Professor Mary Brooding
August 02, 2019 11:19 PM
Opportunities abound! [Intermediate and Advanced] by Professor Mary Brooding
OOC - No class, just an announcement. :)IC -
Mary had been tweaking the potions assistantship program since its inception, in part because the students who were interested were changing, and in part because who came up with something and then never tweaked it? Bad teachers, that's who. Mary didn't want to be a bad teacher and so Mary was tweaking her programs consonantly.
This year's potions assistantship would look similar to previous years on the surface, but Mary was doing her best to find more ways for her students to be involved. As such, she had changed her announcement this year.
Pinned on the door during the second week of the term was a simple paper announcement. It was written on a scroll with English at the top and her students' various other languages below that.
Potions assistantship:
Intermediate students can help with preparing ingredients, collecting ingredients, organizing cupboards and papers, and may brew some potions with me for class demonstrations.
I may take on up to three Intermediate students, one for each year.
Advanced students can expect to work with me to prepare ingredients and potions for upcoming classes and those interested in teaching Potions can help with grading papers and preparing lectures as well. Students can also focus on healing arts, as well as other areas of specialisation.
All students may continue in their positions as long as they'd like and as long as their work and behavior are satisfactory. (Previous potions assistants get first choice).
Come see me after class or in my office hours for more information!
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Professor Mary Brooding
Opportunities abound! [Intermediate and Advanced]
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Heinrich Hexenmeister
August 15, 2019 5:46 PM
Dibs on 4th year by Heinrich Hexenmeister
Heinrich did not even consider the possibility of not continuing on as a potions assistant. Firstly, he liked the work and it gave him extra practice and insight into the subject. Secondly, it looked good to the staff, being a helper, and it would help ease any worries once more teachers discovered who his parents had been. And it might even mean he wasn’t automatically disqualified for prefect and Head Boy because of his last name.Thirdly, and relatedly, it was a good wolf thing, to be a helper. He wanted to help. It was good to help. It made him feel better about himself, and it was something to hold up to Evelyn to prove he wasn’t bad.
But even more than those very sound, logical reasons, Heinrich wanted to be Potions Assistant because he liked Professor Brooding and enjoyed spending time with her, often just in companionable silence because Heinrich was not one for much talking even if English had come easier to him, but sometimes delving into deep discussions about potions when he had questioned about what they were brewing that day, and sometimes those talks took a turn a bit more personal and philosophical, and that was interesting, too, especially since he lacked an outlet for those kinds of thoughts anywhere else. Except maybe Evelyn, but Evelyn was as lost as he was, and Professor Brooding had it all sorted clearly.
So when the announcement got posted (in German as well as other languages), seeking applicants for this year’s round of assistantships, Heinrich had stayed after class that same day to let her know he was reclaiming the position for his year group.
Now it was a few days later, and he was elbows deep in ingredient preparation - class supplies were already getting low in some of the most used jars after two weeks of students supplementing their own ingredient kits - when he asked, apropos of nothing, “What is English meaning with ‘easy smile’? I read this phrase on a reading comprehension exercise and I did not comprehend.”
He probably should have waited to ask Professor Skies at the next academic help meeting as discussing the difficulties he was still having with the English language was the whole point of going to that, but the question was bothering him now and Professor Brooding spoke perfectly good English, too, and he didn’t think she’d mind talking about it. She seemed like the sort of person who enjoyed talking about anything.
He did not crack a smile as he spoke. No hint existed that his wording of the inquiry had any humorous intent. Learning the intricacies of English was serious business and he completely missed any irony between the phrase in question and his own demeanor. In point of fact, Professor Brooding could be forgiven if she could not recall the last time she saw Heinrich smile. It was not an expression that often interrupted his normal mien of studious concentration.
She would, in fact, have solid grounds for believing this particular issue wasn’t with the English language.
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Heinrich Hexenmeister
Dibs on 4th year
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Professor Mary Brooding
August 15, 2019 7:21 PM
Happy to have you back! by Professor Mary Brooding
Mary was working on her own something or other while Heinrich was working on his own something or other. He was an easy young man to have around, which was good because she thought that she probably liked his company better than he liked his own company.She'd been a bit surprised that he'd carried on in his role, although perhaps she shouldn't have been. Other than maybe offering a more loving attitude toward her students than he strictly preferred, he had taken well to potions and their applications. Mary's jars were rarely so full or so well done as when Heinrich did them (at least among the students - she'd always have to prefer her own method, but what could she do?), and that was perfectly fine by her.
When he spoke up about English, Mary didn't think twice of it. Between her accidental dedication to a language inclusive classroom and the frequency with which she spent time with Dorian, she was fairly used to the meta-linguistic conversation. Of course, she had also married a Brit, which meant that there were near daily conversations about funny words in one or the other of their dialects at home, too.
"It means a smile that comes easily," she said, trying to think through what it really meant. The first thing that came to mind was, of course, Tabitha. The woman smiled when she wanted to and that was that. There was a sort of stubbornness there. But that wasn't really what 'easy smile' meant, it was just an example of one. "It wasn't forced, so it's not a very big grin, but it's also sort of natural. Like when it's easier to smile than to not smile, or when a sort of neutral expression is still a happy one. Sometimes people will try to fake an easy smile, but you can usually tell. Does that make sense?"
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Professor Mary Brooding
Happy to have you back!
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