Nathan Xavier
August 09, 2020 6:51 PM
Intermediates: Grafting by Nathan Xavier
The spring term had begun with the excitement of a baby shower for his impending second child, and then got a little too exciting when Felipe was excused from classes for undisclosed reasons for a week or so, but now in mid February, things seemed to be settling down again. The weather was bitter cold yet, and Isis was sleeping even less well than earlier in the term, and he was jumping for the floo powder every time she so much as groaned, because her due date was getting close enough that an early arrival was no longer completely outside the realm of possibility, but other than that, the school routine was back in full swing.CATS prep for the fifth years was well underway, and he was handing back the practice written part as they arrived today, along with the mini-research essays the third and fourth years had been assigned to write at the same time.
"Good afternoon, Intermediates," he greeted them, summoning up a smile that was genuine, if a bit tired looking. "You all did reasonably well on those essays and practice exams from Tuesday, please look at the notes I left on your papers for things you could do to improve for next time." For the fifth years, that generally involved suggesting chapters in their textbooks to review that covered some of their more glaring mistakes, and for the younger students, he had given advice on how to improve upon their essay writing skills, which varied anywhere from 'please cite your sources' to recommending more advanced analysis techniques for those he thought could step up to higher critical thinking levels in their work.
"Today, we'll be moving into the final unit of new material before we start focusing on year end review and more intense CATS prep for the fifth years. We're going to learn about grafting. Does anyone know what that is?"
He took a few answers from the class and awarded points for correct answers. "Good. Grafting is a muggle technique that allows different plants to be combined. There are several reasons people might want to do this, including faster propagation for commercial harvests, faster hybrid breeding, repair of damaged plants, improved health, cosmetic looks, and more. We'll go into those in more detail over the next weeks."
"Wizards have expanded upon this technique, and we have a potion here," he used his wand to distribute small vials of it to each student, "that help the process along. Grafting involves the two tissues growing together, and this potion makes that happen faster and across a wider variety of plants. Muggles are limited to grafting related species to each other, but with this potion, wizards can graft any two plants together."
"So today, you're going to find two plants and learn how to do a simple splice graft. This is where you cut each stem to the same shape, usually at a diagonal for more surface area. You apply the potion to each cut, and press them together. Splint the area, wrap it in gauze. Wait two minutes then check your work. You should see that the two stems have knitted together already. Raise your hand when yours is ready. You may use any of the plants you see here in Greenhouse One." The shelves along the west wall had potted flowers of many varieties, the south wall had a few small potted fruit trees, the east wall had shelves with various herbs and vegetables and plants important in potion making. The north wall had some ornamental bushes. Other plants that didn't quite meet any of those categories were mixed in throughout. Nothing was overtly dangerous, though of course some of the flowers had thorns, the cactii had spines, and any number of the plants would be poisonous if ingested.
"Third years, you may want to start with similar species, especially cactuses, as they generally have the best chance of success. Remember to wear your gloves if working with prickly plants. Fifth years, you may chose wildly different plants if you like, but be sure their stems are the same size at the connection point and make your cuts clean and even. If you can line up the xylem vessels, that would help, as growing those together properly is usually the greatest point of failure, and the slowest process when done without magic. Once you have all see it work, we're going to talk about what's happening at the cellular level, but that'll wait. You may work together if you like for this practical. Raise your hand if you're having trouble. Please only take small cuttings of the trees and larger bushes. The gauze and splints are available here." He indicated a table with several rolls of gauze on it, each having a different thickness. Sticks of various forms were lined up beside them, including some Popsicle sticks, some toothpicks, natural bark-covered sticks, and some simple wooden stakes.
OOC: More information about muggle grafting can be found on Wikipedia.
Subthreads: It's a thorny situation. by Dathan Fischer with Ellie Alperton
Is there a difference between remembrance and thoughts? by Jessica Hayles with Jezebel Reed-Fischer
Comfortably Numb by Bridget Ferguson with Felipe De Matteo
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Nathan Xavier
Intermediates: Grafting
28
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Bridget Ferguson
August 23, 2020 2:31 PM
Comfortably Numb by Bridget Ferguson
CW-Very brief mentions of alcoholBridget was really starting not to care about things. Yes, she still cared about people, like her family and Jezebel but nothing ever changed so what was the point of caring about things in general? She was still doing things she had to do, not being disruptive or making trouble, but she felt like she was just going through the motions most of the time. Honestly, the Teppenpaw felt nothing a lot of the time.
Which was better, she supposed, than feeling bad. Feeling worried about her parents and ashamed of her...general background. Or angry at her grandfathers for putting her in this position. Angry and annoyed like Sophia tended to be about something at any given time. Resentful of her cousin for being smart and pretty and having a normal family and that luxury of being angry at things without those things also screwing up your life personally. Guilt at that resentment towards someone she'd long considered her best friend.
Yeah, apathy might be the better way to go. It was less painful, less damaging. Numbness was better than hurt. Honestly, Bridget was beginning to understand her father more and more all the time. Some hurt was just so bad that you'd rather not feel anything because nothing you felt was good. And sometimes, people needed help with that-and the worse that pain was, it followed that more help was needed.
Anyway, despite completely seeing the benefits of various plants and herbs, Herbology was not something the fourth year had a huge interest in even though she still generally like Professor Xavier best of her professors and it related to Potions a subject which did give Bridget something akin to pleasure because she was really good at it. Same with Transfiguration, where she might possibly actually be better at the practical side than Sophia was.
Which was not the case when it came to Herbology research papers-or probably any research papers. Bridget had no idea what her cousin had gotten-it really didn't matter-but she had gotten an A. Research had never been a strength of hers to begin with and she couldn't bring herself to care enough about the topic to go that extra mile.
However, this was one respect where she was quite lucky to have the parents that she did. Her parents didn't seem to care what sort of grades she got. The Teppenpaw was unsure if they were too...generally unaware to be bothered or it was just their natures. Despite their issues, both her parents were the sort of kind gentle people that would love her no matter what she did and Dad had a really harsh upbringing and so had gone in the other direction of extreme leniency which was aided, certainly, by the copious amounts of booze he consumed. Bridget would have to do something really terrible to upset her parents. Like Grandfather levels of terrible. They were lucky she wasn't behaving so much worse.
Not that she wanted to upset them because they had so many issues of their own and she didn't want to make things worse. Still, an A on a mini-research paper wasn't going to be a problem. Besides, her dad had not been a stellar student in any subject but Transfig. It would be seriously hypocritical if he had a problem with her grades and anyway, it wasn't as if she needed stellar grades so she could eventually go on and have a career.
Bridget suppressed a groan when Professor Xavier said this was going to be their last new unit and then they'd go to reviewing. Reviewing meant old subjects that she hadn't been all that interested in the first time. It was hard enough to get through most classes now when the material was new.
She sighed to herself when they were released to graft. Professor Xavier had given specific instructions to the third years and the fifth years, but not to her year group. Fourth years seemed to often be given a choice when it came to what level of difficulty they wanted to attempt. Sometimes it seemed to be freedom but sometimes, Bridget just didn't want to make the additional choice. This was one of those days.
The Teppenpaw wandered over to the east wall where the herbs and potions ingredients were kept along with the vegetables. "Got any thoughts on what to pick?" She asked a person who was standing there.
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Bridget Ferguson
Comfortably Numb
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Felipe De Matteo
August 24, 2020 2:12 PM
Teach me your ways. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe liked Herbology. It was about the only subject he really excelled in. He was good at others, but Herbology was his best subject by far, and it was the one he was most interested in, even since everything that happened. Most days, he was doing alright. He could get through his classes, he could keep up, he could only hate himself a little, and he could wonder at his life decisions instead of wallowing over them. Other days were bad. There were only three kinds of days most of the time though: good ones, bad ones, and Bad Ones. He tried to pretend the Bad Ones didn't exist because he didn't want to tell Dr. Greene about them, or anybody else. Time spent in the greenhouses helped with that and Felipe was glad he had at least one interest.This lesson was especially interesting to him, although it was a concept he was familiar with, and he was almost excited about it. There were students milling about and discussing what they wanted to do, but Felipe already knew: he wanted a Jacarandá tree that grew pineapples. That was . . . not very likely. But hey, magic could do amazing things. Now to see whether there were any here. As a fourth year, he had some flexibility in how high a challenge he set for himself, but he always set it high in all of his classes; Herbology was just the one where he felt most suited to achieve the challenge he set out.
A Teppenpaw in his year, Bridget, he remembered, approached him and he managed a polite smile. That was the nice thing about his life experiences: even when things were not really working in his head, his etiquette never seemed to give up on him. Perhaps there were benefits to such routine. "I have some ideas," he admitted, not sure whether his ambition would make her feel bad. Self-deprecation and humility were the safer, easier route. "But I am not sure whether I'll find them here. What about you?"
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Felipe De Matteo
Teach me your ways.
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Bridget Ferguson
August 31, 2020 5:02 PM
Um...accept things will never improve and you better get used to it? by Bridget Ferguson
Bridget shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea other than I want to use useful plants, like potions ingredients or herbs or even possibly a vegetable, like peppers or something rather than some ornamental flower." If she was going to have to do this, she might as well make something with a purpose. "At the same time, I don't want something that's too difficult, because,well, I want to better my chances of success." She explained.Truth be told, the real reason Bridget didn't want something too difficult was that she honestly didn't feel like working too hard today. Maybe she shouldn't have told Felipe that she wanted something not too difficult, because he would judge her harshly for not wanting to push herself to her limits, to be somehow "better" than she already was, to "improve herself" or some self-help garbage like that. Some people were judgemental that way, and it was annoying. Bridget had little patience for that right now-or ever, really-as she had little patience for doing the assignment in the first place. The Teppenpaw would rather go for the sure thing, get the better grade and be done with it. Maybe then she could go read and forget about her life for a bit. If others wanted to go for self improvement crap, that was their prerogative, but they needn't push it on her or judge her for not going along with it.
Honestly, the whole concept of self improvement was up to interpretation as far as Bridget was concerned. Like, who was to say what made a person a better person? What sort of right did people have to make that sort of value judgement on others? Especially when the image of what you were portraying as improvement involved things like physical-such as being more "fit"-or intellectual-such as doing something more difficult like, well grafting harder plants- superiority. That suggested stronger or smarter people had some sort of moral high ground and Bridget so didn't need that crap. She had enough going on at any given time without pushing herself to fit some ridiculous and impossible standard.
Not to mention those who exploited this desire to meet these standards in others for financial gain, such as motivational speakers that just got up and spewed a bunch of trash without providing a concrete product. Or people who sold diets that didn't work. Or, worst of all, people who sold miracle cures that didn't work and took advantage of the desperation of sick people like Mama. They all just took a bunch of money from people and gave them nothing. People like Bridget had the means for this but a lot of people didn't.
Wow, Sophia was really starting to rub off on her.
Speaking of sick people though, the Teppenpaw remembered that Felipe had recently been absent from class. "How are you doing?" She asked. "Feeling better?" It was the kind thing to ask someone who hadn't been well. It showed that one cared and one thing Bridget did believe in was compassion towards those who were suffering from medical problems. She believed in compassion, period.
But he could kiss her backside if he looked down on her for not wanting to do something too difficult. Though in all honesty, it would still probably hurt her feelings. She could try and tell herself that the other person was in the wrong, and in theory, Bridget agreed with that. At the same time, when someone really was judging her, looking down on her, it made her feel terrible-and usually mad at one of her grandfathers, since it was usually her family situation she felt judged for, however, in this case, that wasn't relevant. If Felipe judged her, it was either going to be because he thought she was less capable or because she was lazy and an underachiever. None of which was going to make her feel very good about herself.
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Bridget Ferguson
Um...accept things will never improve and you better get used to it?
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Felipe De Matteo
September 03, 2020 12:17 PM
Dr. Greene says there may yet be hope for people like us. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe nodded, smiling a little at Bridget's suggestion that she do something useful. "That sounds great," he said, a bit surprised and a bit disappointed in himself for being surprised. Considering that the women in his life were people like Zara, Jessica, and Leonor, he shouldn't really have any sort of expectation that women just liked pretty flowers. Actually, of the people in his life, Felipe probably liked pretty flowers more than any of the girls he knew. This was a good reminder. His first thought was that it was a reminder that he was useless and pompous, but he quickly rephrased that, deciding that it was a good reminder of his privileged background and that he always had room to learn things about others. That was better. "Success always feels good, and I think it's good for learning. If you get it right one time, it's maybe easier to get it right the next time."He blinked, surprised when she asked whether he was feeling better. His mind jumped through a set of hoops that were becoming familiar. Her question was vague, so she probably didn't know the details. But also she was asking, so she knew something. Did she know enough to know if he lied? Did he want to lie? He definitely didn't want to tell the truth. Except she was asking about now, and that was easier to answer. "I am feeling better," he agreed a little stiffly through a polite smile. "It's nice of you to ask," he added knowing the correct steps in these sorts of exchanges. "I had a couple people willing to share notes with me, so that helped. How's the term been for you so far?" He hoped he'd sufficiently steered the conversation back to academics. At some point, they'd split off to go get their own plants, and then he'd take a minute to think of some new topics so he was ready when they came back together.
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Felipe De Matteo
Dr. Greene says there may yet be hope for people like us.
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Bridget Ferguson
September 08, 2020 7:40 PM
Good to know by Bridget Ferguson
"Thanks, I really like potions so something that could be used for ingredients would be something that I could use to improve how good the potion works." Bridget explained. While Transfiguration ability was something that she had come by naturally, through gentics as her dad was a prodigy in the subject, she had mastered potions-Dad's weakest subject- through experience.The thing was though, Bridget hadn't been making actual potions, she'd been making cocktails. Her cousin Nora had given Dad many books on how to make drinks over the years despite him not being any good at a similar subject. However, the fourth year had eventually started reading these books that were just sitting on their book shelves and making these drinks inside for her father to try, because making things that her dad enjoyed made her feel really good. Bridget was happy to get her father's approval even though in hindsight, it wasn't all that hard to get it. Dad loved her unconditionally....and had pretty low standards anyway, both in general and for drinks specifically. All he wanted was for his drinks to contain lots and lots of alcohol.
So, while her father's lack of potions prowess had translated into not being very useful at cocktail crafting, Bridget's practice of the latter had translated well into making the former. And because herbs grown in Herbology were used in Potions, this class was a means to an end, though she didn't necessarily use things grown here when making potions, she used what was in her kit or in Professor Brooding-Hawthorne's supply closet.
Of course, for all Bridget knew, the Potions professor did use the ingredients grown in the Herbology greenhouses. She did seem the type to use things that were "locally sourced" and what could be more locally sourced than things grown on school grounds? Besides that, it would be the most convenient way to get ingredients that were fresh and fresh ingredients meant better working potions.
Although, fresh ingredients were only one component of making a potent potion. One also had to measure things properly, stir them the correct amounts, have them brew the right amount of time, etc. You couldn't cut corners or do things like....add something to make them taste better, the way you could use different sorts of spices in a Bloody Mary, for example.
Bridget felt relieved when Felipe appeared not to judge her for not wanting to push herself and do something more difficult. Of course, he might still be doing so internally but it's not like she would ever be able to figure that out unless she became a Legilimens like Nora, which she had no intention of. People tended to be wary of people who could do that and Bridget wanted to be liked. She also didn't really want to know what people were thinking about her if it was bad. That was one case where ignorance was bliss. Not only that, but people had a right to privacy regarding there own thoughts. Merlin only knew that the Teppenpaw didn't want people reading hers especially given that she had just been thinking about the fact that she was good at potions because she grew up making cocktails! She usually had to make sure to think boring thoughts around Nora. Or rather, thoughts that Nora would find boring.
So she accepted what Felipe said at face value. "Yeah, I tend to prefer it." Bridget replied. Especially if it means as little effort possible .
Okay, apparently Beau was rubbing off on her too. Really though, she only meant when she wasn't interested in something. Or not in the mood for it.
"You're welcome." She replied. "That's good. Hopefully they were helpful." Merlin only knew in all but her two favorite subject that Bridget's notes would not have been adequate. She would have been ashamed to give them to someone who'd missed class. "It's all right." Nothing out of the ordinary was really happening, and she probably wouldn't open up to Felipe if something bad was. She didn't know him that well. Of course, if something good was happening maybe she would talk about it but as it was, there was nothing worth mentioning.
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Bridget Ferguson
Good to know
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