I wasn't expecting something colorful. on Herbology

Professor X

September 21, 2017 12:46 PM

Intermediate Herbology: African Savanna by Professor X

Nathan smiled as his intermediate students began to arrive at Greenhouse One. It was early October and the Arizona air was just starting to chill after a late September heat wave. He liked this time of year, when it was cool enough to warrant a light jacket but not so cold that you'd freeze to death if you forgot it.

"Here's yours," Nathan said, handing back a quiz the students had taken last week. "Good job. And yours, excellent work. Hello, here's yours."

Once everyone arrived and got their quiz back, Nathan moved away from the door and took his place near his desk at the 'front' of the greenhouse, inasmuch as the greenhouse had a front. It was a fairly arbitrary designation when the whole place was overrun with greenery, with only just enough space around the middle tables for the students to move about to take their seats.

"Now that we've finished the review unit and got everyone back up to speed - overall I was very pleased with your quiz results, but if you feel you should have done better don't hesitate to swing by my office hours, which I hold all day on Wednesdays - we're going to dive into the African savannah unit, which I believe is new to most of you." The fourth and fifth years may have gotten a few bits and pieces as he sped through an overview for CATS prep for last year's fifth years, but this was the first time he'd really had a chance to go over the unit in depth. The current third years were the first class to begin Herbology as first years, so Intermediates was only now starting to slow down to the pace it was supposed to be covered.

"Savannas are largely open grasslands, with isolated trees spreading out some welcome shade for the animals. The climate is marked by a rainy season that lasts about six months, though that can vary by about a month in either direction depending on local environmental factors, followed by a long season of drought. During the rainy season, they can get up to 25 inches of rain a month, but in the dry season they could see only four inches of rain the whole time. And the soil is very porous so it drains quickly. Many of the plants in this area are therefore adapted to survive on very little water for about half of the year."

"Additionally, very few seeds reach maturity due to a combination of the water scarcity duryalmost half the year, and the variety of large animals like elephants and giraffes stomping about and crushing them. That's what keeps the savanna a grassland instead of developing into a more forested region."

"One particular kind of tree has developed an interesting response to giraffes in particular. The acacia tree produces a poison when giraffes start eating the leaves from the top of the tree. The giraffe takes a few bites, then moves away because the leaves rapidly become inedible. More impressively, the tree then takes things one step further by emitting a chemical into the air that indicates to nearby acacia trees that they should also start sending the poison into their leaves." His voice had become excited as he explained this point, and it clearly delighted him that the trees were able to communicate with each other.

"What we're going to do for homework tonight is a bit of research. Everyone should select one plant that grows in the savanna, and write a short essay - it only needs to be about four paragraphs, give or take - about what it is, what its adaptations are that make it special or able to survive better, what eats it, and whether or not it has any magical properties. There are a few books on each table to look through, and borrow for reference, or you could go to the library to look for something there." (He'd made sure the book in braille with embossed drawings had ended up on Nevaeh's table.)

"For the rest of the class period, you'll find samples of savanna grasses in front of each of you. Those same books should help you identify what kind of grass they are. Please do so, and trade the different grasses around so everyone has a chance to handle each type. There should be six different species of grass. When you finish that exercise, you can start working on the homework."

OOC: some notes on the grasses (and other savanna plants) can be found here: https://grasslandsavanna.wikispaces.com/Savanna+Plants or http://thegreatsavanna.weebly.com/savanna-plants.html

Subthreads:

I wasn't expecting something colorful. by Joe Umland, Teppenpaw with Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw

This sounds boring. by Arianna Tate, Crotalus

1 Professor X Intermediate Herbology: African Savanna 28 Professor X 1 5

Joe Umland, Teppenpaw

September 26, 2017 2:58 PM

I wasn't expecting something colorful. by Joe Umland, Teppenpaw

Joe had not been nervous about the review quiz Professor Xavier had given them, but it was always a relief to see a good result on paper, official. Herbology was not the most mentally taxing subject in his course load, but it required a lot of minutiae and did not run exactly in line with Joe’s strengths or interests anyway – plants were good to know for a variety of reasons, but he just didn’t find them that interesting in and of themselves.

The African savanna unit was one he had no more than a glancing familiarity with off the top of his head – he knew the word referred to grasslands, and…that was about it – but he had to admit that old associations made the thought a bit more interesting to him than plants in general. African history had caught his interest when he was a kid (he didn’t even know why, just that it had and it had been Mom’s practice to allow them to run on with anything that caught their attention, within limits), and then he had been in the Ethiopia group for the Fair a few years ago. He hoped that these associations (along with the fact that…how many magical plants could there really be in grasslands, anyway? At least compared with some regions) would make the unit a bit easier to remember all the minutiae of.

Six months rainy, six months dry, he wrote down on a small notepad, learning something new right off the bat. That…sounded like a challenging environment for anything to grow in, honestly, or live in, or do anything else except drown in. Twenty-five inches of rain would be a massive disaster where he lived, as much as six months with only four inches of rain would be. This increased the chance, he thought, that the plants would be attention-holdingly weird – a chance which quickly became a certainty when Professor Xavier started talking about acacia trees. Joe’s eyebrows rose in surprise as the professor started talking about what were more or less mundane plants (there was really expensive honey from acacia trees in some supermarkets, he knew; he and his siblings had sometimes gawked at all the things that rich people were apparently willing to afford in stores when they were younger, challenging each other to find the most ridiculous price in a shop to keep themselves occupied, and acacia honey was up there) communicating with each other about the presence of giraffes. That…was one of those things that made him glad not to be a vegetarian, frankly, because thinking about that too much seemed like a straight and narrow road to madness….

The grass sample closest to him was…grass-like, he guessed. Untrimmed grass-like. It was composed of long strands with very feathery tips. Some appeared vividly purple at the moment, though there was no telling if they were always like that – he’d doubt it, honestly, given what Professor Xavier had said about the climate, but the professor had also mentioned trees that communicated the immediate presence of giraffes. Anything seemed possible.

“I’m hoping this one won’t be too hard to identify,” said Joe to one of his neighbors. “That’s a lot of purple on the ends.”

16 Joe Umland, Teppenpaw I wasn't expecting something colorful. 329 Joe Umland, Teppenpaw 0 5

Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw

September 27, 2017 12:42 AM

Pretty sure one of them is a very famous type of straw... by Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw

Raine took her quiz back from Professor Xavier, trying to tune out the positive feedback that the preceding two students received. They got excellent and very good. She merely got And here’s yours. It was as if someone had greeted everyone else enthusiastically before noticing that Raine had tagged along too... Good to see you, glad you could make it. Oh. And you. You’re also… here. ‘Also here’ was largely how she felt about school. Other people were great at classes, or star Quidditch players, or club leaders. Raine was… also there. She knew she mattered to her friends, and she treasured that beyond everything, but it didn’t help her feel like there was much of a place for her in the system. She glanced at her paper. D. No wonder she’d only got a token nod to the fact she existed and had shown up for said quiz. The fact that she had been physically present in the classroom was about as much as could be said for her performance. As a first year, she had gradually dragged herself up from Ts to Ds. It had been a painstaking process. In second year, she had averaged a solid D, occasionally scraping it up to P. Her grades had taken a serious hit when she’d had to move up to intermediates, but again she’d clawed her way back. Last year, a couple of her homeworks had even received their first ‘A’s although she was well aware that those were the ones where Ben or her friends had helped her more than they probably should.

She took a seat, feeling miserable. This year was so hard already. They were halfway through the time that Professor Gray had given them for his Charms essay but she was no way near through halfway writing it. She had an academic support appointment with Professor Skies tomorrow, and she knew that she was expecting to see far more than Raine had produced. She was always being told to try harder next time, and she had tried trying hard. She had tried as hard as she was able, she just didn’t get it. And now, even though fifth year was really not a convenient time to hit this point, she felt more like giving up than keeping going. It didn’t help that, more than ever, she didn’t want to be here. She had never enjoyed leaving her family, but now there was Dallas too… Or had been. They had agreed not to continue it whilst she was at school. She alternated between daydreaming that he was missing her so much that he couldn’t possibly think of getting with another girl, and torturing herself imagining who he might be sleeping with. It was distracting enough wishing she could be with him, and hating that she wasn’t, on the emotional level, but he’d also opened up a door to a whole new magical world for her… Since coming back to Sonora, there was a certain itch going unscratched… She found herself tuning out in class. She had always struggled to pay attention, but now her mind wandered onto things she’d much rather be doing…

The animated tone of Professor Xavier’s voice called her back to attention. Something about poisoned leaves. And then he said the dreaded words… Homework. Essay. Not another one! For all that he claimed it was easy and short, the thought of any more homework right now was more than she could cope with. And before that, they had to identify six types of grass. The fact that that was an entirely normal and reasonable herbology task just didn’t even register beyond the swirling, churning feeling in her brain that absolutely everything that everyone was asking was impossible. Grass… just looked like grass, surely? And who cared? And why was everyone insisting on telling her everything was easy when none of it was for her?

“I’m hoping this one won’t be too hard to identify,”

“Maybe not for you,” Raine snapped, over the tail ends of Joe’s remarks about the tell-tale purple ends. “I’m sure the CATS will just be a lovely stroll in the park for everyone else.”

There was a beat.

“Sorry,” she said, seeming just as surprised and startled that she’d yelled at him as Joe probably was.

13 Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw Pretty sure one of them is a very famous type of straw... 327 Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw 0 5

Joe

September 27, 2017 1:04 PM

It took me far too long to figure that one out. by Joe

Joe was not - altogether - unfamiliar with being yelled at. When Stephen and Paul had been teenagers, they had bellowed at him to leave them alone often enough, and John's immaturity had always been such that he and Joe had generally always dealt with each other as equals. Even Julian had lost her patience with him in noisy fashion a few times - it was an occupational hazard of being one of five kids in a house built for a family with, at most, two kids and a cat. Being the youngest by a fair margin meant he was not as accustomed to being yelled at as maybe the older ones were, but it was not something to utterly startle him under most circumstances.

Raine Collindale snapping at him was not exactly most circumstances. Joe supposed he must have had a really stupid look on his face in response, because Raine’s next word was an apology.

“It’s okay,” said Joe cautiously. “I just meant - this one here barely looks like grass, so I guessed it would be easy to pick out its picture in the book.”

Instinct said to promptly flee because Raine was clearly Not Happy today and he - as close to a polar opposite to her as he thought someone could be when they had both been Sorted into the same House - was probably not the person in the room best equipped to help her with that. Manners, however, and the traits he supposed had put him in Teppenpaw, dictated otherwise. He began to wonder for a moment of his suddenly improved fortunes had somehow brought a curse on everyone else in the House, but then realized this was kind of stupid.

“I’m sorry if I sounded obnoxious,” he said. “I know how that is - every time John tries to convince us he didn’t even study for his CATS, I kind of want to jinx him, and one time our sister did.” He paused, trying to figure out if asking if she was okay would make him a jerk or if not asking if she was okay would make him a jerk. “Not that I’m suggesting you follow her example,” he joked instead, unable to reach a timely conclusion.

16 Joe It took me far too long to figure that one out. 329 Joe 0 5

Raine

October 08, 2017 6:06 AM

So, you're saying I'm the smart one here? by Raine

Raine actually took a glance over the grass in front of them. Part of her sort of saw Joe’s point but it was still hard to let that filter through the blind fog of panic that said she was too stupid for any of this, and probably couldn’t identify a grass if it walked up and introduced itself, and that she was doomed to failure. Having already had one outburst though, which was one more than she’d ever had in her lifetime at someone who wasn’t Kyte, she was back to holding all of this in her head, and merely nodded somewhat stiffly and mechanically to Joe’s suggestion.

“No… You didn’t,” Raine assured him when he apologised if he’d sounded… something. She didn’t actually know the word he used, but she was pretty sure she could assume that it was something bad, and that it wasn’t warranted for Joe to think it about himself just because she was stressy from doing badly on a test. It was tricky to follow what Joe was saying next, because she was still a bit wrapped up in everything that was going wrong, and because the idea that someone could actually not study for the exams just made her brain short circuit. She knew that other people were smart, a lot smarter than she was, but she’d just sort of assumed everyone still had study.

“It’s me,” she added, choosing to continue with the line of Why This Wasn’t Joe’s Fault because she really couldn’t think of anything to say about his brother being a genius but also a complete ass. Her eyes filled with tears. “I just… I just can’t do any of it. I’m useless. I’m useless, and I’m going to fail everything.” The tears started steadily falling. She wiped futily with her sleeve but there was no hiding the fact that she was crying.

13 Raine So, you're saying I'm the smart one here? 327 Raine 0 5

Joe

October 08, 2017 2:49 PM

Looks like it, yeah. by Joe

Well, Raine was clearly not okay, but knowing this proved less helpful than Joe could have hoped. He still, for instance, had no idea what to do to fix the problem. The last time he’d been party to a scene where someone was having a helpless, frustrated meltdown, he’d been the party losing his composure, and the circumstances here were kind of different. This was a normal situation, not one of the Dostoevskian upheavals John and Julian liked to make him an unwilling third or fourth party to, and while he knew some pious-sounding gibberish his mother would have approved of using here, he strongly doubted it would actually prove effective with a real person, and plus he was kind of worried about Kyte getting entirely the wrong idea and coming over here and hitting him without stopping to check out what was actually going on….

“Hey, hey,” he said, trying to sound more reassuring than slightly unnerved. “Is it the test? We’re not even halfway through half the year yet.”

This was, of course, factually true, but still - Joe doubted its effectiveness. He was a bit nervous about the CATS, but still - there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to pass all of them, and no real point to pretending otherwise. There was a long way between knowing for an absolute fact that he was not as smart as John and genuinely worrying that he wasn’t capable of performing well. He didn’t even know exactly what Raine’s problem was - whether, basically, it was nerves or a product of a lack of education before Sonora or if she had some kind of learning disability or what. He knew in the abstract that these things were problems that existed, but he didn’t know people who had them - at least not that he knew - or how to be helpful. He couldn't exactly make her a cup of tea in the middle of class….

“And you’ve got this far, yeah?” he tried, but this felt inadequate too. “You want to take a walk or something?” he offered as his last effort, figuring that just removing the stress-inducing situation might support an improvement if all else failed.

16 Joe Looks like it, yeah. 329 Joe 0 5

Raine

October 20, 2017 11:55 AM

Right, so if the exam questions are riddles, I'll be ok by Raine

“No. I mean, sort of…. But it’s not just the test,” Raine tried to explain. It wasn’t the test, or Joe or Professor Xavier or anyone or anything else’s fault that she was thick. “It’s me… I can’t do any of it. And I’ve tried telling myself it doesn’t matter - I already know what I’ll do when I grow up, and none of this is going to feature. But I have to get there first. I have to keep meeting all these requirements,” she tried to explain, cutting herself off before she started ranting. She didn’t need these things. She was sick of hoops, of having to meet someone else’s ideals of what was valuable and important but was so far from where her actual focus, in her mind, needed to be. But she was just a child, and a stupid child to boot. No one cared what she thought of the system, or the fact that it didn’t fit her. It refused to change. It had been deemed right by certain experts, and the only option was for her to fit it, because it sure as hell wasn’t going to change for her benefit.

She gave a half-hearted nod at Joe’s assurance that she’d got this far. She had scraped by. Her practical work in most subjects was solid enough to drag up her abysmal theory grades, besides which she had the feeling that most of the teachers just didn’t want to fail her or have to deal with the hassle of having her repeat a year. There was something so much more daunting though about a national exam - about the idea of scrutiny from strangers, and exams done in the strictest conditions.

She considered his offer of a walk. It seemed a bizarre thing to take in the middle of class. Normally she was loathe to draw added attention or dare to ask for anything out of the ordinary, lest she crossed one of the lines that seemed so obvious to other people but were a bizarre concoction of hodge-podge rules to her. However, it was hard to imagine Professor Xavier really getting cross with anyone, or Joe suggesting something that wasn’t going to be allowed.

“M-Maybe,” she managed. It was certainly true that talking about the test had not lessened the degree to which she was crying at all. Raine didn’t particularly like drawing attention to herself, but it currently seemed like going for a walk might do that to a lesser degree than staying in class…

13 Raine Right, so if the exam questions are riddles, I'll be ok 327 Raine 0 5

Joe

October 22, 2017 10:16 AM

Whatever works, I guess? by Joe

That it wasn’t just the test sparking a near-breakdown was, Joe thought, a simple enough concept to grasp – it rarely was, he thought, ever really just one thing, even if one thing was the thing that set it off. The thing Raine said that he struggled to get his head around was the idea that someone his age could say they knew what they were going to do when they grew up so confidently. What one wanted to do, maybe – but knew? Even John couldn’t say that; he’d spent much of the summer fussing over whether to focus on one of his interests, major in more than one thing, or go to the considerable trouble of applying for permission to create a novel course of study.

Joe hadn’t even gotten that far. He had no clue where to even start. He was good at all his classes, in the sense that he didn’t have a difficult time learning just what was in the curriculum. He had considered teaching as a possible course of action, but had no consuming passion for any one topic, nothing original to say about anything. Applying to the foreign service or for a job with the goblins occurred to him on the basis of his interests, but there was something embarrassing about the very thought – it seemed too lurid and exotic for someone from his very ordinary background. Why it should be weirder than John…being John, or Julian becoming a feudal overlord, he didn’t know, but so it was – though of course, if nothing else occurred to him in a timely manner, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it. Quietly, so he needn’t tell anyone if it didn’t work out, but still….

However, none of this was likely to be very helpful to Raine, whose problems involved right now instead of some unfixed point in the future. He hesitated for a moment when she acknowledged that just leaving class might actually be a good idea, then had an idea and wrote on a corner of a page in his notebook Raine’s upset, so we’re going to step out for a minute – J. Umland, tore this off, folded it up into a vaguely winged shape, and sent it in Professor Xavier’s direction with a flick of his wand.

“I’m sure he won’t mind,” he said reassuringly. “Let’s just...yeah. Or would you rather I got your brother and went away?” he added as he removed the rest of the now-partial blank page from his notebook, Transfigured it into a handkerchief, and offered it to her.

16 Joe Whatever works, I guess? 329 Joe 0 5

Raine

October 22, 2017 11:57 AM

I just need some way to unwind... by Raine

Raine watched Joe’s little note wing its way to the Professor. It was not met immediately with rage at their sheer presumption and the barring of the greenhouse door. Again, this was difficult to really picture with Professor Xavier, but it was just so… so unlike how she dealt with the world. Raine couldn’t imagine interacting with teachers in that way, in general, and much more specifically in writing a note that clearly communicated what she intended without somehow accidentally putting her foot in it.

“I’d rather go with you,” Raine assured him, as he asked about Kyte, accepting the handkerchief gratefully. However, as they moved towards the door, Kyte seemed to have other ideas. He had been watching, from his customary back row position. It was difficult not to notice what the other one was up to, in such small groups as they were in at Sonora, and especially with Kyte’s tendency to let his attention wander away from his work, but in line with his new policy on making sure Unsuitable Boys didn’t try to bang his sister, he’d been watching especially keenly when she sat next to Joe. Joe was definitely an Unsuitable Boy, because he was any boy, and they were all on the list. Alongside Kyte’s new radar for possible lusting on his sister, was the fact that grass was a spectacularly boring topic, unless it was a certain variety which he really doubted he’d be seeing in class.

“What’s going on?” he asked, a question that covered the dual circumstances of his sister sneaking out of class with a boy, and the fact that she was crying. Whilst logic suggested that, if Joe had been the one to make her cry, she probably wasn’t going to also be skipping class for a steamy round-the-back-of-the-greenhouse session with him, this didn’t particularly occur to Kyte because he was annoyed and logic got in the way. Assuming Joe to be the instigator of All That Was Wrong, it was him that Kyte addressed the question to, although he was saved from having to try to explain by Raine.

“I’m just going to get some air,” Raine told him. “I made a mess of the test, and my head’s all fuzzy and I can’t think straight.”

“Why is he going with you?” Kyte challenged, abruptly switching from speaking to Joe to speaking about him as if he couldn’t hear them.

“Because he’s my friend,” Raine glared. Although Kyte was keeping his voice low, she couldn’t help but feel this was an added hiccup in the whole ‘drawing minimal attention’ appeal of leaving. “C’mon Joe,” she muttered, pulling open the greenhouse door, and walking purposefully out, leaving Kyte in their wake.

“Sorry about him,” she added to Joe, once the door had swung shut behind them. She sniffled and allowed herself a little sob, now that they were out of class. “Kyte isn’t great at dealing with other people’s feelings,” she added, more as an explanation of why she’d chosen Joe. It didn’t exactly explain why he’d tried to involve himself in a situation that clearly called for that. “Though he doesn’t really realise that about himself. And has got super overprotective lately. It’s a great combination,” she added, with a roll of her eyes. “Is it possible that someone can be basically a good person, and also a complete jerk at the same time?” she asked, and then paused to wonder how they had got onto this subject when the whole point of this had been about school, and how that sucked. It didn’t really matter. She just needed ten minutes of not thinking to clear her head.

13 Raine I just need some way to unwind... 327 Raine 0 5

Joe

October 23, 2017 2:30 PM

Good thing our siblings are easy to gripe about. by Joe

Professor Xavier was a concern, but not a large one, really. The Head of Teppenpaw was mild-mannered - the sort of person Joe tended to assume would not strongly oppose anything remotely reasonable done by someone who did it with enough self-assurance - and, presumably, not keen to deal with a girl having a spell if someone else was stupid enough to volunteer to do it instead. Kyte was a much more intimidating prospect, so naturally, he was the one who appeared before them to interfere with Joe’s hastily-constructed plan by questioning Joe.

Before he could construct an answer which cast him in an entirely chivalrous light, however, he was pulled up short by Raine herself explaining the situation to her brother, whereupon said brother began ignoring Joe’s existence. Joe was not sure how to take this. On one hand, no violence of a non-socially-sanctioned form was taking place. On the other, he was being treated as a statue. Either way, though, whether being ignored was desirable or not, he expected the conversation to end with him handing Raine off to her brother - he tried not to express his emotions at all, really, when they were unpleasant, but if he had to deal with Feelings, he thought he’d turn to his own people for help, not a friend, or at least one of the ordinary sort - and so he was not put on surer footing on any front when Raine, apparently deciding the conversation with Kyte was over, ordered him to come along.

He followed her obediently and, at first, silently, praying she would provide some clear lead he, who was unused to emotional expression, could follow. Fortunately - and this was a thought he’d never thought to have before - difficult siblings and the difference between having an agreeable personality and being a decent person were topics he did feel qualified to address.

“I think it is,” he said. “Actually, I think that describes two of my three brothers and on a bad day my sister, too.” He was only half-joking; Julian’s case was perhaps a tad more complicated than just being a jerk (jerkette?) sometimes, but still - Stephen was unambiguously the best of them, he thought. “So I guess you have me at a disadvantage, unless you’ve also got three more like that?”

16 Joe Good thing our siblings are easy to gripe about. 329 Joe 0 5

Arianna Tate, Crotalus

October 25, 2017 6:50 PM

This sounds boring. by Arianna Tate, Crotalus

Contrary to most of her other classes, Arianna preferred theoretical Herbology to practical. Practical Herbology involved... gardening . Gardening was rather beneath her. It was for house elves and she was not a house elf. Besides, the Crotalus hated getting dirty. Dirty was not an attractive look. Even if she had to be in school robes, Arianna wanted them to look presentable. She didn't want to look like a slob!

Plus, she had just done her nails last night. One might think it was impractical to do them when one had Herbology, but that was the thing. She'd had classes, therefore, they needed it. Even though it was now her fourth year and her plans hadn't come to fruition the way she'd wanted, Arianna still had an image she wanted to present.

She was rather irritated that things hadn't worked out the way she wanted. For starters, the Crotalus was used to getting her way. Plus, she had truly wanted to build something, leave a real legacy for girls like her that would come after. A way for them to bond, to find each other. A group that celebrated femininity and propriety.

Still, it wasn't her fault that Sonora hadn't exactly had an influx of great candidates. Arianna was willing to give Teppenpaws and even some Pecaris a chance but sometimes, people who'd have otherwise been great candidates went and ruined themselves by playing Quidditch. Arianna didn't believe in WAIL, after all Aunt Kaylie had played it before her injury and she was married with three children,but she still didn't really care for the sort of girls who played. Though her aunt more embodied the view Arianna had of Teppenpaws as soft and useless and too nice for their own good than the tomboyish sort. That was more how Aunt Nina had been but she hadn't played Quidditch because she wasn't allowed after Aunt Kaylie had gotten hurt.

And she had wanted it for Jasmine too. Arianna wanted to be role model in general but especially for the first year. She was like a surrogate little sister. One she would happily have traded her brother for. Maybe they could do it together though, start the group.

She looked at Professor Xavier with a bored expression as he began to speak. The African savanna didn't sound very interesting. It sounded dry, barren and ugly. Plus, Arianna usually associated Africa as a continent with adventures and thus didn't think it would be a suitable vacation destination as she didn't like adventure much-it made one dirty- and preferred something much more glamorous.

The only remarkably interesting that the Herbology professor had talked about was the acacia trees and their poison. Poisons were a decidedly interesting topic, not that that was a thought she wanted to let on that she had.

Arianna picked up a piece of grass and sat back down, looking at it unenthusiastically. It was going to be a long lesson, though on the plus side, it was better than the fertilizer one.

11 Arianna Tate, Crotalus This sounds boring. 353 Arianna Tate, Crotalus 0 5