Grayson Wright
November 29, 2019 12:05 PM
Welcome to Orientation, New Students! by Grayson Wright
He had, Gray thought, no-one at all to blame except himself. He had actually brought up the subject of Orientation at the last staff meeting and asked if he was up for it again, which had been taken as volunteering.Admittedly, it was not the most onerous of duties, and he had to admit that Nathan had other things going. Wife, child, that sort of thing. Gray thought most of the staff wanted a moment or two to brace themselves against the oncoming storm of a new year, but if what he understood about small children was accurate, Theodora Xavier was at just the size where Nathan and Isis were not getting such a moment right now at all. Plus, Gray had the least going on in his personal life of anyone on staff, he thought - at least so far as his coworkers knew.
In reality, his summer had been...interesting. He put it out of his mind, though, as the wagons landed and he stepped forward to play the role of usher.
“New first years over here,” he called. To help out further, there was a sign directly over his head saying “1st Years Here” - the formatting deliberate, as he figured that even any students whose English wasn’t very good would be able to recognize the Arabic numeral and make some logical deductions. They would almost surely not all be Aladrens, but developmentally, they should all have some capacity for reasoning. Just in case, though, there were other signs, arrows, pointing them toward the clearing where he would talk a lot and then allow them to ask questions or get to know each other, as they pleased. “Leave your luggage with the wagon, please - it’ll be in your dorms after the Opening Feast. New first years over here!”
Professor Grayson Wright was thirty-eight years old, fairly tall but not to the point that his height drew attention to him in most crowds. He had dark hair and dark eyes and unremarkable robes - neither expensive nor cheap - a couple of shades brighter than navy blue. If there were students who were not good with names among the little throng which came over to him, he expected he would for some time - definitely at least for the day, unless they were Aladrens - know him mainly as That Professor With the Glasses, as his glasses were more distinctive than any of his facial features. He smiled pleasantly at them once he was sure he had them all.
“Hello everyone,” he said. “My name is Professor Wright. I’m going to be your Charms teacher, and if you have the honor of joining Aladren House after the Opening Feast this evening, I’ll also be your head of House. For now, I’ll be your orientation leader. Welcome to Sonora Academy.”
He shepherded them into one of the clearings in the Labyrinth Gardens, where a running fountain stood in the center and there were three tables off to one side, away from the roped-off entrances to other paths. On the first table was a number of folders, each the same forest green color as the students’ robes. These contained class schedules, school maps, and lists of the major school rules students would be expected to follow. On the next table was a variety of snacks – sandwiches, fruits and vegetables, cupcakes, cookies, and various other finger foods – and small plates to eat these on. On the third were small glasses and a selection of water, fruit juices, and fruit punch.
“Everyone be sure to collect a folder, there’s a lot of information in there which will be helpful for you as you get settled,” he urged them, and then began the speech. After several years, he had it down pretty well. “Sonora is a seven-year school which focuses on giving you all a thorough education in magical theory and practice. You’ll start out, for your first year, with seven classes – Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Potions, Transfiguration, and flying lessons. You can drop flying lessons in your second year and start other electives in your third year, if you want to. In your fifth year, you’ll take your first set of major exams, the Critical Assessment of Talents and Skills, or CATS. After that, you may select classes to focus on, though you’ll need at least two to graduate and three if you want to pursue your education in the magical arts further after you leave Sonora.
“In the meantime, we know that you all come from different educational backgrounds now,” he said, because this was true. Some might have gone to Muggle elementary schools while others might have had specialized tutors for each subject while others might have had…more unorthodox training. Most fell somewhere on a continuum between the extremes of unschooling and specialized tutors for each subject. “Your professors all have office hours when we can give you extra help in our subjects if you need it, and Professor Skies, our Deputy Headmistress and your Transfiguration teacher, runs special sessions for anyone who needs help with reading and writing English more fluently, or with basic maths, or other general academic support. You can see times for those in the schedules in your green folders.
“Outside of classes, you have options about how you spend your time. We have some student-run clubs and sports here, and you’ll see notices about meetings posted around the schools when they’re ready to start up for the year. Breakfast is from 6:30 to 8:30 a.m, lunch is from 11:00 to one, and supper is five till seven, but you can find snacks and drinks there between those times as well. Curfew is at ten p.m., and at that time, you’ll need to be inside your Houses – those are parts of the building where your dorms are attached to a common room you share with other people in all seven years who were Sorted into the same group as you . They’re four groups of rooms, and tonight, at the Welcoming Feast, you’ll be Sorted into one of them by dipping the blank badges you have now into a cauldron. If your badge turns blue, you’re an Aladren – the House that values learning and problem-solving.” He might have sounded a little proud there; he was a former Aladren as well as Head of the House. “If it turns red, you belong in Crotalus, the House for people who like to be well-prepared for everything. Yellow means you’re in Teppenpaw, the House for our diplomats – and a House which has done very well in the House Cup recently,” he added, lest Teppenpaw sound lame to them. “Finally, if your badge turns brown, that means you’re a Pecari, the House for people who always land on their feet and are always willing to take a chance. All the Houses have other traits, though, so don’t worry if you don’t think any of those things sounds exactly like you – there’s a place for everyone here at Sonora.
“Your House will have prefects, who are older students, and a Head, who is a staff member – I’m the Head of Aladren, for instance. They’ll all look after you while you’re here. Your House can earn points based on things you do – excelling in class or in sports, or showing responsibility, or somehow helping the school community and showing leadership. The House with the most points at the end of the year earns the House Cup, and sometimes other privileges – Teppenpaw House has hosted the Cup for a good while now, but last year they tied with Pecari, so anyone can win.”
“If no-one has any questions about all of that, you can mingle and get to know your classmates for a while and have some snacks until we begin our tour of the mansion. If you do have any questions, feel free to come see me – and welcome again to Sonora.”
OOC (Out of Character) Note: Welcome first years to Sonora! You can post a reply here to ask staff questions or meet your new classmates. This thread is intended for first year students to have a chance to try out posting and get acclimated to the site before we throw you into the big Opening Feast, which is open to the entire school population and can be a bit overwhelming.
Now, go forth, new first years of Sonora! Post, enjoy, have fun! Everyone here is happy to help out, so if you've got a question, put it on the OOC board or try to catch somebody in the Chatzy and we'll try to get you an answer as quick as we can. Have fun and we’re glad you could join us!
[Credit to Nathan Xavier's author for the content of this OOC notice]
Subthreads: I don't know about this by Mab with Morgan Garrett
Taking an unexpected step. by Mara Morales with Leonor De Matteo
Is this a trick? by Alexander Pierce-Beales with Alexandra Borealis
I choose upside down! by Theo Spurn with Joanna Rose-Turner, Josephine Clyde
#FreshStart #MeetingMrWright by Sadie-Lake Chalmers with Grayson Wright
16
Grayson Wright
Welcome to Orientation, New Students!
113
Grayson Wright
1
5
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
December 12, 2019 6:34 AM
#FreshStart #MeetingMrWright by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
@CharmingChalmers posted: #OMG we’ve got some #BigNews! Not only is #SadieLake the #BirthdayGirl today (#11YearsOld #BirthdayParty #GardenParty #GirlTime) but she is making some real #GrownUpDecisions, #TheyGrowUpSoFast. These will be your last #SadieLakeMoments for a while followers. Sadie-Lake has decided that she would like some #seriousdowntime and will be going off-camera. She has always been #SoMature and we #100PercentSupport this. So enjoy our fab shots of her #PamperParty (we are loving these products by #CozmetikGirl for our #SpecialDay!) and wish her well in her #NewAdventures.And thus, with a flurry of hashtags, she was gone. Her family #100PercentSupported this because they had no choice. Her mom had debated for a while about whether it would have been more convenient and more marketable if it had gone along with her turning ten because that was #DoubleDigits but had eventually concluded that was enough of #AThing in itself that it didn’t need extra. Eleven gave another year in which to have matured. And at least her birthday was at the end of August. That had saved Sadie from having to apologise for yet another thing that really wasn’t her fault, although her mom was still pissed about it all. As if she had any more control of when in their lives a wizard showed up on the doorstep – or the fact he had shown up at all - than she’d had over anything else, from her stupid name to her whole childhood being showcased on Instagram.
Sadie-Lake’s name had been just Sadie in her head for a while now. She had been considering dropping the ‘-Lake’ when she got to highschool, although she doubted that it really would have given her the fresh start she wanted, what with her family’s Instagram notoriety. They weren’t like… can’t-walk-down-the-street-famous but they made all of their income from selling their shiny middle class lifestyle to other people. And all it took was one person in her class finding out about it for everyone to know. It wasn’t like being called Sadie-Lake hadn’t been attracting enough attention anyway (which had always been her mom’s plan when she landed her with that #ClassicWithATwist) and it had never been something she had been particularly comfortable with. She almost felt a little guilty. Because if #WishesCanComeTrue then she had made this happen. She had been looking for an escape for a while. Telling her mom she wanted to just be called Sadie or didn’t want to be on camera would never have worked. Her mom just didn’t listen. After all, #EveryoneWantsToBeFamous (#SoGlam, #CheckMeOut). Sadie had been getting fed up with it for a while though. She wished they could spend more time having fun instead of posing to show they were #HavingSoMuchFun. She wished she could eat her food before it went cold being photographed from every angle. She wished they could all spend more time just… living life instead of #LivingLife. And she was so ready to not have their hashtags quoted @her in the playground.
Now, she had that opportunity. This was not just a weekend #offgrid doing a #techcleanse. She was going to be gone for months. As far as Instagram was concerned, that was like… dead.
It had been super weird being seen off without a million snapshots. She’d been able to just… say goodbye and get on the wagon. Her parents had been warned that a) their phones would explode and b) they would be in serious trouble if they got them mixed up with magic. She was pretty sure the former had been more persuasive, even though once she’d started referring to this secret statue thingy as ‘The Magic NDA’ her parents had got it more. So instead of getting everyone just the right amount of dewy eyed for #SoTeary shots, they’d said a real goodbye. Or tried. She wasn’t sure her parents knew what to do with themselves without cell phones in their hands.
Now she was here, and if she was honest, more than a little freaked out. She had wanted a break from a cell phone being shoved in her face but this was kinda extreme. She was in a new world, away from her family, and… well, first hurdle, there was a man collecting all the first years, and what if he did roll call? She followed him anxiously. The moment where he was most likely to do roll call seemed to pass but she was still kind of tense throughout his speech, finding it hard to listen to everything he was telling them. When it was done, really done, she managed to breathe.
She collected her folder, managing not to get drawn into conversation with anyone as she did so. By that time, most people had drifted into conversations. She was worried she’d look like a #TotallySuckUp going over to the teacher, but it was that of seven years of snickering and being called… Whatever kids this age could come up with. In elementary school, she had mostly got ‘Splish-Splash’ and, as their understanding of both Instagram and rhyme structure grew, Sadie-Fake. She was sure there was all kinds of creative hell highschoolers could wreak with her name.
“Hi?” she said softly, “Sorry to bother you professor?” her tone was hesitant. “I was um… wondering…. Do teachers use our full first names in roll call? And um… like… do they have to?"
13
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
#FreshStart #MeetingMrWright
1480
0
5
Grayson Wright
December 12, 2019 8:48 AM
#Hello, #MeetingStudents, #OhDear by Grayson Wright
The part of Orientation where the students got to know each other was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the part where Gray was most out of place. Fortunately, standing about a bit pointlessly (as his dearest wish was to remain irrelevant - since Orientation had been introduced, they had never had a single student decide to hex another - or try to do so - that he knew of, and he was emotionally invested in keeping that record intact) was something he was well-accustomed to doing in his life, and thus managed to remain in the background, one eye on the students, half his mind on reviewing the excuse he was planning to use to ask for a very necessary day off next month.Could he trim it down to a half-day? He was doing that business under a pseudonym anyway, so all he really had to do was sign the final contract. He had even offered to let them trot out an actor who could pretend to be his fake name if necessary. There was no way he could possibly do this under his own name and not risk blowback from the school, which was the last thing he wanted. Not only did he find his job relatively congenial, he also was realistic enough to be fairly sure he'd continue needing it for a while...
He was distracted from this idea, however, by one student who appeared to be separating from the others. A moment later, he had to put it completely aside when the solitary child approached him.
"Hello. And no, we don't have to," he said, wondering what prompted this. He had never been called by his full first name in his private life, but he had not seen it as worth the trouble of making a point of it professionally, at least with authority figures. Some people, however, had their reasons. He sometimes thought Tatiana Vorontsova was so particular about her name just to make a point - adolescents seeking some form of control - but culture was culture, and one's name was one's name. "Most of the time, teachers won't do verbal roll calls after the first week anyway - we'll know you all well enough to recognize who's present and who isn't," he explained. "But you're certainly welcome to ask to use the name of your choice. What would you like to be called?" he asked.
16
Grayson Wright
#Hello, #MeetingStudents, #OhDear
113
0
5
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
December 13, 2019 6:25 AM
#Problems by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
‘After the first week’ was a nice thought, but a week was still more than enough time to have her life ruined. It wasn’t like people were going to forget her stupid name just because the teachers stopped saying it. Luckily, the professor seemed to think it wouldn’t be a problem. He seemed nice. Admittedly, she did not have a lot to go on at this point, but he didn’t seem super shouty or strict. He’d been chosen as the welcome guy. Maybe some people thought he was a bit too quiet and unremarkable to be like #HiThere! #WelcomeOnBoard! but Sadie preferred that. It was nice to be welcomed by someone quiet than someone who seemed like they might want to get everyone into some #FunIceBreakers and be all into #GettingToKnowYou. She was quite okay with not being known and with ice remaining solid.Not that she felt completely at ease. She wound a lock of blonde hair nervously around her finger, and then realised she was doing it, and stopped. She was supposed to be all big smiles and confidence. She supposed she didn’t have to be that here… Even if… some (a lot? Many? Most?) of the kids here came from non-magical households, they wouldn’t know who she was. Hopefully. Maybe she really could just blend into the background. She thought she’d be more comfortable there.
“My name’s Sadie-Lake,” she admitted, very quietly, a quick glance around first having confirmed that all her peers were busily engaged in conversation. “Like… that’s my first name,” she added. Because if he hadn’t seen the student list, he might just assume she was called Sadie Lake, and there would really have been nothing wrong with that. If it had been read out in class, she supposed people might assume for a bit that she was called Sadie Lake-Chalmers. That was less horrific but still made her sound like a mediocre tourist destination, and any fictional Mr. Lake and Mrs. Chalmers who had got married – or anyone with a landscape feature for a surname really – would be best advised to put them the other way around, if you asked her. Which no one did. Ever. And anyway, eventually someone would call her Lake-Chalmers or something, and she’d either have to correct them or not correct them, or one of the teachers would refer to her by her first name or her surname and – well, she was trying to avoid that. “I’d rather just be called ‘Sadie,’ please,” she admitted, and she knew that her face was going really red, and just really hoped none of her classmates noticed that she was talking to the teacher at all, let alone about something that clearly embarrassed her.
13
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
#Problems
1480
0
5
Grayson Wright
December 13, 2019 10:05 AM
#HopefullyNotTooMany by Grayson Wright
Sadie Lake. That sounded like an ordinary enough name...until she clarified, and then he recalled that yes, that did sound vaguely familiar. He had read the student list over a couple of times, and while it would take a few days of classes to get all the names really committed to memory, her name stuck out a bit. At least partially because he suspected he would struggle not to call her "Chambers" instead of "Chalmers" for a while, but giving a child the name 'Lake' also stuck out. Of course, he'd had students named Raine, Kyte, and Lily before and had only really registered Kyte as sounding unusual, so - was it really so much odder to be named 'Lake' than 'Raine'? Perhaps not, objectively speaking."Sadie," he repeated as she said what she'd prefer to be called. "That's a nice name. Yes, that should be easy enough to arrange." Classes started in the morning, but he could send a quick note to the other teachers with this bit of information. Compared to some accommodations, remembering to call the child Sadie when it seemed to mean a great deal to her - she seemed anxious and embarrassed just asking, which suggested she would rather not do it, which implied a certain strength of feeling about her name - was minor. "Welcome to Sonora, Sadie. I hope you enjoy your time here. Any other questions about classes or anything?" he asked, still mildly surprised by a child being curious enough about a point of protocol to approach him here. Crotalus or Aladren, he figured.
16
Grayson Wright
#HopefullyNotTooMany
113
0
5
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
December 15, 2019 3:26 AM
#HeresHoping by Sadie-Lake Chalmers
Sadie was a nice name. Yes, there was nothing wrong with being called that. She wondered if there was a subtext there that Sadie-Lake was an utterly ridicuous one. Probably, but it wasn't his fault for thinking something that was objectively true. He was going to help though, and hopefully her stupid name wouldn't follow her throughout school."Thank you, sir- professor," she corrected herself hastily and with something of a questioning intonation, anxious brown eyes surveying him. The questioning note in her voice was more checking she had got that right, or not caused offence rather than to initiate a follow up question. She had about a million, as far as classes and like... real magic were concerned. Is this real? What do we even learn in magic class? for example. But she figured she would find that out as she went along. She was keen not to take up too much of his time, or for her classmates to notice and assume she was over here being a suck up.
"No, that's all for now. Thank you, professor," she said, more articulately than she'd managed before, and feeling just a little bit better, made her way to get some juice.
13
Sadie-Lake Chalmers
#HeresHoping
1480
0
5