Professor Fawcett
June 12, 2009 7:19 PM
Lesson for Third, Fourth, and Fifth Years by Professor Fawcett
The intermediate class got off to its usual start. John had called class to order as soon as the bell rang, called roll perfunctorily, and put the completed list back into its red folder. After almost two years of taking one class with him or another every semester, all of this should have been run of the mill for the Intermediate group gathered before John in the lab.What he did next, however, was off-script. Instead of going into a lecture and telling the students to turn to such-and-such a page in their textbooks, John said, "Imagine, if you will, that you are an explorer and your companion has just, sadly, ingested a slow-acting poison."
He gave them a moment to process that. "Now, you aren't far from your camp, where you don't have any bezoars or Potions texts, but you do have a cauldron and a fully stocked basic Potions kit. Since you also have a degree in Herbology, you can tell that the plant your friend has ingested is related to one you are more familiar with, allowing you to estimate that you have about seven hours left to figure out a way to save your friend."
There was the scenario. He had no idea how well this would actually work, but the Intermediate class, as he'd come to appreciate early on, was always a hard one to get into the assignments, and he had to teach them antidotes somehow. A project was as good a way as any, in theory. "Your task is to divide into groups of three - if the number don't work, a few groups may need to add a fourth - and do research to determine what you think would be the best broad-spectrum, non-specific antidote that you could brew in six hours. We will stay with this for two weeks. While we will spend the class today and a meeting next week working in-class, much of this will be done on your own time. I'd advise those of you in third year to try to work with at least one student in a year above yours."
He gave the room a stern look. "No one person will be made to carry the load for a group; everyone will contribute to the final product. We'll end the unit with you brewing the antidotes and giving presentations on them in front of the class, and rest assured, I will know if any of you slacked off. You can pick your own groups. I would suggest you get started now by working out the logistics of who will cover what and compiling some lists from your textbooks; if some groups finish early, I may grant library passes so you can go ahead and start your research. Now, impress me." He sat down behind the teacher's table to watch as the room began to sort itself out into groups, hoping this was as good an idea in practice as it had seemed when he'd thought it up.
Subthreads: Looks like a job for Indiana Jones to me, Watson. by Grayson Wright with Jera Valson, Jera
Scouring the room by Lucie Dupree, Teppenpaw with Oliver Abbott
Leaving Josh for better company by Holly Greer
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Professor Fawcett
Lesson for Third, Fourth, and Fifth Years
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Professor Fawcett
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Grayson Wright
June 20, 2009 1:29 AM
Looks like a job for Indiana Jones to me, Watson. by Grayson Wright
Gray flipped absently through his textbook as he waited for his name to be called off the roll, already moderately sure he knew where they were going to be told to turn. According to the chapter directory, it was time for them to start the unit on antidotes. Gray had read the chapter over before he came to class, and figured the only surprise the unit might offer would be if Fawcett decided it would be fun to poison them all right before a very straightforward pass-fail exam at the end. Since that didn't seem very 'Fawcett', Gray was anticipating a relatively dull next few weeks.For that reason, he was somewhat startled to hear the first words of the lesson proper. Gray's mind, almost of its own accord, immediately conjured up a dense jungle, complete with rope bridge and khaki hats. His explorer-self was a bit taller than his real self, and his unfortunate poisoned colleague looked a lot like an older Addie. He considered changing that to an older Lucie, just because he thought he was far more likely to get talked into doing something as monumentally stupid as taking on the Amazon by Lucie, but finally left the picture as it was.
Unfortunately for the sense of urgency the professor was, presumably, trying to create, Gray's imagination was pretty literal at times. The next bit left him imagining explorer-Gray leaving explorer-Addie clinging to a rope bridge while he ran through the woods and then around a camp, waving a Herbology degree about in a distinctly pointless fashion. He was having a hard time not laughing at the ridiculous visual, and had to think about the depressing fact that the real him would have been dithering around even more pointlessly and having a panic attack to manage it.
Somehow, after that elaborate scenario, it seemed like the announcement that they were starting a group project should have come as much less of a surprise than it did. Gray put his book back into his bag and stood, scanning the room as he did. After denying her a place in his weird visual, the least he could do was offer Lucie a place in his group. It didn't hurt that doing so would also ensure there was at least one person in said group who he could get along with. Before he could find her, though, he heard his name and turned, surprised. "Huh? I mean - could you say that again?"
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Grayson Wright
Looks like a job for Indiana Jones to me, Watson.
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Grayson Wright
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Lucie Dupree, Teppenpaw
June 21, 2009 7:44 PM
Scouring the room by Lucie Dupree, Teppenpaw
Having had professor Fawcett previously, Lucie had gotten used to the business as usual attitude, and as such, had her parchment already to go. She also had her new choice in pens for the year, which were basic black, but bore her name. It had taken forever to find them, as the spelling of her name wasn’t incredibly common, but found them she had. She was slightly disappointed that she wasn’t going to get to use them for this lesson, but it was only a little, as she much preferred the exercise of conjuring an image.Leaning forward to cup her face between her hands, Lucie closed her eyes for this mental image. Unfortunately, picturing herself in the safari robes was just not happening. Those things tended to be a hideous shade of boring khaki. Instead, she liked the idea of being a goddess adorned in white and gold, but she could still pretend that one of her subjects had ingested some slow-acting poison, probably the result of some sabotage by a warring tribe. Now came the tricky part, as she had to think of what her subject looked like.
Maybe it was horrible of her, but she couldn’t help if her mind automatically wanted to make the subject male, right? The only problem was she didn’t have anyone in particular in mind. She had no crushes and she certainly wasn’t going to picture Victor, her betrothed, in the spot. If she did that she was liable to not find a cure to the poison. She still couldn’t get over what a jerk he was. Okay, aside from the subject, Goddess Lucie was a goddess, because she had a vast knowledge of plants to help the people since she had a Herbology degree.
Of course, Goddess Lucie had limited powers and still needed a team since there were no bezoars or Potions texts. Not to mention that a Herbology degree was not quite the same as a Potions degree. Looking around the room, she tried to find someone that she could work with. Catching someone’s eye, she mouthed, “Partners?” Once she got an affirmative answer, she grabbed her things and made her way over to where they were sitting. After she got settled, she asked, “So, where do you want to start? I was thinking that we should determine the ingested plant.”
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Lucie Dupree, Teppenpaw
Scouring the room
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Lucie Dupree, Teppenpaw
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Oliver Abbott
June 26, 2009 10:55 AM
Um, being targeted? by Oliver Abbott
There was something different about the platinum-blond boy as he made he was through the corridors. Nothing too noticeable, but defenitely tangible; he had developed a strut. No longer the pathetic face of a school boy suffering a crush for several long years, but the happy visage of the guy who'd finally gotten his girl. Oliver strode into the potions classroom in a state of bliss. In his little world right now, nothing could go wrong.Professor Fawcett was taking the class again, and Oliver was surprised to find that he'd put an interesting spin on the usual lesson. Groupwork could be fun - should he work with Hannah or not? All time spent with her was good, but did he really want to spend their time together studying? Hmm, dilemma. At least the assignment was interesting. It appealled both to Oliver's appreciation of potions, and to the dormant adventurer lying in wait in practically everyone.
When they were told to go ahead, Oliver turned the classroom and gazed on the other students, with half his attention focussed on finding hannah just so he could see her. Instead his managed to catch the eye of Lucie, and shrugged an affirmative non-verbal answered to her mouthed question. Apparently fate had decided for him that he would spend his time with Hannah not studying. That was probably best. "So, where do you want to start? I was thinking that we should determine the ingested plant," Lucie suggested.
"Great idea," Oliver replied. The little attention he'd paid caused him to believe her idea was smart. "We still need one more person to be a 'group' though," he said. As he finished speaking, he looked up to see another student standing by his desk. "Are you joining us?" he asked.
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Oliver Abbott
Um, being targeted?
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Oliver Abbott
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Jera Valson
June 27, 2009 5:42 PM
Who and what now? by Jera Valson
Jera was idly drawing around the birthmark on the back of her hand while she waited for the class to begin. Now she was a third year it seemed as though the classes had got bigger: she was sharing them with fourth and fifth years for the most part. This indicated to her the subject material might be correspondingly harder, considering the presence of older students. Jera was torn between delight drawn from her thirst for knowledge, and despair resulting from her perceived inadequacy.Anyway, the class was really interesting. Professor Fawcett worked really hard, Jera knew, and she appreciated that he'd bothered to think up something fun for the lesson instead of making them simply look up potions in their textbooks. Plus jera really wanted to be an explorerer. Maybe not in the deepest, wildest parts of the world, but she was always exploring the mountains near her home in Colorado. Of course if Jera were ever to go exploring, she would be sure not to take a companion who was foolish enough to ingest a slow-acting poison.
The assignment sounded fun, and Jera had by now gotten well used to the idea of working in a small group. She just had to make sure she was working with a nice bunch of people. She would take the professor's advice, too, and work with at least one person in a higher year. Jera turned in her seat and scanned the class for possible partners. She immediately saw Gray Wright standing up a couple of desks over. "Gray!" Jera called as loudly as she dared.
"Oh, I was wondering if you would have me in your group," she made the suggestion, spoken quieter now she had his attention. They had worked in class together before maybe once or twice, and Jera liked him well enough. Plus they would be seeing more of each other with Quidditch practises and all - it made good sense to know him better.
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Jera Valson
Who and what now?
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Jera Valson
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Gray
June 29, 2009 12:13 PM
Things that shouldn't be mixed. by Gray
About the time he finished asking Jera if she could repeat herself, his brain caught up with his ears and he realized what she'd said on his own. Just his name. Probably why he had realized he was being spoken to in the first place; it was possible that someone would randomly yell his name and mean the color, but he didn't think it was likely.Since he'd already asked, though, he just went along with it. "Sure," he said. He'd never had a problem with her in the past, and she was a fellow Aladren. That was - almost - always a plus. All four Houses had smart, diligent people in them, but it was a given that most Aladrens had one or both qualities to some degree.
Whether or not an Aladren had any degree of ingenuity or practical skills was harder to determine, but so it went with everyone. Unless someone was prone to disasters (or one made a point of tracking everyone else's work, but a project on that scale required creepy levels of interest and organization), there was never any telling how well, poorly, or middlingly a project would go.
He finally located Lucie, who'd paired off with one of the Crotalus fifth years. Ah, well. It wouldn't hurt him - too much - to socialize more. Gray looked back at Jera. "D'you have any, any ideas for a third?" he asked.
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Gray
Things that shouldn't be mixed.
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Gray
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Holly Greer
July 06, 2009 3:28 PM
Leaving Josh for better company by Holly Greer
Holly was aware that the other Ladies did not care for the Warren Twins. It had taken her a while to figure out that the 'Jenaye' they were always ragging on was, in fact, 'Josh and Renaye' but she had eventually worked that out. As such, she figured there was going to be very little competition getting one of the Warrens to be her potions partner, at least from the Ladies. This way, Holly could have a partner that was not grossed out by caterpillar guts, and she wasn't taking such a person from her friends' pool of choices.Holly herself had no quarrel with the Warrens. She was willing to admit this was likely because she was in an entirely different House and consequently didn't have much interaction with them, but from what little contact she did have, they'd seemed nice enough. The feud between them and Ladies seemed Quidditch related to her, and she wasn't taking sides on that. Holly wasn't going to do anything crazy like eat lunch with them or bring them home to meet the family, but partnering them in Potions was not only acceptable to her, but preferable.
She was a Pecari. She was adaptable like that.
She claimed the seat next to the first Warren she saw, who happened to be Josh. "Hi," she greeted, polite and with a friendly smile, because she had every intention of making him do all the gross work. Using a glittering pink clasp to gather her hair out of the way at the nape of her neck, Holly pulled out her notebook and fortified herself for her least favorite class at Sonora with a vial of calming drought and an anti-nausea potion.
When Professor Fawcett began though, things changed. She looked at Josh in dismay as she learned the poor Warren had just stupidly ingested a slow acting poison. "You're doomed," she murmured under her breath.
Finding out she had a degree in Herbology was nearly as surprising, given that she'd never taken a Herbology class and her knowledge of the subject was what she'd picked up from the potions homeworks, but fortunately, this was enough to tell her that Josh had seven hours to live while she tried to save his life.
Groups of three. Well that was different. She wasn't used to groups of three in this class. Though there had been that one time with her, Renaye, and Alexis, and that had seemed to work okay. But, then, Holly had mostly been paying attention to Professor Connell's kitten and ignoring the work the other two were doing.
And then came the real surprise. They weren't going to be brewing anything today. A smile broke out on Holly's face, the likes of which had never before been seen inside a Potions classroom. "Hey, I can do this," she exclaimed, keeping her voice down because Professor Fawcett was still talking.
Once they were released to form groups, Holly decided she and Josh would both be happier with different partners for a two week long assignment, so she told him, "I'll let you partner your own friends for this one. Bye." Getting up, she looked around for two of her friends.
Research work and a written assignment could be done with other people who didn't like caterpillar guts.
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Holly Greer
Leaving Josh for better company
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Holly Greer
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Jera
July 24, 2009 3:49 AM
Like jello and tuna? by Jera
(OOC: Sorry for really late reply)He hadn't turned her down, which was always pleasant, although Jera hadn't really been expecting him to. She couldn't give a truly satisfying answer to Gray's question, because she didn't really know many of the other students. It had taken her three years to willingly look for a partner amongst her peers; it would surely take a llonger while for her to get to know many more of them. "I - don't think I mind," she replied, for a reply was apparently necessary, despite her not having anything particularly useful to say. "You can ask someone, if you'd like." The suggestiong that Gray find the other member of the group probably sounded as shallow as it was: Jera didn't especially like approaching people and she didn't want to pick someone he didn't like, either. As the youngest person in the group so far, she was content to be told what to do, rather than give the orders.
Of course, she was expecting to do some of the work, even if she'd have to turn to older students for help with the harder sections. So while she left Gray to contemplate the third member of their group, Jera opened her potions textbook. She turned to the large section on antidotes and, taking up her quill, made a list of those that took less than seven hours to brew. Although it took out a small number of especially complicated concoctions, Jera found herself with a dauntigly long list. Still, it was a start.
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Jera
Like jello and tuna?
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Jera
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