Beginner Potions-- Years 1 & 2 on Potions

Professor Yu

June 08, 2014 1:36 AM

Beginner Potions-- Years 1 & 2 by Professor Yu

Diana Yu had already introduced herself to the students and expressed that she understood that it was hard to acclimate to a new teacher-- as it was, she only had one semester with the 7th years so she didn’t expect them to warm up to her too quickly or even that much. She knew they were probably used to their previous professor and after a weird semester of no teachers they were probably feeling rather rowdy. On top of that she was still a young teacher- closer to them in age than their last professor most likely had been. Her hair was still a rich ebony and her youthful skin pale with a slight rosy tint to it. Some of her Muggle-born university classmates had called her an Asian Snow White and Diana had needed to ask them what that meant before being shown some sweet looking illustrations of a fairytale maiden in the woods surrounded with wildlife. She decided to take it as a compliment even though dwarfs tended to give her the creeps as Snow White was pretty and seemed to enjoy the wilderness like herself.

That aside, she was a lot more comfortable with the first and second years and it showed too. It was probably because she had the advanced students for two hours first thing after breakfast and the beginners and intermediates after lunch giving her time to prepare. Besides, a class of 11 year olds was far less intimidating if they followed a class of 17 year olds.

She had looked at some of her parents’ lesson plans from when she and her brothers were 11 and 12 and had copied quite a few that pertained to the textbook the students at Sonora were using. They were a little over a month into the term now and Diana had already used the cure for boils lesson and forgetfulness potion and had started on the twelve uses of dragon blood but she was in a weird mood today after helping prep the 7th years with tips for successfully taking the Potions R.A.T. exam. She wanted to create a fun lesson, one to wake the students up from the “one-month into school” drowzies and she knew exactly what she wanted to start the class off with.

“Good afternoon, class!” Diana announced once it was 1 o’clock promptly. Tardiness was not tolerated without a valid excuse and by now all her classes knew that she would start with or without them but never before 1 o’clock. “If everyone could put their books away and take out a quill and parchment that would be lovely, please. I have a short pop quiz that should be very easy if you all did your homework and read Chapter Five of your Potions textbooks. If you could all write your name, house and year at the top of your parchment we can begin.” She smiled at the class and waited for them to clear their desks before continuing. “For this pop quiz I want you to list the twelve uses of dragon’s blood*. No more, no less. Exactly twelve-- if you’re not sure put it down anyway. If you cannot remember a use, make one up. I want everyone to use their brains here.” She was looking forward to reading the lists as when her parents had given her and her brothers the same assignment many years ago some of the answers (Stephen’s in particular) had been quite creative, absurd, and altogether wrong. “Remember,” she said, smiling. “I will give half points for creativity.”

Diana stood back and watched as the students began to work on their pop quizzes. She trusted them all enough not to cast an anti-cheating spell on the classroom as well as to turn her back on them to set up the day’s lesson. She carefully raised her hand to the chalkboard and wrote in clear letters Antidote to Common Potions. Even though she could use magic to do so she preferred handwriting it as her parents had stressed legible calligraphy strongly in their lessons and she had learned both simplified and traditional Chinese lettering during her homeschooled lessons in addition to all the regular magical classes. Diana underlined the name of the lesson and divided the board up into four parts and numbered them. Then she turned around and waited for the last of the class to bring forth their quiz papers.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now, for today’s lesson we are going to learn about the Antidote to Common Potions. This is very important and useful for the future so I will allow you to bottle a small sample of your final product to add to your potions kit if I believe it to be brewed well enough so that should be incentive to do well.”

Honestly, she didn’t expect many of them to fully succeed and make a perfect antidote but it was a good incentive to have them all work as hard as they could. “Before we begin crafting this potion though, we need to go over what goes in the potion because as we all know,” and here she knew some of the students were probably reciting along with her in their heads because she said this so many times “a potion is only as strong as what goes in it.” Diana smiled and pointed to the four categories on the board. “These are the four different ingredients that we need; bezoars, unicorn horn, and mistletoe berries are the three standard ingredients while dittany is one that is sometimes substituted out for a more diluted mix of herbs.” As she named each ingredient she wrote them up on the board.

“Now, who can tell me what the uses of each of these ingredients are?” The class was two hours long and the antidote only took 30-40 minutes to brew once the ingredients had been prepared so she was confident that there was time for a discussion on top of the pop quiz. Once the board was filled with the class’s answers Diana set them free to pair up as they pleased and work on the potion. “It should be on page 37 of your books,” she reminded them and wrote a large 37 in the top right hand corner of the blackboard for anyone who wasn’t listening. “Please start making your potion now and worry about taking down the notes on the blackboard later as you will have time once your potion has begun to brew.”

OOC:
*There is no formal list of all twelve uses of dragon's blood as J.K. Rowling never released such a list, so go ahead and put down as many as you would like so long as you make it clear your character wrote down twelve ideas.
-The ingredient list and brewing instructions can be found here.
-Please remember posts must be kept as realistic as possible and be a minimum of 200 words. Feel free to tag Professor Yu if assistance is needed. Also, do remember that Beginner’s Potions starts at 1 o’clock so this shouldn’t be anyone’s first class (unless, of course, they missed the other classes for some reason or another). Otherwise have fun— points are awarded for creativity and grammar.

Subthreads:

Let's spice this up a little by Jamie Park, Pecari

10 Professor Yu Beginner Potions-- Years 1 & 2 0 Professor Yu 1 5

Jamie Park, Pecari

July 04, 2014 9:36 AM

Let's spice this up a little by Jamie Park, Pecari

Jamie slouched into Potions. The fact that his parents were obsessed with the subject, and were constantly ramming it down his neck, made it his least favourite class. He almost wanted to excel in everything else and let his grade in this lag behind, just to annoy them. But he knew that not bringing top grades home in everything was more than his life was worth. He wasn't too keen on the new teacher either. Professor Fawcett had been a dull and dried up old fossil, so he wasn't sad to see him go, but... well, an Asian witch nagging him to do better as Potions.... He really needed another one of those in his life!

The fact she began class with a pop quiz did not endear her to him any further, although his ears pricked up at the mention of half points for creativity. So, it was a pop quiz where he didn't even have to get the answers right, so long as he got something? That was an interesting twist. He'd meant to do the reading, he really had. Well, sort of. Ok, he hadn't really cared and had just planned to memorise everything to pass his end of term tests, so he wasn't really sure about any of the real answers. It wasn't like it was an ingredient his mother let a twelve year old mess with. Dragon blood was highly revered in their house, practically sacred.

Traditional Korean medicine he wrote, mostly cos it was bound to be true for at least one of the bonkers remedies his mother insisted on and Professor Yu probably wouldn't be in a position to call him out on it.
Sacred Korean rituals, he added, for much the same reason. He then considered what kind of Potions it might really be used for. It didn't exactly sound like a nice, wholesome ingredient, so he added vengeance potions, to the list. He figured his best bet was then to get creative, and so wrote in quick succession scaring your enemies by painting threatening symbols on their doors, playing pranks, faking murders. He continued in this fashion, alternating with the few actually realistic ideas that occurred to him, until he had 12. It was kind of challenging towards the end to keep coming up with things, and he almost wondered what the twelve real uses could be, unless they were just all different potions.

He handed his test in and stretched, slouching down whilst Yu ran a question and answer session. When she was finished, he set to work without much enthusiasm. You could buy this antidote cheaply enough and, in an emergency, that was probably quicker than the prep time plus the forty minutes it took to brew. He didn't really see the point. As he rummaged for the ingredients, he realised he'd forgotten to stock up on a few Western basics. His mother, for all she knew that they learnt Western recipes at school (and for all she insisted on doing Korean Potions with them in the holidays) still packed them off to school with every Asian herb on the planet. It would clearly serve no functional good but it was part of her weird obsession with making sure they understood their heritage. Like a trunk of funky plants was going to do that.

“Reckon it'll explode if I use this instead?” he asked his neighbour, holding up a small packet of crushed green leaves.

13 Jamie Park, Pecari Let's spice this up a little 284 Jamie Park, Pecari 0 5

Olivier Westley, Crotalus

July 16, 2014 4:08 AM

But I like bland... by Olivier Westley, Crotalus

Potions class was the type of class Olivier loved, but hated. He liked the straightforwardness of the subject, and found the challenge the class presented exceptionally exciting. This was the type of class that his analytical mind loved, however, this was also the exact kind of class where he would be forced to work with others. Olivier felt that his classmates were so incompetent that they would only end up holding him back, as a result he despised the thought of his grade being effected by others.

Olivier sat down to the desk in preparation for the lesson, silently watching his so called peers out of the corner of his eye. When Professor Yu finally entered, he graciously gave her a small part of his attention, even going as far as to seem interested in what she had to say. When she announced the pop-quiz he let out an inner sigh while he grabbed his supplies from his messenger bag. He was never a fan of humans using dragons blood for such useless purposes, such as oven cleaner, and often times refused to use potions containing it. He believed magical creatures deserved much more respect for than distrustful humans.

After heading his paper properly with his name, house and year, Olivier began at his task at hand. The quiz itself was unnecessary, especially now that she stated they would get points for creativity. The entire idea was just preposterous, and a complete waste of his time. However she was the ‘authority figure’, so he had no choice but to comply to her wishes.

He quickly began writing his answers, confident in his answers. He was halfway down his list at “cure for green spotted fingers disease” when he paused to think about the last few. For some reason despite him studying it the night before, he was blanking on the remaining answers. He probed his brain and continued the quiz with what he hoped were the right answers before finally turning the paper in. Even if he did get a few answers wrong, it didn’t phase him as being particularly important, after all what did he care what a mere teacher thought of his smarts.

When Professor Yu called on a volunteer during the real lesson, Olivier remained silent. He would rather get hit by a bludger than volunteer to stoke the ego of a teacher. When she finally released them to work on their potions in pairs, he attempted to remain silent and busy, as to not peek the interest of any of his school chums. He was in the middle of rummaging through his potions kit when, to his dismay, another student caught his attention.

“Reckon it'll explode if I use this instead?” the boy, holding up a small packet of crushed green leaves.

Olivier blinked, not wanting to give away any expression while he silently scrutinized his ill placed partner. Was he trying to explode the class or was it some immature joke? Olivier had to try exceptionally hard to not scoff at the statement, instead choosing to plaster his well rehearsed fake smile on his face. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “Perhaps it would, but you may get harmed in he process as well.” Olivier had hoped that this last statement would be an incentive not to do something stupid, he couldn’t care less about the boy, but Olivier didn’t feel like loosing his eyebrows today.

OOC: Sorry about Olivier, he can be kind of mean sometimes.

10 Olivier Westley, Crotalus But I like bland... 282 Olivier Westley, Crotalus 0 5