Giselle Duell
December 17, 2021 7:31 AM
Research practice [Int. Divinations] by Giselle Duell
Giselle was stuck in the middle of her least favorite section of the arts of Divinations once more. Still, she thought it wasn't going as terribly as her first few attempts to teach it. Selina's advice and encouragement had been quite helpful... even if she really wished she didn't need it. Professor Duell knew that she couldn't continue to blame her cousin (and brother to a slightly lesser extent) for all of her problems. But Giselle really, really wanted to.Professor Duell sat at her desk as her students began to wander into the classroom. The room was arranged as it had been for the previous sessions they had for this subject. The round tables set with two chairs each, draped in the traditional eclectic cloth coverings. In the middle of each table sat a crystal ball. The dreaded, terrible crystal ball. At each seat was also a single blank sheet of paper, Giselle had purposefully not investigated where specific students would sit today so as to make the distribution of the sheets as random as possible, however she did make note of the year group each occupant would be in.
"Please, take your seat," she stood and announced as the students filed in, "but do not touch anything just yet. As you can see we will are still working with the crystal balls today." She thought she did a decent job of keeping her attitude of those obstinate objects out of her voice. Once everyone was settled in she continued. "Today we will be practicing using the orbs. Once we begin you may flip over the sheet of paper in front of you. They each contain a number of question which you will be working to answer." She had prepared easier questions for the third years and more difficult questions for the fifth years. "Each of the questions has a definite answer, and none should be common knowledge." Some of the third year questions might come close though she had thought when she'd been putting them together.
"You should find your questions within your experience level to answer, however if you have any concerns, feel free to bring them to me. The final question on each page is your homework assignment, you will find it a bit more difficult than the rest of the questions. To get proper credit, you will need to provide full imagery, symbolism analysis and make sure to check any assumptions you make and how they may influence your interpretations." With that assigned, she released them to work, "You may begin."
OOC: Have fun coming up with questions! As stated the answers shouldn't be common knowledge, and they can range from History to Politics to Magical theory to Wizarding pop culture or any other school appropriate topic you can think of about the past, present or future. If you've got something you want to check with me, ask in Chatzy!
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Giselle Duell
Research practice [Int. Divinations]
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Valentine Duell
December 21, 2021 10:45 AM
Yay... research.. whoo... by Valentine Duell
Valentine arrived at class and noticed the face down papers at the seats. She knew this was one of her Aunt's favorite ways to return papers and show off a little bit. The problem was, she didn't recall having turned in any work that would be back today. Oh well. She greeted her aunt and found a seat, carefully following the instructions not to touch anything. While the rest of the class was getting situated she stared into the crystal ball at the table. Aunt Giselle didn't like them much, and Val wished they'd be nicer to her aunt. So far she was doing okay in the class and the crystal balls didn't seem to hate her.Once Aun.... Professor Duell began class, Val listened attentively. This sounded like it might get interesting, and it might be get really weird. What if she got a question like 'What was your partner doing at 3:30 yesterday?' and it turns out they were going to the bathroom? Ugh. Once they could begin, she flipped over the paper, scanned it and breathed a sigh of relief. None of the questions had to do with any of her schoolmates. That was a good start. Instead she had questions like...
1. What breed of dog did Walter Mansfield of London see on the morning of Sept. 12th raiding his garbage?
2. How many times did Aurora Tash of Bhimad, Nepal stir her afternoon tea?
3. How many inches of snow fell on the roof of 324 Main St, Bethune, SK Canada on January 24th?
4. Which of Polikarp Temitope's sons of Magnit Russia won the school's most recent athletic competition?
..and so on.
She gave her list a dubious look and then cast it briefly upon the professor before looking to her partner. "What do your questions look like?" She inquired out of curiosity, although she guessed they most likely looked similar to her own. "This should be fun."
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Valentine Duell
Yay... research.. whoo...
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Isla Brockert
January 01, 2022 3:28 PM
There are worse things by Isla Brockert
OOC: CW-Issues around feeling rejected by one's peers. BIC:
Isla was not very happy. Oz had asked Lorena to the ball, so now both of her friends had dates and she had nobody. Not that she begrudged them, but she might as well stay in her room because what was the point of going? It wasn’t going to be at all fun for her, especially since she didn’t think balls sounded all that fun to begin with. She wouldn’t have anyone to talk to at all since everyone else was all paired off.
The scenario that so worried Isla before, the one that nobody wanted to find themselves in, had now become a painful reality for her. It wasn’t even as if she was some painfully shy person whose friends all had dates and she was afraid to talk to other people and face rejection, there was actually literally just about nobody else left.
Besides, she wasn’t simply worried about facing rejection in the future, Isla was already feeling rejected. Unwanted. Unliked. Excluded. Isolated. She logically knew that her friends still liked her, but that did not change how she felt right now. Experiencing these feelings for real was a million times worse than worrying about this happening. They said reality never lived up to fantasy but they never mentioned how when it was something you didn’t want to have happen and it did, reality was so much more horrible than you ever could have dreamed of.
Right now, Isla felt like such a loser. Like everyone thought she was and didn’t want to hang out with her. Like she was going to look like one at the ball. Like everyone was going to be laughing at her. She’d always been okay being the weird puppet girl. She was happy being the weird puppet girl and she was never going to change that. For one thing, her puppets had never let her down or made her feel bad.
And the third year honestly did not think that was what was going on here. That that was why she was getting left out. Most of the others she knew in the same position were related to her. So, basically, it felt like people didn’t like her family. Like they were the school outcasts. Like there was something inherently wrong with them.
Isla knew that the main difference between them and most of the school was their blood and social status. Which meant that was the most obvious thing to point to when it was them being excluded. She also knew that everyone else would frame them as the problem. That they would frame them as stuck-up snobs who thought they were too good for everyone else when it seemed clearly to be the other way around now. That they were the ones being rejected and othered.
She felt like crying-and sometimes she had. In fact, lots of times she had. However, doing so in class might just make matters worse. Even in Divination which Isla had had such enthusiasm for-and in Transfig where she naturally excelled-all she wanted to do was go back to her dorm, put her pajamas on and cuddle with one of her more stuffed animal-like puppets.
Instead, the Aladren had to go to class with the exact people who didn’t want her around and then blamed her for it. That kind of spoiled any delight she had in learning. Even the finger puppet that she’d stuffed into the pocket of her robes wasn’t helping her all that much and usually just having a puppet nearby made Isla happy.
She stared up dully as Professor Duell began the lesson and gave them their questions. The third year looked down at her sheet. Really? What kinds of questions were these? What was Dejan Darko of Arilje Serbia's reaction to hearing about his nephew's accident? Why did Brian Gyneth of Bridger, South Dakota sleep in the town of White Owl for two nights? Who cared?
Actually, normally, Isla probably would have. Well, maybe not exactly cared but it might have been something that she would have had fun with. The questions were super weird and normally, she absolutely loved super weird. She utterly embraced the super weird. She was super weird.
However, the Aladren just did not feel like doing this. She was just plain not in the mood for trying to find out something this obscure and pointless.
And to make matters worse, Val was her partner. Popular Val whom everyone loved and who had two dates to the ball when Isla had nobody to even hang out with outside her own family. Although she might have been cool hanging out with one of her relatives if someone who wasn’t related to them was also there. Still, Isla was not any more in the mood for being around someone who had it all, whom she normally would have liked, when she was feeling this way. Isla sighed and answered. “Utterly ridiculous ones.”
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Isla Brockert
There are worse things
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Valentine Duell
January 01, 2022 5:30 PM
There most definitely are, but still. by Valentine Duell
Isla was was unhappy, that much Valentine could tell right from the moment the younger girl spoke. She could also guess at the source of it, she suspected it was the same thing that was making Lavender unhappy. The ball. The ball that was supposed to be the most fun, magical and wonderful night of their school experience. Instead it was making a whole lot of her friends miserable, which made her unhappy as well. She did not want her friends to be unhappy, she wanted everyone to have fun and a super magical special night. Especially when this was the only ball she was likely to ever participate in while Lavender and Isla here would get to go to them every other week or so.Lavender was also unhappy that Val was going with Bonabelle and Wally for some reason. She wasn't entirely sure why. She was going with a boy which was the point of the thing. She was running around trying to find a date for Lavender just so her friend wouldn't be so miserable when Lavender could be doing that herself. Now she suspected Isla was suffering from the same problem and there wasn't anything she could do about it, at least she hadn't heard that Isla had found someone to go with anyway. Did Quincy have a date yet? What about Gus? She wasn't sure, but she also didn't think she was capable of playing matchmaker for the entire school.
She was taking Bonabelle as well which technically was removing another girl from the competition pool... other than she thought Bonabelle was still going to be going with Stanley as well. Which means she hadn't actually removed her from the pool, but again it wouldn't be any worse than if she was just going with Wally and Bonabelle was just going with Stanley. She was just getting a bit frustrated at all of this when all she wanted was just one fun magical ball with her dates and friends and for everyone to have fun and be happy. Was that to much to ask?
Still, Isla was sad, and maybe it didn't actually have anything to do with the ball. She gave her friend an understanding smile, "Same here." She glanced at her sheet again, "Know anything about snowfall rates in Canada?" Val sighed, "You seen down Isla, is there anything I can do to help?"
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Valentine Duell
There most definitely are, but still.
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