Think positive, you can do this. on Potions

Professor Fawcett

January 21, 2012 8:50 PM

Lesson II for Advanced (6th and 7th Years) by Professor Fawcett

Aside from one deeply unpleasant cold, which had taken both him and Allison by surprise and which it had taken two doses of Pepperup to completely cure, the Christmas season had not been unkind to John. He suspected he had been invited to the faculty and staff wedding of the winter by default, since, though he made an effort to be pleasant to all his coworkers, he was not especially close to Professor Crosby or Mr. Brockert, but that had been time when he was not around any member of his family, close or extended or in-law, except for his wife, which had been most pleasant indeed – he did care for them all, he supposed, or could at least tolerate them all, but over the holidays, he tended to see them all in far larger doses than his constitution was accustomed to, especially now that he spent most of his year at a boarding school and never saw them at all – and he had gotten a lovely complete set of the writings of Fraser, a comparatively obscure nineteenth-century philosopher he’d read about half of in his college library but had never gotten around to finishing. Keeping up with abandoned academic interests of his and then reintroducing him to them years later, when she was out of anything else to get him for Christmas besides new shoes he wouldn’t wear anyway, was an art at which Allison had become highly proficient, and he imagined it didn’t hurt that he was seldom around to keep her from breaking into his office and going through the files of notes on his reading he’d kept from twenty years ago and such.

He had reread the half of Fraser he was already somewhat familiar with before his return to Sonora, though comparing his reading notes now to his ones from college hadn’t been gotten to yet, and the second half was waiting for him back in his office, along with the prospect of very hot tea. If there was a complaint he had of Sonora, it was that it had variable weather; he had been born in a warm climate, and while he’d moved around occasionally before he married Allison, almost all the places he had lived in his life after he was born had been warm, too. The building here was well heated enough, his office better still, but he was aware that sometimes the Sonora January tended toward temperatures well below freezing, and that made things like good chairs, stacks of books which reached over his head when he was seated at the desk they were stacked on, fires, throws, and tea quite appealing at this time of year.

His Potions classroom was rather less appealing, at least on this particular day, but he could not allow his occasional, erratic tendency to wish to hibernate with his books (a tendency which was growing stronger as he got older, however much he wished to deny that he was doing so) whenever the leaves were off the trees to get in the way of continuing to conduct his classes, and so he’d brought himself along with the thought that while it might be uncomfortable in summer, there was one thing to be said for a room full of cauldrons in winter – it got warm. The Advanced class had less of that, being rather small, but he had the Intermediates after them, and while he normally rather disliked having so many students in one room at once, preferring the smaller classes, they would mean he would be able to trust his self-reassurances at the end of the day a little more firmly than he had at the beginning.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” he said as his Advanced class settled. “Welcome back from your holidays.

“At the beginning of the year, I gave you all a list of potions you should be able to brew by the time you take the exam I shall not name, which several of you shall do in a very short time.” He would miss this group of seventh years – as far as he was concerned, Mr. Hernandez and Miss Stephenson in particular had both earned the status of honorary Aladrens, the former through his ingenuity in getting around his moral issues with the subject and the latter through sheer determination, and he imagined the Quidditch teams would very much miss the thee captains in this room – but he was fond of all his seventh years each year, and expected to be sorry to see next year’s group go on with their lives, too. And there were always the new first years to consider. “You may have noticed a certain…lack of practicality about most of them. Generally, their use is very strictly legally regulated, if not outright forbidden in most contexts.” Amortentia was frankly dangerous, and he couldn’t say he always felt comfortable about teaching Polyjuice, Veritaserum, Felix Felicis. Proper law enforcement were generally the only ones who were exactly supposed to use those, and even in that field, they were…controversial. John had gained a new appreciation for the Potions periodicals in circulation since he’d begun to actively teach the subject, and he enjoyed reading some of those debates himself, even though they did sometimes make him uneasy. “We will continue to cover that list, as the general purpose is to enlighten you to the extent of Potions and to make you hone your skills, as these brews are generally among the most difficult in the field to brew, but for your semester project, which we will begin today, part of your challenge will be to find Advanced potions which you feel you may use in your adult lives.”

He waved his wand, sending a sheet of paper to each student. “Your instructions,” he said, absently adjusting his rectangular, wire-rimmed reading glasses at the same time. “We’ll go over them. You’re to find at least five potions, each of which takes at least a week to fully prepare, and present them to us the week before exams, along with a cumulative portfolio explaining the rationale behind each selection, the preparation process, the principles and laws of Potions you saw particularly in effect, any patterns you saw recurring between potions. To help you resist the temptation to leave it all to the last moment, I will require a brief reflection at the end of each week.”

He looked at them over the glasses now, despite the fact they were still a bit blurry while he did this. “I am, of course, glad to assist you, either in your planning or with technical issues. For now, if no one has any immediate queries, you may begin your planning; I’d like to see something brewing by the end of class. Begin.”

Subthreads:

Think positive, you can do this. by Andrew Duell with Jose Hernandez

Fun! by Marissa Stephenson

0 Professor Fawcett Lesson II for Advanced (6th and 7th Years) 0 Professor Fawcett 1 5

Andrew Duell

January 23, 2012 8:34 PM

Think positive, you can do this. by Andrew Duell

Potions again, more potions. Why did CalTech need him to take potions? He'd struggled through this class from day one, he wasn't entirely sure why but he had. It was just about following the directions and focusing on what he was doing. His main problem was that halfway through counting ingredients or stirring the cauldron his mind would begin to wander trying to deal with other problems. This generally did not help his potion turn out the way it was supposed to. He had something of a short attention span, he'd accepted this and was trying to work on it. Luckily he'd been getting help. Jose had (for reasons he couldn't figure out) been putting up with and helping him for years in this class. More recently he'd also been getting help from the lovely Marissa. She had been a godsend. That was the one thing he was liked about potions, it was the one class that both of his best friends were in together... well, with him. He was pretty sure they were both in divinations without him. Thank goodness CalTech didn't require that class.

He arrived at class and found a seat near the middle of the room as he usually did. There weren't to many people here yet, so he hoped either Jose or Marissa would take pity on him and sit near by in case he needed help again. He got out his books and writing utensils as usual and waited for class to begin, this was the time that he used to clear his mind of everything that may distract him from keeping on task with his potions. At this point it was getting to be quite a list; Quidditch, RATS of course, CalTech, Marissa and him after graduation, his parent's terribly disturbing news he'd learned over break... no problem, yeah, clear the mind... right.

Professor Fawcett began talking and Andrew would have started taking notes, if the professor had been giving them information about their assignment for the day. He wasn't. He was giving them information for the rest of the term. Andrew's face drained of color as Fawcett talked. He was going to have to do what? Make five near-impossible potions over the course of weeks? He looked over the list that had landed in front of him. He hadn't even said anything about working in groups or anything. Would they be allowed to, or was this something they had to do on their own? This was not looking promising.

2 Andrew Duell Think positive, you can do this. 145 Andrew Duell 0 5

Jose Hernandez

January 26, 2012 12:11 PM

You certainly can by Jose Hernandez

Jose Hernandez arrived in potions with thirty-seven seconds to spare. This was, in his opinion, a wasted twenty-six seconds of his day. He wasn't sure how he could correct for it though, because he'd left at exactly the same time the last time he came to potions and he'd only been fourteen seconds early, which was a much better number. He could have walked faster, or talked less, but he wasn't quite sure which factor was at fault for the variability. Oh, right, he remembered suddenly, last time, he'd seen Sophie and asked how she was doing. This time he hadn't seen her along the way. That was a chance encounter he didn't want to cut if it did present itself again so he wouldn't adjust his leaving time.

Anyway, he took one of remaining seats - he had a larger selection to choose from than he was used to - and got out his notebook, pen, and potions syllabus. His cauldron, scales, and ingredient kit sat on the floor beside him, ready and waiting for when the lesson turned practical. His kit was, as it had been at the beginning of the year, once again well stocked with organically grown and harvested plant materials that met strictly vegan standards. He'd gotten refills of his most used substances over break, and for Christmas he'd scored a new set of scales, which was awesome because his old set had been starting to lose accuracy. The cauldron was still the battered old one Saul had used through his years at Sonora (and it had been ancient then - Jose wouldn't bet against it being Jed's old cauldron from 1858), but it still worked well enough. Cauldrons didn't have to do much more than hold water and withstand heat and it did both of those without problem; it would probably continue to do so long after Jose was gone, as long as nobody managed to blow it into smithereans in the meantime. But since Saul hadn't, Jose doubted anyone else would either.

The assignment given for the remainder of the term just proved Jose's need to schedule his days down to the nearest second. He mentally waved goodbye to the young hippogriff he'd contemplated raising this term. Oh well. He'd dropped CoMC because it hadn't been one of his favorite classes and he hadn't really expected to have the time for it anyway. He'd get far more important life experience from the potions project. It was, after all, what he planned to do with at least half of his adult life (the other half would be improving on his balance act, maybe going solo, maybe taking on Yoko as a partner; he'd have to talk with Maria and Uncle Dean once he graduated). College would come first, though, and for that, he'd definitely need good potions grades, and Jose had no doubt that this assignment would help him earn those.

Despite having arrived earlier than he would have liked, he'd chosen to sit in the same seat he probably would have gotten had he arrived closer to the bell. Andrew usually saved him a seat in potions, and Jose saw little reason to snub his friend by sitting somewhere else just because he had options this time. Andrew had been one of the first people to not mind sitting with the vegan brewer during class. Being potion partners had probably even been the early basis of their friendship in the first place.

"So," Jose started once they were allowed to begin. "Five long term potions. You have any ideas yet? I'm thinking one of mine should probably be preserving solution. Maria has continued Regina's dislike of buying new things." He kicked a heel lightly against his old cauldron in demonstration. He'd been asking for a new one every year since he started Sonora but the request was always deemed 'unneccessary'.

1 Jose Hernandez You certainly can 149 Jose Hernandez 0 5

Andrew Duell

January 28, 2012 10:32 AM

I'm not convinced by Andrew Duell

A tremendous wave of relief washed over him as Jose sat down next to Andrew. Despite what this class threw at him, at least Jose still had his back. This class, however, seemed to be doing its utmost to destroy his chances at getting into CalTech. He could deal with it though, it was only one class. His others weren't going quite so bad, he could focus a little more on this one without causing those to slip to much. From their assignment, he had little choice in the matter. Brewing five long term potions was going to eat up all of his time, he would be tempted to work on some of his other projects while the potions simmered away, but then he might miss things he needed to be watching. He had to stay focused. Focused was good. Or he had to create something that could brew the potions for him, or at least monitor progress and remind him when his attention was required.

That wasn't actually a bad idea. So, when Jose asked him if he had any ideas, he responded. "I've got a great idea. I need to make something that will monitor my cauldron and remind me to keep on track of what I'm doing. Other than that... no, not really." He looked over the list Fawcett had handed out again. "You know me, which of these do you think I can pull off?" He attempted a grin, and betrayed more of the distracting thoughts buried in his head, "Maybe I should try the preserving solution as well, I may have to pass down my equipment if my..." He paused, still finding the idea difficult to process, "...soon to be sibling comes here."

2 Andrew Duell I'm not convinced 145 Andrew Duell 0 5

Marissa Stephenson

January 30, 2012 5:09 PM

Fun! by Marissa Stephenson

Midterm, to put it one way, hadn’t gone well. Marissa had started off pretty okay, only, about four days in, to wake up one morning convinced she could not get out of bed. It had been days before she could carry on a conversation without worrying she was going to collapse into tears or miss crucial bits of information, a situation which could have only been worse if she’d had any desire to do anything but stay in her room, eating popcorn and ice cream and watching Disney movies and rereading books she knew would make her cry. In more emotional, anxious moments, she had wondered if she was losing her mind.

Her friends and older sister had, though, come to the rescue on that front, assuring her she was not crazy and even being amused with her attempts to apologize for her flip-out and time of just dropping out of life. It was just, she’d been assured, the senior crash; they’d all been in and out of it for ages. Addison claimed she had only spent a few hours a day awake for the first week or two after she finished her junior year, she’d just been close enough to better and out of it by the time Marissa finally got home to function again. If she had stayed home, in real school, with multiple sports and mountains of AP homework and a big social life, she would have discovered what it was sooner. No one took it personally.

Marissa still felt a little embarrassed about it anyway, but she couldn’t deny that she did feel a little better now. And, in a way, about life in general. Her hair had been thinning a little before Christmas with all the hassles of all the tests she was studying for, and at Christmas, she’d had time to rest and knew she wasn’t going to have to go through the additional stress of training for a Final. RATS still put a slight knot in her stomach, which she knew would start to grow more and more the closer they got, but right now, for the most part, she felt optimistic about the rest of her seventh year, even enthusiastic. There was so much to do.

Including a new Potions project. She took notes with interest, already brainstorming. Potions might or might not be that relevant to her future, but she could lie. This was going to be fun. Something to do during some of the endless time that would have been spent preparing for the Quidditch final.

“Okay,” she said, looking over her things. “Where to begin.”

That was the key. She just needed to find a place to start, and then things would move along very well. Getting started was the hard part, the one that made her think she was going to lapse back into her elementary-school habit of having panic attacks over school stuff. Once she got through that part, it would come together for her like always. She was sure of that.

16 Marissa Stephenson Fun! 147 Marissa Stephenson 0 5