Something I don't stink at. on Charms

Professor Taylor

December 06, 2007 5:45 PM

Advanced Charms [Select Sixth Years] by Professor Taylor

As Charms was no longer a mandatory class in the sixth year, these classes were considerably smaller than the other Charms classes Lorraine Taylor taught at Sonora. The students were also quieter and considerably more studious. That wasn’t to say that there were not studious students among the other years, merely that, as a general rule, younger students tended to lack the capacity to focus that older students had learned through years of trial and error.

There was also not a problem of lateness. In Lorraine’s opinion, her classes were not mandatory ones. Students who came late or who skipped class would just have to catch themselves up. Students who skipped too many lessons would have a discussion with herself as to their suitability for a class of this level.

“All right,” Lorraine began as the class started. “Reports up here, please.” The students had been asked to do a report on the distinctions between charms and jinxes over the holiday, although it was only required to be two thousand words. Given the time they had to do it in, it wasn’t as bad as she could have made it, by rights. A holiday was no time to forget what you were learning, particularly in a higher level course. “I trust you had a lovely break and are ready to get back to work!” She did get a few looks for that one.

“Perhaps not, but moving on. Today I want you to work on the Vacuum Charm, which can be found on page six hundred and thirty four in your books. The ten pages preceding it should have instructions and theory related information; I would like you to take notes on that. Afterwards, you may practise in these.” she moved her wand and the cabinet doors opened, revealing a few shelves with clear plastic trays. Each plastic tray was divided into six segments, each segment with a different, littered surface. Glass, plastic, carpet, wood, cloth, and leather were the different surfaces available. Obviously the point would be to experiment with the different surfaces in order to test the strength and versatility of the charm.

“Questions can be directed to me, as always,” Lorraine added, going to the front of the room and sitting at her desk to begin grading the reports as her students began their tasks.

Subthreads:

Advanced Sleepwalking by Mia Kerova

Something I don't stink at. by Kaylie Brockert

Question (tag Professor) by Lily Collins

0 Professor Taylor Advanced Charms [Select Sixth Years] 0 Professor Taylor 1 5

Mia Kerova

December 15, 2007 9:19 PM

Advanced Sleepwalking by Mia Kerova

Mia dropped her bag beside her usual desk in the charms classroom and pulled out her textbook, notebook, pencil, and wand. When asked, she also took out the essay she pulled together in the last two days of break, not that Professor Taylor needed to know that. She hated to procrastinate and didn’t make a habit out of it, even though surprisingly she got many good papers in the last few days to work on them. But after staying up two and a half hours later than usual the previous night proofreading the essay and then writing it over in ink, she was confident in it as well as resentful towards it for the lack of sleep it allowed her. She knew her morning classes would be hell to put up with. The afternoon wouldn’t be that much better. Oh well. Live and learn, right?

Mia brought her essay up, rewritten slowly and neatly in ink on parchment as were all of her final assignments handed in to professors. Otherwise, for classes she never quite broke out of her pencil habit. She humored Professor Taylor with a subtle disbelieving glance at the corny teacher joke. Mia threaded her wand through her fingers unconsciously as Professor Taylor explained the task for that class. Simple enough. Read and practice the Vacuum Charm. Mia flipped to the proper page as the class was told and did a quick glance over until they were told to look at what they would be practicing with.

“All right.” She said quietly to herself when Professor Taylor was through with her lecture. “Easy enough. Vacuum Charm.” Mia turned back to the beginning of the section and started reading and jotting down the notes she felt were important. She rubbed her eyes to stay focused and tried not to let the fact that she was rereading entire paragraphs multiple times discourage her. She could deal with a few hours of lost sleep. No problem.

It felt like hours before she got through an attempted skim of the ten pages of notes, but it probably wasn’t more than ten minutes. Her mind kept drifting to whatever her short dream had been the night before. She forgot the bulk of it, only recalling that it had to do with the upcoming ball that was making her stomach knot quite uncomfortably. Mia pushed her textbook aside thankfully, pocketed her wand and stood to get one of the sectioned trays. She brought it back to her desk and spent a good five minutes just staring at it tiredly before even raising her wand again to practice the charm.

Mia started on the glass surface since it was smooth and it would be easier to tell when she got the spell right. She kept at it until the pieces moved steadily across the glass towards her wand before moving on to the next sectioned off area of the tray. She couldn’t help how often her eyes drifted towards the clock. She knew Professor Taylor let her sixth years help out in the other charms classes, but she might just have to give it a pass that day for some quality time with her bed.

0 Mia Kerova Advanced Sleepwalking 0 Mia Kerova 0 5

Kaylie Brockert

December 16, 2007 7:04 AM

Something I don't stink at. by Kaylie Brockert

Charms was one subject Kaylie had always been naturally good at. Sure, she wasn't the prodigy that her cousin was at Transfiguration, but it was nice to feel better than adequate at something .

Still, Kaylie couldn't help but be a little worried. She knew Professor Taylor liked to teach theory rather than practical applications. Theory was rather boring to her and she was never very good at keeping up with it. She always managed to get lost somewhere, whereas her wandwork was pretty good.

She sighed with relief when she heard the lesson. Unfortunately they still had to take notes, but it seemed mostly like they had to practice the spell. The vacuum charm was also among the most practical and useful spells there were, especially if you had small children or pets. Her mother was always using this one and Kaylie herself had tried it a few times.

Kaylie quickly jotted down a few notes, fighting to suppress a yawn. She got up to get one of the clear plastic trays, wincing a bit as she did. Her back still hurt and she didn't care much for the pain medications which made her slightly loopy. Granted, it was hard to work when she was in pain as well, but she didn't need the added obstacle to thinking.

A smile formed on her lips when she recognized one of the substances as puffskin hair on carpet. This was a substance Kaylie was altogether familiar with. She said the appropriate spell and did the appropriate wand movements and watched as it sucked it right out.

Feeling good about something in what felt like the longest time, Kaylie turned to the next substance and surface.

11 Kaylie Brockert Something I don't stink at. 43 Kaylie Brockert 0 5

Lily Collins

January 05, 2008 11:59 PM

Question (tag Professor) by Lily Collins

Lily was one of the ones who gave the professor a dirty look when she mentioned having a lovely break and being ready to get back to work. She had personally not really had a lovely break and there was no need to be ready to get to back to work when one had not really ever stopped. Lily had spent the better part of her break in the library getting all her homework done and when she had no more, reading or studying for her classes.

This particular report hadn't been hard, except for the having to fill it in the rest of the words because Lily knew the difference between a charm and a jinx and could state it in a fairly concise manner. This was the main reason for the aforementioned dirty look. She never did like when teachers asked for a lot of unnecessary information for a fairly simple question. It seemed like a waste of time. Not that Lily had had anything but time over midterm. Still, she didn't like being forced to do more than what she felt was necessary.

She sighed as they were instructed to do the vacuum charm. Well, at least it was something useful even if it wasn't the kind of thing used to take down dark wizards and creatures. That was a different class anyway. Besides, Lily had never liked cleaning. If she used charms, she'd have more time for her career as an Auror.

Before she tried out the spell though, Lily had to know something. She walked up to the professor and asked. "Where does the substance we vacuum up go?" She was certain it didn't go into her wand.

11 Lily Collins Question (tag Professor) 45 Lily Collins 0 5