Professor Fawcett
April 14, 2011 12:39 AM
Lesson Two for Intermediates (3rd-5th Years) by Professor Fawcett
The first classes after midterm were, to John, in some ways more difficult than the first ones after summer vacations. He had occasionally wondered how common that sentiment was, but since he'd deemed a survey inappropriate for several reasons, he had instead taken to alternating which day he went easier on them and which it would be business as usual for.This year, it was the intermediates' turn to have a full workload in the first lesson after midterm. He felt a bit bad about that since they had wrapped up antidotes just before the holidays, but trusted that his students would be able to handle it. Some with more assistance from him and-or their classmates than others, but handle it they would just the same.
"Good day, class," he said when it was time to begin. "And welcome back to your schedules." Since it might be especially impolitic at the moment to speak of the holidays being enjoyable, he instead said, "I hope you are all ready to resume learning. I have your antidotes exams here with your research papers." John had been pleased by the number who'd used sources well to support their positions, though he still wasn't quite sure how to take Mr. Bradley citing one of John's own books in his paper on the relevance of antidotes in modern society, especially since the underlying assumption of the work seemed to have been that all humans were, when they had the resources, murderous sociopaths. "I'll hand those out while you set up today. If you have any questions about your grades, immediately or once you've had more time to read through my comments, you may, of course, drop by my office or see me after class."
He leaned back against his desk. "For our time today, I'd like you to first try to come up with a list of multiple potions that serve more or less the same purpose, then discuss between yourselves why those variations might exist. Once you've done that, write a conclusion statement and then attempt to brew two. Afterward, consider your statement again and, if you feel the need to change or make alterations to it, rewrite it beneath your original statement. You may begin." As the class began grouping up or flipping through textbooks, John took the stacks of graded exams and papers and began handing them back to their owners.
OOC: Standard posting rules apply. Have fun!
Subthreads: Sometimes I really like this class. This is not one of them. by Jose Hernandez, Pecari with Jethro Smythe, Jose Hernandez
Busy, busy, busy. by Rachel Bauer with Nicodemus Sawyer, Crotalus
Ready, set, go. by Sam Bauer with Samantha Hamilton
This is a totally awesome, really good day. by Marissa Stephenson with Andrew Duell
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Professor Fawcett
Lesson Two for Intermediates (3rd-5th Years)
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Professor Fawcett
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Sam Bauer
April 23, 2011 2:19 PM
Ready, set, go. by Sam Bauer
His first class of the new semester was Potions, on what, according to the syllabus, was bound to be a hard day. Clearly, someone in the scheduling department had it out for him. Sam didn’t know what he’d done to earn that individual’s wrath, but when he’d earned it, he had earned it.Now, he just had to make the best he could out of it. Starting with trying to get on the good side of the man in charge before anything else could happen. “Hullo, Professor,” he said cheerfully as he walked past Fawcett. The key was to not act like he knew he was probably doomed. Maybe, then, any spectacular mistakes would be read by Fawcett as belonging to a partner who’d been sitting low in a seat and trying to avoid eye contact. “Good to be back, isn’t it?”
Okay, maybe that had been laying it on a little thick. Sam did all right in all of his classes, occasionally, when his mom made him feel guilty enough, put forth one crazy burst of effort that earned him a row of really good grades in a few of his classes, but that was about it. Potions was one of his better classes, just because of the order of the practical section and his developed ability to talk in circles until it sounded like he knew what he was talking about on a variety of topics, but he was still no prodigy, and he was fairly certain that Fawcett knew it. Fawcett did not strike him as a person who missed quite as much as the ink stains on his robes might make him look like he did, at least not about what went down in his classroom. Sam wasn’t in a state of complete despair about being back, but nor was he that happy about it.
What was done was done, though, so he went to his usual seat – near the front, since he was short, but not too near, because the Aladrens had dibs – and got out his stuff. He felt a little awkward about the announcement that their antidotes assignments were coming back, but shrugged it off. It was over and done, and while he hadn’t been in one of those high-energy, put-forth-his-best moods during those assignments, he hadn’t done his worst, either. Of that, he was reasonably sure, and of the need to pay more attention to the lesson happening now anyway, he was absolutely positive. Fawcett wasn’t pulling his punches today.
Still, he could handle it. The first part just required a little memory and being bright enough to think of the index, and the second…that would be hard, what with working fast while still paying enough attention to not blow something up, but whatever. Sam grabbed his text and flipped to the index, finding it just as an assignment was returned to him. He shoved it into his bag without looking and turned to his neighbor. “Got a partner yet?” he asked.
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Sam Bauer
Ready, set, go.
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Sam Bauer
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Samantha Hamilton
April 27, 2011 7:55 AM
And they're off! by Samantha Hamilton
More often than not these days samantha was pleased that her family had no real part in her life. She guessed a lot of Muggle kids her age would be jealous of her situation. Her mom didn't understand her grades, or know about Quiddith, or have an inlking of what one could do with a wand. So when she informed her family about school, she could say things like 'I'm doing well in classes' and 'I made the sports team' and even 'I sang with a choir in a talent show.' It was sufficient for them all to get along without her nearest and dearest knowing that Samantha regularly was in danger of being knocked several feet to the ground off her flying broomstick by a metal ball, or that sometimes in class she cut up leeches and stewed them, and very occasionally proceeded to drink the final concoction. It was a good thing Muggle families didn't know about all that stuff - they just wouldn't get it.So unlike her peers, Samantha didn't have any parental pressure to do well in classes. Thet left her pretty much free to enjoy those classes in which she did well, and face the others with reluctance. However, she wasn't completely free, because she was still an Aladren, and that itself held certain connotations. Samantha wasn't as smart as many of her Housemates, but she was logical, and she always understood the theory part of classes. She admittedly had greater difficulty with all the practical aspects, but she wasn't falling behind too badly. She wouldn't have to tell her family she was failing anything, which was just as well, because things were getting messed up at home again, and Samantha didn't want to contribute to that.
Today the class involved equal parts logic and skill, so as long as samantha was lucky enough to find someone who wasn't awful at brewing then this class would hopefully go quite well. She'd taken a seat fairly near the front (she was an Aladren, after all) but not right at the front, because she wasn't a true potions nerd and didn't need people to think that way about her, either. She thought it inevitable that people would think her smart and bookish - part of the package of being sorted into Aladren - but then she'd played soccer and Quidditch, so she was hoping she at least had dimensions in the eyes of her peers. That's if any of them even thought about her, which she doubted most of the time. It hadn't been easy to stand out from the crowd when she'd been unsure of the magic world, and samantha hadn't really ever been one to stand out, anyway - average ought to be her middle name. Maybe it was her mom's second divorce on the horizon, or maybe it was her tendency to be a team player getting stale, but samantha thought she might like to stand out just every once in a while.
As fate in all its irony would have it, Samantha had ended up sitting next to Sam Bauer, the person who was least likely in the entire class to make her feel individual, as he'd had the audacity to steal her name. She grudgingly accepted that it wasn't his fault, so when he asked if she'd got a partner yet, she replied, "Nope. You want to work together on this one?" She noticed he was already at the textbook index, which she saw as a good sign for their project, and then she was distracted momentarily as her last project was returned. She swiftly folded the paper in hlaf so nobody else could see her grade, and then she placed the paper into her bag. She'd waited two weeks already for the grade, she could wait until the end of the day to go over it by herself. It wasn't anyone else's business.
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Samantha Hamilton
And they're off!
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Samantha Hamilton
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Sam Bauer
April 29, 2011 1:57 PM
Go Team Sams! by Sam Bauer
“Works for me,” Sam said when Samantha – who he was always tempted to call ‘Sam Hamilton,’ but didn’t – agreed to work with him. He didn’t think all Aladrens were super geniuses any more than he thought all Crotali were uptight society types, because accepting that House stereotypes worked would be to negate his own existence, but they did usually make good partners, and Sam Hamilton wasn’t even one of the weird ones.He didn’t miss that she quickly put her paper away, but didn’t comment on it. As long as she wasn’t so bad at the subject that she blew the room up, which past evidence suggested she was not, it was really none of his business how she’d done. Plus, he’d done the same thing about five seconds earlier, so he was really in no position to say anything about it. Plus more, they had a project to beat.
Sam liked that. He enjoyed having a clear goal to focus on and find a straight line to move along. This one wasn’t ideally straight, as ones in Potions almost never were since Fawcett seemed to think they needed to make calls for themselves instead of always having a perfectly clear guideline, but it would do. Might even be fun.
“How big do you think this should be?” he asked, deciding that was a good, solid starting point. “I’ve got the index open to sleeping potions now, there’s plenty there, but there’s some other sections, I guess you’d call ‘em? I’m guessing both the ones we brew should be from the same section, so we can compare ‘em, but I heard the list as being as big as we could get it.” He grimaced slightly. “And most of what I know’s in the book, I don’t see many potions outside.”
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Sam Bauer
Go Team Sams!
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Samantha Hamilton
May 06, 2011 5:12 AM
Sams for the win! by Samantha Hamilton
"How big do you think this should be?" Sam Bauer asked, and Samantha didn't really understand what he was asking her. Luckily he continued on, and gave his question context."Oh," Samantha replied. She hadn't really thought about their assignment in terms of textbook sections, but she supposed that was a good way to start. "I don't know. I just thought of a few potions that do the same thing - like shrinking solution and anti-aging draught," which both, as she understood it, if swallowed by a person would make them appear younger, "or strength potion and strengthening solution." She wasn't really sure what the difference was between these two because she hadn't actually studied either of them yet, but had come across them both while reading. She'd even checked to make sure they weren't actually just the same potion by different names, but they seemed to have diffferent ingredients, so probably not. "I guess they might be in different sections," she considered, particularly her first example, "so it probably doesn't matter." that was her take on the situation, anyway - Fawcett's assignment had been vague enough as to be open to that sort of interpretation, and from what she'd learned of her potions professor so far, Samantha didn't think he'd mark them down for ingenuity.
"I honestly don't mind which potions we look at," she said, having given her own textbook index a quick glance over. "What are you in the mood for brewing?" she asked Sam Bauer, as they did actually have to make the potion for this class - it would make sense not to pick something too difficult or tedious.
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Samantha Hamilton
Sams for the win!
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Samuel Bauer
May 23, 2011 2:36 PM
We shall be the champions! by Samuel Bauer
Sam was no expert on the fine details of all the known and common potions, either, and Samantha’s second set of examples were also not things he was familiar with. “Do you think they do exactly the same thing, though?” he asked. “I mean, no difference. And, er, more generally. Not those specific potions, just any two that kind of work the same. Is it like name-brand versus generic or something?”And, more importantly, did that transfer over to the magical world? He thought it did, but since he had started at Sonora, Sam had noticed that he blended the magical and Muggle worlds together in his head, and sometimes he thought a detail that really went with one went with the other. Nothing huge, he didn’t think that kids in his old public school were studying Transfig and being startled to not find computers in his Charms classroom, but little things. The kind of things that would get you pegged as Muggleborn here – which he wasn’t, even; there was plenty of Muggle in the side of the family he knew about, but his mother was second generation magical on both sides, and his dad had definitely been a wizard, unless there was something about the Aurors that the general public didn’t know – or as a crazy person in the Muggle world.
Or maybe worse than a crazy person. Most Muggles didn’t bother seeing things, there were whole theories about it, but some of them…some of them did. And that was where trouble came in. Sam was paranoid for a reason. His mom didn’t fit in very well with the local magical community anyway, single mother and the daughter of Muggleborns and still okay with the Muggle world, and he knew they’d just love an excuse to slap some stupid fine on her because he messed up and let something slip and attention got drawn to it.
But anyway. Potions. Different sections. That worked.
And whatever he was in the mood for brewing…Wow, that was a harder question than it was supposed to be. “No idea,” he admitted candidly. “My usual answer is ‘whatever I have to for a grade.’ I like Potions, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t think about them…you know, recreationally. Shrinking and anti-aging are okay, I guess.” He thought he’d done the shrinking solution before, and anti-aging was challenging enough to score decent marks, assuming he was right about how smart they were. Well, how smart she was, and how good he was at following directions and asking for help if things got dicey. “Are you good with spinning things up for the written? I’m thinking we should say the word ‘biological’ somewhere in there, and maybe ‘regression.’”
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Samuel Bauer
We shall be the champions!
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Samuel Bauer
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