Ethiopia group meeting! on Magical Arts Room and Sports

Prof. Isis Carter

December 29, 2016 3:22 PM

Ethiopia group meeting! by Prof. Isis Carter

The trouble with being a substitute leading a fair group was the lack of classroom. Isis knew most of her coworkers, the regularly scheduled professors, would probably have their groups meet up in their specific classroom, which didn’t quite work out for her. The only other person with this issue was sure to be the medic, who technically had the hospital wing at her disposal but, Isis imagined, would probably not want a group of children hanging around where there was sure to be sensitive or otherwise dangerous equipment.

So the Pecari Head of House opted for MARS, specifically the water room. She figured it was more private and less noisy than the Cascade Hall would be, plus a nice beach scene would probably be overall more pleasant for her gaggle of third years.

She still wasn’t sure how that happened, unless they had all signed up together on purpose. She knew that Theresa Whittaker and Raine Collindale, at least, were Nevaeh’s friends, and Tasha DuBois was her roommate. Mostly, Isis just could not believe that Nevaeh had actually selected to be in her group. That boded well, although it made her incredibly nervous, wanting desperately to prove herself in this eyes of this little girl. Her little girl.

Isis took a deep breath. No time for worrying now, as her group began arriving. “Hey, everyone,” she said with a smile. “Welcome to the Ethiopia group. As you know, you guys are now responsible for planning, setting up, and running a booth on Ethiopia at the fair at the end of the year. What you choose to focus on within Ethiopia’s culture is entirely up to you. I’m only here to moderate, so if anyone has an idea to start with, let’s get this discussion going.” She imagined some groups had probably began with personal introductions, but as yearmates in a relatively small school, she assumed everyone knew each other well enough to just dive right in.

OOC: For this thread, you won't have to worry about a posting order. Just chime in as you feel inclined. All other rules still apply. Have fun, guys!

12 Prof. Isis Carter Ethiopia group meeting! 31 Prof. Isis Carter 1 5

Joe Umland

December 29, 2016 5:12 PM

Getting things started. by Joe Umland

Joe had expected his Fair group to end up a little unusual and had looked forward to it for that reason. He had not, however, expected said group to be entirely made up of third years and almost entirely made up of girls – ‘almost’ solely because of Joe’s own participation. When he had seen Nevaeh signed up, he had expected Barnaby Pye, at the very least, would naturally follow, but that had not happened. It was just Joe, Nevaeh, Tasha, Raine, and Tess Whittaker.

He was optimistic about the project anyway. One person he knew was cool, two he’d wanted to get to know better anyway, and if Tasha was too violently opposed to the existence of people outside her own social class, Joe assumed she wouldn’t have joined a group full of them, which meant she might be cool too and was at the very least probably someone who could be worked with. As long as no-one questioned Joe’s masculinity as a result of his being on a team of girls, which he didn’t think was likely when he didn’t recall making any enemies in his day and the yearbook had never suggested he’d missed one or two, the fact that his group was entirely, other than himself, made up of girls from his year was more interesting than worrisome to him.

The beach scene in MARS was a tad distracting to him when he arrived for the meeting – Joe had only seen the ocean two or three times in his life, but he found it fascinating, and there was the bit of him that understood how John saw the world which was also fascinated by this half-(but not entirely)illusory representation of it worked – but he managed to pull his eyes away from the waves when Professor Carter started speaking. He was a little surprised to hear that they were entirely responsible for organizing and developing the booth, he had expected the adults to set them tasks and expect them to do them like extra homework, but he thought his team should be all right. They were, he thought, a pretty solid bunch, and he doubted Professor Carter was telling them the complete, unvarnished truth. If the staff members had not been meant to push them back into line if they got too far off the mark, he wasn’t sure what they were even at the head of the groups for.

Joe had brought a notebook and a pen to jot down notes with and opened these as Professor Carter opened the floor to comment. “Hi, everyone.” Here was hoping nobody thought it had been weird for him to send the whole group candygrams before midterm. “I was thinking about what Professor Skies said when she made the announcement a few months ago – should we each pick something and research that, or work in mini-teams on three different things, or what?” It would have been ideal, Joe thought, to have three teams of two, but two teams of two and one team of three could work, too. Mini-teams could also keep someone shyer, like Raine, from having to make a big public contribution if she didn’t want to, or at least more than each person taking something could do. However, they could cover more ground individually, though that did leave the problem of how to organize it into a coherent booth….”On, uh, specific things, I kind of like to cook,” he offered, remembering that while he thought organizing things up-front was the most important bit (there was a reason he had seriously worried about being put in Crotalus when he came to Sonora), that wasn’t exactly what Professor Carter had asked. “And music would be cool.”

16 Joe Umland Getting things started. 329 Joe Umland 0 5

Raine Collindale

January 02, 2017 8:00 AM

Taking things forward by Raine Collindale

Raine made her way to the MARS room, excited to get working on the fair. She already knew most of her group, and the two she wasn’t already friends with she knew from just… around. Joe had also sent out candy canes to all the group members at the end of last term, so she was confident that he was friendly, and she gave him a warm smile as she entered the room.

Professor Carter’s introduction was brief, essentially they had a free reign. Raine was excited about that, as she’d already come up with an idea but hadn’t been sure whether it would fit the format. It sounded though, like things were very open, which was good. She had been a little worried when she signed up that it would just be like doing extra homework but it seemed they were free to tackle the project how they wanted.

“I’d like to work together on things,” she replied to Joe’s question. She hadn’t joined a group project just to go and do a load of solo research. “I was thinking, could we write to some people? We could find a magical school in Ethiopia and write them letters. That way, we could learn what it’s really like to live there, not just what it says about it in books.” Raine wasn’t great at researching that way but she also really thought it would make it a more genuine experience to talk to the people from the country they were representing.

13 Raine Collindale Taking things forward 327 Raine Collindale 0 5

Tasha DuBois

January 16, 2017 5:51 PM

Being super enthusiastic!!!! by Tasha DuBois

Tasha was super super excited about the first meeting of the Ethiopia group. In fact she was super super excited about the fair in general. The Aladren was quite the world traveller even at her age, something that had happened because her mother loved to travel so the love of doing so had been passed on. It had been such a way of life to Tasha that going to Sonora was something of a shock to her system.

And she couldn't help but feel alienated here a little. She didn't particularly fit in with her classmates. Part of that was the travel thing of course and all the experiences she'd had that they hadn't. And being at school was so super lonely without friends. It just made her wish she was back with her parents in some far off location sometimes.

But she knew she had to keep trying as she was obviously not going to drop out of school.After all, her classmates had signed up for a fair booth, that meant they had to be interested in other cultures right? At least Ethiopian culture? For Tasha, along with music, other cultures were what she was most interested in, food in particular.

She couldn't help but beam when Joe mentioned her two favorite things, food-well cooking, which admittedly she really didn't know how to do other than what she'd done in baking club-and music. "Oh Merlin, yes! Ethiopian food is a must! I went there over midterm more or less to you know, research and experience the country I signed up for." She was dimly aware that this might mark her as Privileged and while that was simply a fact, it was something else that marked her as different than her yearmates. Something they could resent her for but Tasha was just so overall excited, "And it is delicious. Music is a must too. I mean, I'm not sure that we can play instruments ourselves-I mean, I play trumpet and they do have trumpet like instrument called a malakat that's ceremonial. But we could like have some sort of traditional music playing in the background.

Next the Aladren turned to Raine. "That's a great idea too! I mean, I was there for like the duration of midterm, that's not nearly as good as learning from those who live there. Maybe we could all end up with Ethiopian penpals. That would be so amazing!" Of course, Tasha had penpals in other countries, but that didn't mean she wouldn't welcome another.

She realized now that she should probably contribute an idea of her own. "Maybe we can have like Ethiopian art decorating our booth too?" Tasha suggested.

11 Tasha DuBois Being super enthusiastic!!!! 323 Tasha DuBois 0 5

Joe Umland

February 14, 2017 12:23 PM

Great! by Joe Umland

Joe couldn’t help but smile as Tasha DuBois went from Typical Pureblood Girl Number Five-Hundred Eighty-Nine to a chatty bundle of enthusiasm for the project, even as he had to blink at the idea of going to Ethiopia over winter break. His family had been talking for years about going on holiday to England and Germany someday, but ‘someday’ was…at the very least after John was out of school, and probably Joe, too. They were not poor enough for tuition assistance and such even in their own country, so their holidays tended to be to the mountains once a year.

Rich enough to take him aback or not, though, she reminded him what he liked about Aladrens. They could be so enthusiastic about the most random things and he found it rather charming, in a way. He did not know if this was a direct consequence of growing up in his house or not, but at least, he thought, everyone was getting along so far….

“This is all great,” he said, wondering if Tasha meant to go back to Ethiopia over Easter and buy actual authentic artwork and a trumpet-like instrument to decorate with. That would be cool. Bit scary and a lot jealousy-inducing, but undeniably cool. “Maybe, depending on what the art is – I don’t know anything about African art – “ he admitted bluntly – “we could have an interactive part where people make something?” He looked back toward Raine. “And – were you thinking about incorporating having penfriends into the booth somehow, or just writing to learn more about the country?” he asked, making sure to smile as he spoke. He had no idea how they could incorporate the letters into the booth without it being weird – maybe profiles of Ethiopian students somehow? – but Raine could have an idea and he wanted to be sure she didn’t get talked over by the rest of them. She didn’t seem to feel too shy today, so maybe he had read her all wrong all along, but he doubted it would hurt anything. Specifics, or at least figuring out where the development of specifics was needed, were what he thought of as his thing.

16 Joe Umland Great! 329 Joe Umland 0 5