Owl for fifth and sixth year Aladrens on Aladren Commons

Professor John Fawcett

February 26, 2011 3:12 PM

Owl for fifth and sixth year Aladrens by Professor John Fawcett

Amelia’s letter had come as a surprise, though John supposed it could have been stranger. It could have been an Aladren who’d come to him and suggested that it would be prudent to offer career and course advisements to the fifth and sixth years.

Crotali, after all, were a mixed bag. While the caution and sense of their place would keep most of them from willingly showing a weakness or approaching Amelia Pierce for advice, another of their defining characteristics was their liking for rules, for order, and for…their places in society. At Sonora, it was clearly understood that teachers were teachers because they knew more than their students did, and that they were the ones who came up with the rules. So perhaps it wasn’t so strange that Marissa or Jethro might turn to Amelia for advice about what to do with their further studies.

Aladren was different. His House did not have quite the reputation for being unfriendly that Crotalus sometimes had, but that was at least in part because Aladrens were, by and large, self-contained beings, unlikely to form the intensely loyal groups that made being Head of Crotalus such an undesirable job. Crotali were social by nature, and could rely on networks; Aladrens relied on research. He would have been very surprised indeed if an Aladren had suggested this project to him, or to any of the faculty.

That did not mean, though, that his fifth and sixth years might not take advantage of the opportunity if it were presented to them, or that he might not be capable of being of some assistance to them, so he felt it would be in poor taste to not offer them the same chance the other Houses’ upper levels would get. So he wrote out the owls.

Mr./Miss __________

As you are doubtless aware, you are drawing closer to the time when you must declare which RATS exams you will take, as well as making many other decisions regarding your future after you leave this school. If you would like an appointment in which to discuss your goals and how best to reach them, including course selections, future educational options, and potential careers, I would be pleased to assist you. My office hours are listed below, and you may write or approach me during them to set up a meeting time. This is, of course, completely optional.

Sincerely,

Professor Fawcett

OOC: If your character comes in for an appointment, you can just show up and assume any scheduling conflicts were worked out off-screen. If your character doesn’t, you can either respond to this to let John know or just ignore this post.

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Mr. Nash

February 27, 2011 7:19 PM

Attending a meeting by Mr. Nash

Professor Fawcett's owl could not have come at a better time. Daniel had already begun researching those very topics on his own but actual advice from a live wizard who knew Daniel himself instead of series of books written to general audiences was almost certainly a better source to consult. So Daniel wrote back to arrange for a meeting in between his time commitments for Quidditch and helping in the Library and attending classes and performing Head Boy duties and doing homework and everything else he needed to do.

At the appointed hour (during a time period he normally dedicated to potions homework, which was either appropriate or ironic, he wasn't sure which), he knocked on the Aladren Head's door and entered when he was invited to do so.

Under his arm, he carried the folder containing the results of his research to date, and the handful of What Do Want to Be? worksheets he'd already filled out.

As he sat down, he summarized his current progress. "So far I've elimated every career I've looked into." This included several options he was reasonably certain Professor Fawcett would never recommend, including con-man, international spy, and undercover cop. "I'm good at public speaking, lying, memorization, mimicry, organizing, and precise execution of even complicated steps. I work well under pressure, but I don't want anything too dangerous or too unpredictable. I can handle tedium, but I'd like something that actually accomplishes something. I have seven years of experience acting, but my television show is being cancelled and I don't like the unpredictability of the industry or the auditioning process. When I was little I wanted to be an accountant, because that was much more stable, but I think I'd be bored in it now."

He held up one of the worksheets toward his Head of House. "So far, these do-it-yourself career guides are telling me my best bet is politics, but I'm under the impression they're just as bad or worse for job security and the papparazzi making up dirt about you, so I don't want that either. This one had me list my skills and interests, so maybe you'd like to see that."

He handed over another piece of parchment with the following information on it:

Skills:
Acting, Memorization, Public Speaking, Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Flying, Leadership

Interests:
Television, Theatre, Movies, Psychology

As he did so, he added, "I'm muggleborn, so I'm not really sure what kinds of 'interests' wizards have outside of Quidditch."

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Professor Fawcett

March 01, 2011 10:30 PM

Continuing a meeting by Professor Fawcett

It was against his natural inclinations, but after many years of school – first Muggle school, what was now called ‘elementary’ but had then been referred to, where he grew up, most often as ‘grammar school,’ then seven years of Sonora, then three degrees, and a steady stream of classes over the years on subjects that caught his fancy – John had learned organization. It was only within the confines of academic positions where the eyes of someone were looking down on him, and he supposed he would have been crushed beneath a falling stack of books in his own house if he hadn’t had Allison, but within those confines, he was very organized indeed.

Well, enough to get by with, anyway. His office was still more of a comfortably disordered personal library than it was really an office, but his files were in very good order, and he never failed to hand in things he was supposed to hand in or turn up in places he was supposed to turn up. For this reason, he wasn’t surprised to hear a knock on his door at the time he was supposed to meet with Daniel Nash – the Second, Quidditch Captain, Head Boy, and very good academic record – about his life after Sonora.

“Good afternoon,” he said, waving Daniel toward the extra chair he’d brought in for these meetings before taking his own. “Well. What do you have in mind for your future so far?”

He wasn’t entirely surprised, either, that Daniel had done preliminary work, though he did raise an eyebrow at hearing him baldly admit that lying was one of his skills. He hid his amusement at a childhood dream of being an accountant. That was not one he had heard before, and was not entirely sure he had known what an accountant was himself when he was Daniel’s age, never mind younger, though he supposed the apparent complete difference in their lifestyles at that point could account for some of that. He looked over the list of interests and skills – noted that Daniel had not committed his ‘lying’ skill to writing – and nodded understanding at the complications of being a Muggleborn. He supposed he didn’t technically qualify as one, since his mother had attended Sonora, but as she was a Muggleborn fifth-year dropout and had never so much as uttered the word ‘magic’ from that time until it became clear that he and Carlene had some talent in that area, he might as well have been, and that was, he thought, part of why he’d devoted such a substantial portion of his adult life to studying magical society.

“Quite a few,” he said. “One of the unfortunate things about a student body the size of Sonora’s is the limited opportunity for exploration of such things. You’re correct, though, that politics are as messy here as they are in the Muggle world, if not more.” They had also seen a president assassinated far more recently than the Muggle world. “Psychology is a growing field in the magical world, though usually with a background in Healing, and Healer training is extremely demanding. There is also clinical sociology.” Not his field, clinical or applied sociology, but a worthy enough calling. “Studying social conditions with a mind toward finding solutions to the problems of it.” Though that was always a touchy topic in this world; there were two major opinions about what, exactly, the problems of their society were, and they were complete opposites. Occasionally violent opposites, though that wasn’t quite so common these days. For which John was very grateful. “The social and political sciences in general do not necessarily mean becoming a politician as I believe you used the term, though establishing a name for oneself as an academic is difficult at best, and almost certainly involves teaching at some point, if that is one of the career options you’ve considered and dismissed.”

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Daniel Nash II

March 02, 2011 9:47 AM

Continuing a Continuation. by Daniel Nash II

Daniel nodded as Professor Fawcett confirmed that politics was a tumultuous career choice and Daniel put and extra dark line through that entry of the mental list despite that it was already crossed out. Though he hadn't specifically thought of psychology as a career choice (it was more of a hobby to track his sister's and determine his own mental problems) but as the Head of House went into some of the forms wizards dealt with the topic, Daniel couldn't help but become interested.

He had always been a social person. Some of his earliest (and most traumatic) memories were of sneaking around and spying on people to see what they did and talked about when he wasn't around. He'd stolen Holly's school books when she came back from Sonora that first summer because he was curious about what kinds of things people learned at a school for magic people.

This was why he'd been made an Aladren, he was sure, but it had never really been about learning. It had been about people and what they did when he wasn't there to watch them.

Fawcett's warning about the life of an academic being difficult was not one he found to be discouraging. "I don't mind difficult. I just don't want dangerous or studios telling me my show is canceled and I need to find new work. Teachers are," well, perhaps not in Sonora which had seen a great lot of professorial turn-over in the years he'd been here, "generally a stable profession. I just didn't really think of it because it's so . . . academic."

He winced a little at admitting that to the Aladren Head of House. "I put on a good show, but I'm not actually as brilliant as I try to come across here. I was an average student at best at home. I can get by on memorization and mimicry and lots and lots of prep work, but . . ." he made a circling gesture that was meant to encompass most of their House, "I'm not really that smart. I got mid-seventies on most of my tests before dropping out of elementary school to go act. I had to do better than that to fit into Aladren, but it's been hard. I haven't had the free time to play a video game or read a book for fun since I was ten years old. I don't know. Can you be a teacher or an academic if you're only fake-smart?"

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Professor Fawcett

March 03, 2011 10:51 PM

Answering questions by Professor Fawcett

He had not seen it as much at Sonora, which he thought was something of a reversal from how it usually was, but when he had been at UCLA, John had noticed that students had a tendency, in conversation with teachers, to be unusually self-aware and confessional. He had supposed at the time that it was a combination of being relatively isolated from both the family and primary-school friends, thus forcing the teacher into the role of surrogate parent in some ways, and saw little evidence to refute the theory now. He had, therefore, expected that, at some point during these meetings, he was going to hear something he did not expect.

He had, however, expected it to be more along the lines of Edmond Carey expressing a secret desire to live for a time among true Muggles and then run away with the California Pierces than Daniel Nash telling him he did not consider himself intelligent.

“I would first argue that you are not – er – ‘fake-smart,’” he said. “Merely that you excel in what you focus on, and are weaker in other areas. This is true of most of us, Mr. Nash.” Himself, unfortunately, included. “I would advise you to accept a slightly lower standard of excellence in exchange for having some time for leisure activities, though, if it would not make me something of a hypocrite.”

Excessive fixation on one topic or area of life, to the exclusion of some other or others, was not particularly rare among Aladrens; he knew a fellow, their wives exchanged Christmas cards in their names, who’d done quite a lot of study on the role of Houses in shaping personality and skills who argued that Aladren lent itself better to the obsessive sorts than Crotalus, which was more usually associated with that general mindset. He doubted Greg had anything to do with it, but he thought that idea might be beginning to become more widespread. “However, to answer your question…A thorough understanding of one’s field is essential, so you can explain it to someone else in a variety of different ways. For true scholarship, beyond merely teaching the received knowledge, there is a great deal of research done, and it is expected that you will – depending on the subject, of course – make original discoveries, or present, with evidence, a new way of looking at or resolving an issue, so there is an originality component.” He did not feel he was doing the best possible job of explaining this, though self-evaluation was always difficult. “Does that make sense?”

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Daniel Nash II

March 04, 2011 10:09 AM

Re: Answering questions by Daniel Nash II

There were two ways to accept Professor Fawcett's claim - even after knowing Daniel was an elementary school drop out who did slightly below average work when he wasn't pretending to be smart - that Daniel was not fake-smart. The first was that he was lying in an attempt to bolster Daniel's confidence.

Daniel considered this possibility and found it lacking. Fawcett had no reason to protect his ego, and Daniel had previously demonstrated precious little lack of self-confidence. Confidence wasn't the problem. Daniel had confidence in spades. Daniel had enough confidence to make up for his lack of genius. That was the whole point he had been trying to make.

Which meant that it was the other possibility that must be true. Professor Fawcett thought he was smart anyway. Or maybe had a different definition of 'smart' than Daniel did. Daniel put it somewhere in the realms of "James" and maybe "Quentin". Though, to be fair, even they seemed to spend a lot of time doing schoolwork.

And . . . Daniel hadn't. Before. He'd done pretty well in history and science because they were kind of interesting but math and English were dead boring (another reason 'accountant' was a bad choice, though that hadn't occurred to him at the time) and he'd just let them coast with quick get-it-over-with assignments and in class he'd read the instruction manual for the latest Zelda game instead of paying attention. He'd gotten really good at Zelda. Not so much at math and English.

Maybe if he could figure out how to balance the school work and the fun stuff (whatever people did for fun here), maybe he wouldn't automatically become a dunce again.

Not that he could let his studies slip even a little or James would win. James was already winning in the academic battle. Daniel couldn't let up or he'd get even further ahead. Plus, there were the RATS coming up in less than two years, and Daniel needed to do well there to get into a proper college, and . . .

Maybe he was focusing a little too tightly. One visit to the new MARS shouldn't destroy his GPA, and it might help him slow down the crazy. If anyone at this school should make use of a mental health day every now and then to safely release the stress, it was the half-brother of Holly Greer.

Daniel nodded slowly as Professor Fawcett asked if he'd understood what he was trying to say. He'd not been giving the words as much attention as they probably deserved, but he'd caught the gist. Straight up teachers needed a full understanding of their subjects - something Daniel was sure he could handle if he tried. People who actually studied a subject had to be original. He was less sure he could reach that.

He wasn't creative like Barry was. He'd never make it as a writer or anything; he didn't have that kind of originality, but he did like discoveries. He thought he might be able to handle discoveries. Thinking just different enough from everyone else to notice something nobody ever had before. That . . . he could probably do. Merlin knew he didn't think like other people thought. That kind of originality he could manage without even trying.

"I think so," he agreed verbally. "I think I could be the guy behind news people who say," his voice deepened in mimicry of one of the radio announcers he listened to at home, "Recent studies find that the professions with the lowest divorce rates are accountants, caterers, screenwriters, and cameramen." He grimaced a little as he mentioned the last one, but Anton was approaching three years with Mom and that was just uncanny. They weren't even at the always fighting/never talking stage yet. Anton's profession deserved at least an honorable mention in Daniel's fake study.

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Professor Fawcett

March 07, 2011 9:55 PM

Very good by Professor Fawcett

“An interesting hypothesis,” John said, not missing that Daniel’s childhood dream job was also the one he listed at the top of his low-divorce list. “Marriage and Family is certainly a viable field in the world of magisociology, and in its Muggle counterpart, if you care to take that route.” Daniel’s file indicated he was Muggleborn, though also that he had a half-sister who was also magical. A definite argument for Squib descent, he would say. “Though there would, of course, be…complications involved in attempting to reenter the Muggle world on a permanent basis. A great deal of paperwork to be sorted.”

Doing so had ceased to be truly easy some centuries back, but from what John understood of it, the difficulty had increased exponentially since he’d been twenty and toying with the idea. It was these blasted computers. He could understand the appeal of being able to transfer information quickly and reliably between large numbers of people, but it seemed as though anyone could learn to do that and meddle with the process, and that, once the user of the computer assumed a certain rank in the Muggle government, it was possible to find any discrepancy and report on it. Well enough for their own security, but a pain in the neck for the wizarding world’s. He could only assume the Computer Users were being Obliviated and Confunded on a daily basis to cover up for the Muggleborns, which was an entire field of ethics debate all by itself.

Personally, he was a little uneasy with that sort of thing, though not to the point of joining the Integrationists. Though that was less significant than it might have been if he’d not been voting mixed tickets since he was old enough to vote. “In any case, if that is an option you’re interested in investigating seriously, I’d recommend beginning to look at related materials now. Particularly modern politics and issues, though a good understanding of history would also be beneficial. I can, if you wish, supervise you in this, or recommend reading.”

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Daniel

March 08, 2011 5:11 PM

I try to be by Daniel

Daniel shrugged at the remark about paperwork to reintegrate back into muggle society. "I'm already on the books as being privately tutored, I've had working papers since I was ten, and nobody's going to argue that I don't exist. I didn't just vanish when I came to Sonora. I doubt it'll be a problem for me if I go that route, which I thought I would until my show got canceled. Now, I'm not so sure. The Magical world does have the advantage that I don't need to deal with people recognizing me."

It occurred to him that maybe Fawcett was not aware of his summer job for the past six years. "I'm an actor, if you didn't know. I've been a regular on a cop show that my dad stars in since before I started at Sonora. It's primetime and it's been going for seven seasons now, so even if they don't watch it, most muggles have seen the commercials. It was really weird coming here where not many people have heard of television, never mind Dan Nash or Kathleen Burbridge. At home, I never had to use my numeral to be the Second. Here, it's the only way I have to show my parents are Someones."

He grimaced and shrugged a little, "So maybe there is some advantage to staying muggle, too, since I don't think I can handle actual anonymity." Now that he was Head Boy and Quidditch Captain, he certainly didn't have it at school anymore, and between those honors and the show, he wasn't sure he even wanted to be anonymous now. That had been one of the appeals of being an accountant that had lost its shine over the last few years. "But I don't always want to be known as That Kid Who Played Nate Bealer, either. Here, no one's ever heard of Nate Bealer, which is good, but neither have they heard of Anyone Nash, which I don't like nearly as much. Is there any middle ground?" he asked a little plaintively, without expecting there to be any such thing.

"But yeah, I'd like to at least start looking seriously into sociology. I could do that on either side, whichever way I go. Modern Politics, Social Issues, and History," he repeated the areas of interest as he noted them onto one of his sheets of paper. "I would appreciate it a lot if you could be my supervisor."

Thomas had mentioned on more than one occasion last year how much work Fawcett had given out on his independent studies, but Daniel thought he could manage. If it got too bad, he could probably drop Astronomy.

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Professor Fawcett

March 14, 2011 1:13 AM

Are you generally successful? by Professor Fawcett

John was among those who had never heard of Dan Nash, though he didn’t see any reason to tell the boy that and had heard of Kathleen Burbridge. His brother Scott had once said that the girl playing his and his real life ex-wife’s daughter on his soap looked just like a young Kathleen Burbridge, and had then had to explain to John and Carlene who that was. He doubted, however, that secondhand knowledge of her from a Squib who made his living as an aging Muggle soap star was exactly the kind of recognition of his mother that Daniel was looking for.

“I suppose there are soap operas,” he said, not quite sure if he meant it seriously or not, when Daniel asked if there was a middle ground. “The recognition is slightly lower in most groups, but my younger brother has been Ken Corrigan for nineteen years.” There was something a bit off with a grown man being as excited as Scott had been when he and Nicole, in their roles as Ken and Katherine, had made it onto a list of supercouples in the Digest, and with his pride when his current wife, Isabel, was listed as a great villain for all the times her character had broken Ken and Katherine up.

Izzy was largely retired these days, but still made appearances at the occasional wedding or funeral, and had come in for one twelve-week stint two years ago because the audience was responding so poorly to the previous attempt to shake Ken and Katherine up. She said she got enough hate mail for supposedly, no matter how often Nicole denied it and they all made a public show of being good friends, breaking Scott and Nicole up without adding much more fuel to the fire, and was hoping that the end of that last stint was the one where they finally killed Trina Hayes off for good. John doubted she would get that lucky, but hadn’t told her that.

“However, I would, in terms of stability, still recommend the social sciences over that,” he said, being, of course, completely unbiased in this matter. Everyone knew soaps were a dying industry; two of the most venerable had been killed in the past few years, and even the top performers weren’t drawing the ratings they used to. Sociology had been growing as a field and in importance since the term was coined. “There is the potential for recognition in one’s field, and possibly for wider acknowledgment if one accomplishes something truly noteworthy and beneficial to many.”

He nodded his acceptance of his role. “Very well,” he said. It was extra work, but he’d quite enjoyed at least dabbling back in the basics of the subject to which he’d given so much of his adult life last year (if not his occasional suspicions that Mr. Wright attended discussions of magic politics in the Byzantine courts or explanations of contemporary relations between the Council and the Cabinet while on drugs), and imagined he would again. “You will, of course, need to draft a proposal for the Headmaster’s approval, which I will sign off on before you submit it.” He took care not to frown slightly; the students did not need to know that he found it ridiculous that the headmaster’s approval was required when it was professors and Heads of Houses who knew the students well enough to know what they could handle, especially when the headmaster was a recent addition who’d never taught a single class at the Academy.

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Daniel Nash II

March 14, 2011 1:31 PM

With a few exceptions, yes, usually. by Daniel Nash II

Daniel blinked a little in surprise and couldn't help a small frown of distaste when Professor Fawcett suggested soaps. Okay, yes, he was on a cable network, so he'd done his fair share of less-than-fully-dressed scenes, and his dad had done worse, but didn't Fawcett know what went on in soaps? Even Mom had fewer boyfriends and husbands than the average soap character. The thing he liked best about being Nate Bealer was that he'd only had to suffer one divorce.

"A little too close to home, thanks, but no." True, there were some key soap plots he hadn't had to live through (yet), but between Mom and Luke's dad, they had the tons of half-siblings all with different parents down pat, and Dad himself was in the closet with a secret boyfriend, and Daniel was an accidental conception that should not have even been possible because logic dictated that the two adults in question could not have even been attracted to each other never mind done things, and Holly was mentally ill and Daniel himself might not be far behind her, and . . . it was just depressing to think about.

Plus, he was way too good an actor to be on a soap. That was for people who hadn't yet or never would break into prime-time. He didn't mention that, though, since Professor Fawcett had professed a relation to one of that variety of actor.

He nodded in complete agreement over the higher recommendation toward the social sciences and carefully put the thoughts of soap operas out of his head. Nate was a relatively good person to have an occasional identity problem with. The last kind of person Daniel wanted to be was a soap character.

Daniel wrote down the requirement of writing up an independent study proposal and nodded again. "Okay, I'll get that to you later today or tomorrow then," he agreed.

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