Terrestrial Planets (pt 2) on Elective Hall

Mia

May 09, 2005 4:28 PM

I'll learn the truth later by Mia

Mia was glad that by the time she looked back up, Professor Dione had moved on. She didn't have to wait long before the answers were put up on the board. Mia leaned her pounding head in her hand again and began to slowly but surely check her answers with the answers on the board. She wrote in the answers that she hadn't put at all and fixed up the one's she had wrong. She was glad to know that the one's she took a guess at were right or pretty close. Afterwards, Dione began explaining about the planets.

Mia jotted down notes as the professor spoke. She had seen the planets begin to circle Dione and found that rather amusing until the lights coming off one of the planets flashed painfully in her eyes. She decided she had seen enough, though she wanted to see more since it was pretty cool, and began her note taking.

After getting more than half way through Mercury's information, Mia's mind stopped taking in all of what was being said. She kept stopping for a moment, listening closely and then attempted to catch up with the notes. She wasn't so good at short hand writing but usually her teachers in Jersey would repeat important information or write it on the board. That or they'd use the over head projector. She didn’t think the teachers here would have over head projectors though. Mia smiled with relief when the professor stopped after Venus, allowing her to catch up a little. Her notes were definitely spotty with missed information but she wasn't really caring at the moment. She couldn't concentrate anymore and it wouldn't do any good to try.

Mia raised her hand from her seat in the back, hoping the professor would come by while the students continued to write. She decided to take Dione up on the offer to go to the Hospital Wing. Even if all she could get was a little rest, it was more than welcome for Mia.
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0 Mia I'll learn the truth later 0 Mia 0 5

Professor Dione

May 10, 2005 8:34 PM

I guess it can wait by Professor Dione

After pausing to give the students time to catch up on their note-taking, she spotted Mia's raised hand, just over the heads of the other students, in the back of the classroom. She allowed the planets to float casually in the air in front of the room while Dione walked back to check on what Mia happened to need from her.

Just from the looks of the student, Dione could make a pretty accurate guess as to why her hand was raised. Mia had looked ill enough at the beginning of class, and now, she looked even worse. If she happened to be that sick, there was no reason to have her suffer in class.

"If you need to go to the hospital wing now, you certainly may. I'll fill in any notes you have not taken already, so you won't have to worry about missing anything. I hope you feel better, Miss Kerova."\n\n

0 Professor Dione I guess it can wait 0 Professor Dione 0 5

Mia

May 11, 2005 2:01 PM

It can <i>definitely</i> wait by Mia

Mia wondered how bad she must've looked if she didn't even have to say anything before Dione said she could leave. She gave a small smile to the professor who didn't seem nearly as bad as she did at first sight. She even dismissed the Miss Kerova thing which usually made her want to gag.

"Thanks professor." she said quietly while she quickly put her things in her bag and threw the long strap across her small body.

She thanked god that the students were writing and that she hadn't taken a seat very close to anyone. She swore she would slap the first person to even begin to utter the words teacher's pet. Mia quietly got up and brushed her slightly disheveled hair down with her hand before exiting the room as inconspicuously as possible. \n\n

0 Mia It can <i>definitely</i> wait 0 Mia 0 5

Professor Dione

May 14, 2005 8:36 PM

Terrestrial Planets (pt 2) by Professor Dione

The planet’s rotate once again, leaving what should be a very familiar planet in front of her this time.

“This, obviously, is Earth, the densest planet in the solar system. Unlike the other terrestrial planets, the Earth’s crust is divided into separate plates. Seventy-one percent of the planet is covered by water, liquid water being essential for life. Let me emphasize the point that just because a planet is considered a terrestrial planet, it does NOT mean that there is life. Since there are slight traces of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is mostly made of nitrogen and oxygen, the temperature on Earth is 35 C warmer than it would be without it. Without this slight greenhouse effect, even the oceans would freeze, and there would be no life. The only natural satellite Earth has is the Moon.”

The final planet in the set of four circles around to face Dione. This particular planet is easily identified by its red hue.

“The last of the terrestrial planets is Mars. The red color is due to the large amount of iron interacting with the traces of oxygen in its very thin atmosphere. Mars’ climate is interesting since it is affected by its especially elliptical orbit. Surface temperatures can range from 140 K at the winter pole to almost 300 K on the day side during the Martian summer. The planet also has some of the most fascinating terrain. Olympus Mons is found here, the largest mountain in the solar system, rising 24 kilometers, or 78,000 feet. Tharsis, a large bulge on the surface about 4000 kilometers long and ten kilometers high, is found here. There is Valles Marineris, a system of canyons 4000 kilometers long that can range from two to seven meters deep. Most of the northern hemisphere consists of plains that appear to be much younger and a lower elevation than the older, heavily cratered southern hemisphere. It is in the southern hemisphere that Hellas Planitia can be found, an impact crater over 6 kilometers deep and 2000 kilometers in diameter. There is a very good possibility that there was, at one point in time, liquid water on Mars, and possibly, life. Currently, the only main significant amounts of water are in the form of ice at the planet’s poles. This planet’s natural satellites are Phobos and Deimos, fear and panic respectively.”

After her lecture on the terrestrial planets, she realized how much information she had thrown out during her first lesson. Content with the amount of material they had gone over, she decided to give the rest of the period to relax or work on their homework.

“That’s all the farther I will go for today. For homework, please look over the chapters in the text about the jovian planets as we will be discussing these in our next lesson. After you finish your notes, you are dismissed...except for you, Miss Tallow. You will see me after class.”

((OOC: Your text, in case you're wondering, is a site called http://www.nineplanets.org/. Obviously, I wouldn't give you homework without some sort of reference.))
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0 Professor Dione Terrestrial Planets (pt 2) 0 Professor Dione 0 5

Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus

November 27, 2011 9:35 PM

Reading the past...hopefully. by Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus

Divination teachers, Marissa had discovered, were more creative about how they laid out their classrooms than most. Every one she’d had had done something different with the space they had to work with, and the new one, brown-robed and with the beginnings of a beard, was no different from those who’d come before him in that regard.

She headed, by Crotalus instinct she supposed, toward one of the alcoves and found a seat where her back was to the wall and she could see everyone without feeling like anyone was watching her when she couldn’t see them. Though it felt like a breach of the standards expected of the Head Girl, she propped her elbow on the table in front of her and put her chin on her hand, leaning forward a little to better see the new teacher. With the cushions, and the suggestion of a flower shape to the room, and everyone sitting more or less on the floor, she felt almost like she was at Bella’s, back before she’d nearly changed completely and drifted away from the group; they’d spent virtually all their time on beanbags and cushions there, the whole thing designed to be vaguely reminiscent of Jasmine’s huge rooms in Aladdin.

After studying U.S. History and Literature last summer, Marissa found herself biting her lip on a smile, as she had at the Opening Feast, when the professor said his name – and then addressed it. She couldn’t help a quiet laugh when he did that. She hadn’t been sure if it had been for real, or if it was just one of those bizarre coincidences that happened sometimes between the Muggle and Magical worlds, or if it was the professor changing his name in his twenties as some kind of statement (though what kind of statement would be intended by naming oneself after, she thought, Cotton Mather’s father, she wasn’t quite sure) or what, but it seemed that he knew, his parents were responsible for it, and it was a joke, unless he was joking about it being a joke. There were plenty of stranger reasons to name a child something; her grandparents swore she and Paige had been named Paige and Marissa specifically because her mother thought they sounded like the names an educated person would pick, but which were not the ever-popular Emily.

Her quill began to move almost as soon as Professor Mathers started talking, taking down notes. Handwriting analysis; she’d read that loops in a person’s os meant they were being dishonest while they were writing sometimes, but no more than that. At first, her eyes moved steadily between him and the paper so her handwriting would remain legible, but as he went on, they moved more and more to the paper, to hide the familiar sinking feeling that occurred whenever a Divination or Potions lesson involved magic.

She was forced to look up, though, when the spell was demonstrated. The bright colors made her blink, as did the professor’s expression as he…did whatever. Oh, she hoped this was simple, she did not want to mess up in front of a new professor.

She gave the people around her a smile she hoped managed to be upbeat, her pink lip gloss catching the light along with the three badges on her robes. Catching someone’s eye, she said, “Want to work together?”

She felt bad about it, but there were worse lessons to have to work with her in, and she had to look out for herself. She’d figured that out ages and ages ago. Very few people, she felt sure, were nice enough to ask to work with someone who was barely enough of a witch to still be here, however insistent Coach Pierce might be that her miniscule ability with a wand didn’t make her less of a witch or anything like that. If it was an assignment where their work was graded on her ability to do her end, then it was stupid to work with her – maybe too impolite to refuse to work with her, but she could easily see how it was something that a lot of her classmates might not volunteer to do. Here, though, she didn’t think it would matter too much, so she didn’t feel too bad about speaking up, really.

16 Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus Reading the past...hopefully. 147 Marissa Stephenson, Crotalus 0 5

Jose Hernandez, Pecari

November 28, 2011 7:54 PM

Is that an attempt to speak the future? by Jose Hernandez, Pecari

The only teacher Jose ever had that he had truly disliked was a mere substitute. The man hadn't been around long and his ability to poison the minds of classmates had been diluted by the fact that he wasn't a real professor, but he had left on lasting impression.

Oh, Jose was no stranger to the idea that people didn't often take divinations seriously. Heck, his family included almost half a dozen women who wrote on their tax returns that they were fortune tellers, and it was no secret that not a one of them had a drop of the Sight. Three of those women had husbands who wrote on their tax returns that they were professional gamblers, and those three men were the reason Jose deeply respected the field of Divination. The only times they lost bets were when they intended to do so, so that muggle authorities didn't suspect them of cheating or running some kind of scam.

They were, of course, but not in a way that muggles could prove or would prosecute even if they did somehow figure out the men in question were Seers. But it was just easier not to get involved in an FBI investigation in the first place.

Not everyone had actual Gifted individuals in their family, though, and it was people like his five charlatan aunts who were far more outspoken about their 'abilities' and gave divinations a bad name. So he could understand skepticism. From students.

Not from the people teaching the subject.

Ever since Professor Snughardt had presided temporarily over the divination classroom, Jose held his breath whenever a new person stood at the front (or, in this case, the middle) of the classroom and introduced themselves as the Divination Professor. Fortunately, though, Professor Mathers seemed to be about what Jose had come to expect from the kind of person who actually knew through personal experience that people could see the future. He looked a little out-of-place.

As he moved right into the lesson, with no apology or even any sign that he could even fathom the idea that advanced divination students might not believe that graphology was not only possible but useful, Jose relaxed into his pillow and accepted the man as a worthy divination professor. He smiled briefly across their low table at Marissa, wanting to share the positive moment of discovering that Ms. Diaz's replacement was competent with another person, then turned his attention back to the lecture.

Graphology wasn't one of the methods used much by the California Pierces, so he didn't have quite as much of an advantage as in, say, crystal ball readings, but the symbolism would be similar, and he'd been studying divination for as long as he'd been able to turn a tarot card. Didn't mean he had a talent for it worthy of a capital letter, of course, that you had to be born with and his mother hadn't seen fit to get any such genes from her father and therefore she hadn't been able to pass them on to him either. But he was solid on the theories, and his wand work had always been good. When it was revealed this particular discipline of divination required a spell, he was more than a little pleased - until he remembered who he'd sat down with; he gave Marissa a look of sympathy.

Handwriting analysis was cool, though. He didn't know a lot about it, but it was still kind of fascinating. He could sort of remember reading a magazine article or something about what it meant if letters started running together - something about being lazy or possibly impatient. He recalled vaguely that he'd done a self-analysis that had come out pretty close to true, but he was sure he was suffering from some kind of bias there and finding only what he had wanted to find. He was curious to see what Marissa would make of his writing, though.

The professor proclaimed the lesson finished and set them to their peer analyses. Jose smiled back at Marissa and agreed to work with her. "Sure." He'd already been pretty much taking that for granted since he sat down with her. He'd put all three badges on the same side of his school robes today (he still hadn't found out a configuration that he liked), and had been moderately concerned that he might blind someone if the light hit them wrong, but Marissa had enough badges for a fair fight if she wanted to retaliate. Plus, they were co-Heads and she was dating his best friend now, so even though they had been friendly before, it seemed even more important to Be Friends now.

"So, it'll probably work best if we use something we wrote before. Your handwriting changes if you think about it too much, and we'll already know the history of the writing if we watch each other write it." He rummaged through his bag and came up with a draft of a letter he was writing home. There wasn't anything terribly personal in it, and though it had touched briefly on the current contents of the Pecari sign-up sheet, he didn't think any of it would be damaging to his team in the hands of the Crotalus captain. He wondered if Marissa would be able to tell he'd written it sitting out in the Gardens, or if she'd mostly get things about his past few days (as that was the subject of the letter) or if the spell would pick things up about his mom and dad, as they were the people who were intended to read it first (though he would be very surprised if it didn't make the rounds and most of the Aunts and Uncles ended up reading it).

He presented the unfinished letter to Marissa and said, "This'll probably work. See what you can make of it."

0 Jose Hernandez, Pecari Is that an attempt to speak the future? 0 Jose Hernandez, Pecari 0 5

Marissa Stephenson

November 30, 2011 4:13 PM

A tentative one, yes. by Marissa Stephenson

Theirs was, Marissa was sure, the most honored table in the room with their configuration of badges. It still surprised her a little to think of herself in those terms – to realize that she was sitting here, one of those people. Co-Head, eldest prefect of Crotalus, captain.

It wasn’t as dramatic as she might have imagined it to be, at least so far. She hadn’t gotten a sudden boost in confidence when she took any of her positions, she didn’t feel like the ideal girl, or like anything particularly special now. She was still just herself, usually worried about something or other, now with more things to take up her time, though it wasn’t as hard yet as it had been when she’d been in more of the standard classes. Maybe her duties would make it worse as the year went along, but right now, she couldn’t even really imagine anyone looking at her and Jose here the way she had looked at Head Boys and Girls gone by. The mental picture would form, but she had a little trouble believing in it.

“Thank makes sense,” she said to the suggestion that they use things they’d already written. She dug through her bag and emerged with a page of notes she’d taken over the reading ahead she’d done in the Potions book two nights before. She had been in the library near closing, writing fast near the end, trying get ahead while she had a chance, before all the assignments started coming and it got a little difficult to keep up with her reading and daily assignments and things. Being able to just hand in some things and skim readings would be really helpful when she got to it.

How much would he pick up, she wondered? She didn’t remember feeling much, but maybe there would be some kind of chain of associations from schoolwork past, or the perpetual nagging fear that one day she wouldn’t be good enough, somehow, even in a class where she usually was, or…She didn’t even know what.

She took what looked like a letter from him and reminded herself that she had managed, with an effort, to master Intermediate Charms and could have done the Advanced work, she could have kept up the frantic work she’d needed to keep up for two more years, but not the rest of her life, so that had made it impractical to do that when she needed to concentrate on subjects that she might actually use. There was no point in being miserable her whole life just to prove she could. She could do this, though. Absolutely.

“Lacunis transeum,” she intoned, pointing her wand at the image. One thing she’d always done well was the pronunciations and the wand movements.

She smiled triumphantly at a flicker of light from the letters, which slowly stabilized into a weak glow and began to move slowly around the page. As they struggled to resolve into an image, she glanced to the side to see how he was doing with her notes.

Then she got back to work, though. Trying to suppress her doubts about this, she leaned forward, since that was easier than crossing her eyes, and stared intently for a moment before leaning back slowly, without blinking…until she almost did feel something shift in her head and blinked in surprise, rubbing her right temple. “Drat,” she said mildly, realizing she’d gotten close to actually succeeding in her task, only her head had betrayed her at the last. She blinked hard, trying to make her eyes refocus properly so she could try again.

16 Marissa Stephenson A tentative one, yes. 147 Marissa Stephenson 0 5

Rachel Bauer, Crotalus

December 12, 2011 3:08 PM

New teacher, new class, new layout. by Rachel Bauer, Crotalus

Rachel’s confident, deeply studied, stroll into the Divination classroom for the Advanced class broke for a second as she took in the new layout, but then she shrugged and went to find a seat, avoiding those where she wouldn’t easily be seen. The problem was that there were definitely going to be some people that wouldn’t be able to see her, since the room was made of alcoves, but she thought sitting near the edge of one would be her best bet.

Once seated, she spent a little while arranging her straight blonde hair to hang the way she wanted it to over her shoulders, before congratulating herself for at least the fifteenth time on her dark lavender dress and getting out some paper to take notes on and her wand to cast spells with just in case either was needed. There never was any telling with this class even when the professor wasn’t new, after all, though the paper did tend to come in handy a lot of the time. There were lots of things that needed some background information, or math in the corners, or something like that which required a quill and something to use it on.

As it turned out, both were necessary today. She wasn’t sure what to think of this – wouldn’t it be easy to interpret things how you wanted, or based on stuff you already knew but had half-forgotten, since it was the past and had already happened and all that? Maybe if it was involving someone that you didn’t know at all, that would work better – but since there was nothing in her immediate past that she could think of that was too much of a terrible secret except the sunburn she’d gotten on vacation in the first week of July, she shrugged and wrote out a sentence on a clean sheet of paper once the professor turned them loose to their own devices.

My sister just started first year, it said, since that was the first thing to pop into her head from the professor’s prompt. She guessed there would be glimpses of Alicia at breakfast the morning they left, trying to hide that she was as excited and nervous as any normal eleven-year-old who hadn’t been trained to be a lady since she was three, and maybe them all going shopping and standing around, in the way, at the wand shop while her sister went through box after box and of course the Sorting Ceremony and Alicia turning blue. Rachel was proud of her, though she wasn’t nearly enough of a dork to tell Alicia that. She’d wanted to be an Aladren herself, though she was okay with Crotalus except for the presence of one person.

Once she had it down on the paper, she looked up and made eye contact and smiled brightly. “Hey,” she said. “Want to see what you can make of this?” She waved the paper with the sentence on it a little to indicate what she meant, just in case it wasn’t obvious.

16 Rachel Bauer, Crotalus New teacher, new class, new layout. 154 Rachel Bauer, Crotalus 0 5

Jeremy Reddington

October 07, 2012 12:28 AM

Advanced Muggle Studies by Jeremy Reddington

Jeremy pranced around the classroom wondering how to deliver his class to the advanced students, whom many were in his intermediate group only a term ago.

He thought hard about whether to make them sit a gruelling exam but they had done so for their last class. A thought came to him to test their knowledge and see how much they can recall and remember.

"I need to be able to teach them not only theory but practical. Could these students venture out into the wide world and be able to use muggle technology if they have to?"

His head shot up hearing footsteps and darted to the door in excitement, but when he got there the student had disappeared down the hall to another classroom.

Looking at the watch, he did have plenty of time... more like fifteen minutes worth of time.

0 Jeremy Reddington Advanced Muggle Studies 0 Jeremy Reddington 0 5

Jeremy Reddington

October 07, 2012 12:35 AM

Intermediate Muggle Studies by Jeremy Reddington

Jeremy was quite nervous, his last attempt of teaching was with some smart and knowledgeable intermediate witches and wizards, but was it fair to assume this would be the case again.

"But I had heard that I made things a little too easy... most knew the answers from reading the text book in advance. That does it... I'll put aside the text books and I'll test them to see who can correctly identify and describe various objects in my briefcase."

0 Jeremy Reddington Intermediate Muggle Studies 0 Jeremy Reddington 0 5