm from a non-magic family," she replied, and she would admit to be a little surprised by the question. Nobody here had asked her that before. "I used to think there must have been some sort of mistake," she smiled at the memory of her first term. "I've got an older brother and a younger brother, and I don't think either of them have magic," she told the boy. Samantha supposed she couldn't be quite sure that her younger brother wasn't magic, but he hadn't shown any signs so far. Plus she had let him wave her wand a bit over summer, and nothing had happened. She was the only one with green eyes, too, but she didn't think that had anything to do with being a witch.
"I'm Samantha," she said to the other boy. She'd tried being Sam in her first year - that's what her family called her - but Sam Bauer had fought hard for the name. Samantha decided to let him keep it; after twelve years of being a tomboy maybe it was time she tried acting like a girl. She hadn't yet progressed past the name but she was getting used to the sound of it now. She'd got some make-up for Christmas from one of her step-sisters, but she hadn't tried using it yet.
"What's your name?" she asked the boy as she waited for him to be finished with the scissors. She didn't think she'd seen him around last year, which meant he was either in first year or he'd moved schools or something. or that she had been particularly unobservant last year.
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Samantha
I think he was onto something
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Samantha
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Marcus
December 04, 2010 1:37 PM
Most Philosophers are by Marcus
Marcus felt what he could only describe as relief when the girl admitted to being from a non-magical family. There seemed to be very few students who were like him in this school. At least, in his experience. Of all the people he had really met and spoken too, they all came from families of magic. It made Marcus feel even more like a minority, just in a completely different way. And then you add in that girl in his Transfiguration class who called him a Mudblood – of which he had mistaken that word to be racial against the color of his skin, but discovered later that was a negative term used for people who came from non-magical family. Marcus was weary when it came to meeting others at this school.“I’m an only child, so it was a complete surprise to get the letter. My Ma was happy though. She figured this would be better for me than back home.” Marcus shrugged. Although he lived in the inner city of Rochester, he had been part of the Urban Suburban program, which was a program the inner city provided to suburban schools that gave adolescents a chance at a better education that may not have been provided in the inner city. But, even then, for working class citizens, a better future was hard to come by. His best chance had been a football scholarship into a decent university. Here, his mother hoped that a scholarship in a sport wouldn’t be necessary and he would get into a university by magic.
“Hi, Samantha, I’m Marcus.” He sort of felt it was a bit weird to have to introduce himself to people in the midst of the year. At his muggle school, it was small enough that everyone just knew who everyone was. Of course, each class was just students of the same year and not of multiple years in one class like it was here. He wondered if all magical school handled their classes this way or if it was just Sonora that did. He couldn’t imagine how helpful it could be to have first and third years in the same class because there was already a huge gap in what they knew of magic. Oh well, he could only assume the staff here knew what they were doing.
Marcus had already cut out a few models who were wearing some of his favorite sneakers, a couple of random photos of people in hats, and a couple of football and basketball players in mid movement. He still wasn’t sure what to use for the fifth picture and would have to think about it a little while longer. While he thought about it, he figured he would have Samantha use the scissors to cut out the pictures she liked. “Here you are.” Marcus slid the scissors towards her. He was sort of amused that they still used scissors in the magical world instead of having a charm that cut things for you. Or, maybe their was a charm and it wasn’t a beginner level charm sort of thing.
“So, is it just Samantha or do you have a nickname?” Marcus asked. People asked him if they could call him Marc, but he didn’t feel like that name fit him so he had always just been Marcus. Samantha seemed like such a long name to not have any other name for use. But, to each their own if she was one of those who enjoyed her full name.
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Marcus
Most Philosophers are
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Marcus
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