Headmistress Kijewski
January 07, 2012 1:24 PM
Returning Feast by Headmistress Kijewski
Midterm had been completely different than what Kiva had anticipated. The two weeks home with her son and family was always nice and she had been able to get to know Walter a bit better. Her mother was acting like a teenager with her new love interest and Kiva was happy for her. Although she would always miss her father, she knew that her mother was still young and deserved a new happiness. Her mother wasn’t the only one in a new relationship. Kiva had begun dating a man whom she had been friends with since she had become a mother, seven years prior. As awkward as the moment had been for them, they were incredibly happy with each other and it seemed so natural and normal for them to be together. She had no idea why it had taken so long, but she knew that it had been mainly her. It took her a long time to let go of things and really take a chance with something new. But everything was good now. Very good. And that reflected in her as she stood to greet the students.“Good Evening everyone! I hope your Holidays went well and everyone is now all refreshed and ready to get back to work.” Kiva waited for any murmurs that were bound to come around for that comment. “Before we begin the returning feast, I wanted to share with you the end of the year Midsummer Event. This year is the Fair and we were lucky enough to be able to secure a location that is new to all of you.” Kiva paused for dramatic affect, but also to make sure that everyone was listening to her.
“This year, the fair will take place in Tumbleweed.” Kiva was actually really excited by this prospect. It had been a long time since she had been in that town. It had always been so fun. “Tumbleweed will be docked here for a weekend and during their stay, they will host the fair. There will be the usual games and rides, but there will also be some additional games and activities that you all can get involved in. The main one that I wanted to talk to you about was the craft booth that will be there. The town is having a competition on their crafts that they would like for you all to be a part of. You have this half of term to create something. Examples would be knitting an article of something, or creating pottery, painting or drawing a picture. Anything crafty. The day of the Fair, we will have you submit these works to the booth and throughout the day the judges will review these works and at the end of the night and give out ribbons.
“There is also a Hipporiff raising competition that you are allowed to partake in. If you are interested in that, you will have to speak with Professor O’Shaunassey as he will be providing you with the creature as well as the housing.” Kiva nodded to the new Care of Magical Creatures before continuing, “And lastly, there is a chili cook off that you are more than welcome to join. If you are interested in any of these, please let your Head of Houses or myself know. We’d like to have a number to provide the heads of the festival for each contest.” She really hoped some of the students involved themselves in it because that would show how appreciative the students were for everything and that they were willing to put in the effort.
“There will also be animal shows, square dancing, and some entertainment for you all to enjoy. If you have any questions or concerns, please see any of the staff members.” Kiva announced to them. She hoped that the fair would be enjoyable for everyone, but she knew there would be those with whom she was never going to be able to please. “That is all the announcements I had. Please enjoy your meal.”
Subthreads: Back for an exciting term! by Waverly Canterbury with Jade Owen, Waverly
Where things are normal . . . sort of by Derry Four with Reggie Parker
One last welcoming feast by Andrew Duell with Jose Hernandez, Jose
Eating the return feast by Thaddeus Pierce II with Alicia Bauer
Returning and feasting. by Rachel Bauer with Nic Sawyer
Intrigued by Evan Brockert with Cepheus Princeton, Cepheus
Returning to the feast by Jane Carey
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Headmistress Kijewski
Returning Feast
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Headmistress Kijewski
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Andrew Duell
January 08, 2012 2:39 PM
One last welcoming feast by Andrew Duell
Andrew climbed aboard the wagon to Sonora for what was probably going to be his last time. After this term he'd be moving on, assuming everything went okay with RATS and all. He wasn't terribly worried about that though, nor was he really concerned with the fact that this was his last wagon trip to Sonora. His mind was busy attempting to figure out how to begin processing the rather unexpected news he had gotten over break. As such, he spent the entirety of the trip keeping mainly to himself. Jose was on the wagon as well, and he couldn't completely ignore his friend, but he kept interactions to a minimum. He assumed Jose picked up on the fact that there was something going on, but he was just going to have to wait a bit. Andrew was going to have to figure out how to proceed before he could tell Jose or even Marissa.He hoped Marissa had a good break, he hadn't been in contact with her over break due to... stuff. He looked around for her as he climbed off the wagon and entered the hall. Last term he had done this eager to find her and catch up, now he was just looking for reassurance that she was here, then he'd find his way to the Teppenpaw table. He wasn't sure if he wanted to talk to her first or Jose, or maybe both of them at the same time... and maybe he was making to big of a deal out of this. It was possible, but with the amount of ruckus it had caused over break he wasn't taking any chances.
The headmistress got up and did her traditional 'welcome back' speech. Not much of it registered. The bit about the fair at Tumbleweed did, the craft competition specifically. It evoked a brief image of him building a giant, mechanical, steam-powered spider to enter in the competition. It was crushed rather quickly by the reality of RATS studying sucking up all his allocated 'free-time'. As the food appeared before him, he mechanically dropped some on his plate and began eating it. The semi-vacant, information-processing look still dominated his face as it had since soon after he'd arrived home for break.
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Andrew Duell
One last welcoming feast
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Andrew Duell
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Jose Hernandez
January 09, 2012 2:03 PM
There may be the End-of-Term one yet by Jose Hernandez
Jose's ride back to school had been a little subdued. Andrew hadn't exactly been ignoring him, but he hadn't been engaging fully into their conversation either, and after a while Jose just let it drop and gave him some space. Instead, he'd watched the country pass by beneath him and marveled that he would only see it do that one more time from Sonora's wagons, when he went home for the final time at the end of the year. That thought had subdued him far more than Andrew's lack of conversation had and he wondered briefly if a similar melancholy was why Andrew was being so quiet in the first place. With the California Pierces being as nomadic as they were, seven years of boarding at the same school made Sonora the single location Jose had ever identified as a home. Home, for him, was generally identified by people not location.This location, though, he thought he would miss, tied as it was to his experiences and even the people he'd met there. A Quidditch Pitch, from now on, would always make him think of Mel and Sophie and all the other people he'd played with over his years on and leading the Pecari team. A room full of boiling cauldrons would make him think of Andrew and Fawcett. Thinking of Headmistresses Kejewski or Powell or Headmaster Regal would always make walls of waterfalls appear in the background. Any time he tried to draw up the image of Jude Normandy, he would also remember the room they'd shared.
So he spent most of the ride back to school looking over the wagon's sides and trying to memorize every cactus they passed along the way.
Arriving at the Gardens, he jumped off the wagon and headed inside, taking the time to say hello to most of the people he recognized by name. In the Hall, he initially moved toward the Pecari table, but then decided he'd play it wild for his one of his last Feasts, and headed to the Teppenpaw table instead. Andrew hadn't said much during the trip over and Jose had, upon seeing the cheerfully falling Cascades, decided that if they didn't do the trick of snapping his friend out of his funk, it became Jose's duty as Best Friend to do so.
First though, his duty as Head Boy and Prefect to behave and listen intently to the Headmistress's speech took precedence. The fair sounded awesome, and even though he'd dropped Care of Magical creatures, the hippogriff raising competition did sound really cool. He'd always liked hippogriffs, and this was probably the only chance he'd ever get to work with them closely. Crafts sounded cool, too, so if he had a chance to put something together for that, he might give it a try. Between Quidditch and Head Boy and looking after a hippogriff and everything else, though, that might prove difficult. Crafts might be out. Chili could work though. His family had a really good recipe for a six bean variety that didn't have any meat or cheese in it. Even Saul liked it and Saul hated most vegan dishes. That shouldn't take more than a couple hours just before the fair and Quidditch would be over by then.
RATS shouldn't be a problem either. Jose had a strict policy on studying for exams - if he didn't know it by the time the exam date came around, he had no business passing the test. He'd probably do some review stuff in the weeks leading up to them, but he had no intention of going RATS-crazy and spending every waking hour in the library until he starting speaking Transfiguration theory in his sleep. He didn't need straight Os. He just needed to do well enough to get into a college potions program, and if that didn't happen, he'd just apprentice under Elly. No pressure at all. Given his current level of class performances, though, he fully expected to pull Es in most of his subjects and an O in potions even without heavy-duty studying.
As the Headmistress finished up her speech and Jose finished mulling over his fair options, he turned to Andrew and found him still sporting that vacant look he'd had for most of the wagon ride. "Okay, dude," Jose said, snapping his fingers in front of Andrew's face. "We're back now for only a couple more months, so live it to its fullest. What's eating you?" He was pretty darn proud of himself that every single one of those words was in English after spending his whole midterm with the Hernandezes, even if 'dude' was a word that he had mostly expunged from his vocabulary a few years ago. Sometimes a guy just needed to be called a dude, and today Andrew fit that bill.
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Jose Hernandez
There may be the End-of-Term one yet
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Jose Hernandez
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Andrew
January 09, 2012 8:39 PM
A welcoming feast at the end of term? Interesting idea... by Andrew
Andrew jumped a bit, startled by his neighbor snapping their fingers in front of him. Had he really been that out of it? Who would do something like that...? Jose, Jose would do something like that. How out of it was he? Had he sat down at the Pecari table by mistake? It seemed a bit unlikely, seven years of walking to the same table does tend to ingrain something into you. He looked around at the rest of the people at the table, they looked like Teppenpaws. Good, he must be at the right table. But then... he turned back to look at his table neighbor. It looked and sounded like Jose, but he was Head-boy, Prefect and such, shouldn't he be setting a good example? But he was also Jose, Andrew's oldest friend here at the school... and apparently he had detected that something was amiss. If he couldn't tell Jose, who could he tell?He shook his head and blinked a few times, attempting to mentally push the recent news to the backside of his brain to free up some processing power for normal stuff. Stuff like conversation, it was surprisingly difficult. Usually he was better at sorting out information and switching between tasks, he wasn't sure why this was consuming his mind the way it was. It really wasn't... he felt himself sliding back and shook his head once again to fight back. "Sorry, yeah... it's just been... an interesting break." How to even begin to explain? "How was yours? Get any interesting news?"
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Andrew
A welcoming feast at the end of term? Interesting idea...
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Andrew
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Jose
January 10, 2012 12:09 PM
I meant great big feasts where Prof. K makes a speech by Jose
Andrew jumped and looked surprised to see him even though Jose had been sitting right there since shortly before the speech began. When he even looked around as if to check that he was in the right place, Jose felt even more certain he was doing the right thing here. Waiting patiently, Jose allowed Andrew a few seconds to re-oriented himself to the present."No problem," he waved off the apology. Andrew hadn't done anything to offend him, Jose was just a little concerned that his friend was so distracted. He really hoped Marissa hadn't broken up with the guy over midterm, but he felt he would have heard about that sooner if it had. Besides which 'interesting' - even by Andrew's sometimes unusual definition of the word - didn't really encompass horrible or devastating. Oh-God-Oh-God-We're-All-Going-To-Die, maybe, but not Marissa-Broke-Up-With-Me. It was an important distinction, Jose thought.
"My break was good. You can't call it boring because there were too many people to ever approach boring, but normal. For us." That, too, was an important distinction. "My cousin Simon brought a girlfriend, which is something he never did before, so everyone's making bets on when he's going to propose. Funny thing is that this lady is Sully's mom." He pointed out the blond second year at the Pecari table. "He's totally paranoid your cousin will find out. It's kind of funny. I caught him checking behind a couple of potted plants at my gramma's house, and asked him if he was looking for something, and he said 'Yeah, Jhonice's spies.'"
He didn't really understand what the kid's problem was with the girl. She was far from the best Quidditch player he'd ever had on his team, but she tried hard and he'd never had a problem with her that didn't have something to do with her rather impressive lack of skill. And Jose really was a California Pierce, albeit a not particularly interesting member of the clan, comparatively.
"And Saul and Elly went to a wedding together, but not their own, to the continued dismay of most of the family." There were bets about when that would happen, too, but those had been going on for so long, it wasn't news anymore.
"What about yours? How was it . . . 'interesting'?" He couldn't help a slight amount of dubiousness as he repeated the word that Andrew had used.
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Jose
I meant great big feasts where Prof. K makes a speech
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Jose
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Andrew
January 11, 2012 8:04 PM
True, if you use those criteria by Andrew
Andrew listened to Jose's recount of his break, and laughed at Sully's take on Jhonice. Poor Sully, he'd feel sorry for the kid if he hadn't had to put up with Jhon since she was old enough to talk. Luckily she lived in another state, and now at least in a another section of the school. Sulivan didn't have that luxury. Jose seemed to be coping well enough though. He debated briefly about sharing the information with his cousin, would that make him and Jose 'Jhonice's spies'? It would be rather a rather cruel thing to do, he'd have to think about it.Jose brought things back to focus on his break fairly quickly. There was no way to avoid it, heck maybe Jose would have some good advice. "Well..." he started slowly. "Do you remember how my summer ended up? I was at Mom's for a little bit, then went to Dad's, nothing seemed to out of the ordinary, but with the whole Marissa thing I guess I was a little preoccupied. Then they sprung the surprise vacation on me all the sudden, and that went downhill fast, we barely made it back in time for me to catch the wagons heading back to school. Well, the whole impromptu vacation was their idea to do a family thing and tell me the news." He paused for just a moment to collect the next stage of his explanation, "That plan fell apart as fast as the vacation itself did, so they didn't get the chance. A few months went by and then I was heading home again. They had no choice now, even I couldn't be that oblivious... Mom just smiled as I gawked and said 'Surprise, you're going to be a brother!'"
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Andrew
True, if you use those criteria
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Andrew
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Jose
January 11, 2012 9:11 PM
I'll use those criteria by Jose
Jose blinked at him a couple times. Okay then. That explained the staring into space, the distractability, and the 'interesting'. "Wow," he said as an opener, while his brain rushed to catch up with the input he just got from his ears. "A brother?" he echoed Andrew's last two words then decided echoing was cool. "Wow."He nodded a couple of times for good measure then got his head in gear. "That's cool. Surprising. But cool. We've got some little kids in the California lot, they're fun to play with. And Lacey's pregnant now, too. Maybe her kid and your brother can be friends if Lacey's has magic. She's an Anderson, though, so probably not. We thought Bea might for a while, since she can see Regina, but -" Jose stopped as he realized he was way off topic and Andrew probably didn't care.
"Anyway, a brother. We've practice One Couple One Kid for almost a whole generation now, to keep our numbers down, so I never got to have a brother. But our cousins are basically siblings anyway. What do you think about this?"
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Jose
I'll use those criteria
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Jose
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Andrew
January 11, 2012 9:54 PM
Then you would be 100% correct, if such a feast occurs by Andrew
Thank goodness. Jose's reaction wasn't the same as his very poorly chosen question. The first thing out of his mouth at his parents was 'How did that happen?' He shuddered as remembered their response. They were his parents, they were old, and they told him far.... far, far more than he ever... ever wanted to know. If only he could purge that chunk of his memory, his brain might have a fighting chance at dealing with the other information he had gotten. There was one thing he was rather quick to correct Jose about."Technically they're not sure yet if it's a boy or a girl. Mom just told me I was going to be a brother, not that I was necessarily getting one." He paused at Jose's question, "I really don't know yet. I've been trying to figure it out since I got home. A sibling will be, interesting, but with any luck I'm going away to CalTech next year so I don't know how much I'll be around. Still as older brother I've got some level of responsibilities towards them, if it's a brother I'm going to have to teach him how to get into trouble and all that sort of stuff, right? If it's a sister I'm going to have to work to keep her out of trouble. Mostly though I'll have to teach them how to live with our parents."
He played with the food on his plate for a moment before continuing. "They are another issue. I think they know they can't raise a baby living like they do, they still lived together until I was six. Does that mean they're going to try living together again? If so, where? How? All of my experiments and projects I've been doing while we've been living here have been to somehow fuse the magical and the muggle in a form they can both accept so that they could live together again and be happy. None of that work seemed to pan out, will this do the trick? I doubt it, it didn't last time." At this point he was rambling on, spewing out verbally some of the mess that had been burning out his brain the past two weeks. "Maybe it'll give new opportunities though, and maybe I'll pick up something at CalTech that will let me finally bridge the gap for them. Or, it could...." he stopped, finally realizing what he was doing. "Heh, sorry again. On the plus side, it's distracted Mom from the fact that she hasn't met Marissa yet."
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Andrew
Then you would be 100% correct, if such a feast occurs
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Andrew
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