Professor Fawcett

April 14, 2011 12:39 AM
The first classes after midterm were, to John, in some ways more difficult than the first ones after summer vacations. He had occasionally wondered how common that sentiment was, but since he'd deemed a survey inappropriate for several reasons, he had instead taken to alternating which day he went easier on them and which it would be business as usual for.

This year, it was the intermediates' turn to have a full workload in the first lesson after midterm. He felt a bit bad about that since they had wrapped up antidotes just before the holidays, but trusted that his students would be able to handle it. Some with more assistance from him and-or their classmates than others, but handle it they would just the same.

"Good day, class," he said when it was time to begin. "And welcome back to your schedules." Since it might be especially impolitic at the moment to speak of the holidays being enjoyable, he instead said, "I hope you are all ready to resume learning. I have your antidotes exams here with your research papers." John had been pleased by the number who'd used sources well to support their positions, though he still wasn't quite sure how to take Mr. Bradley citing one of John's own books in his paper on the relevance of antidotes in modern society, especially since the underlying assumption of the work seemed to have been that all humans were, when they had the resources, murderous sociopaths. "I'll hand those out while you set up today. If you have any questions about your grades, immediately or once you've had more time to read through my comments, you may, of course, drop by my office or see me after class."

He leaned back against his desk. "For our time today, I'd like you to first try to come up with a list of multiple potions that serve more or less the same purpose, then discuss between yourselves why those variations might exist. Once you've done that, write a conclusion statement and then attempt to brew two. Afterward, consider your statement again and, if you feel the need to change or make alterations to it, rewrite it beneath your original statement. You may begin." As the class began grouping up or flipping through textbooks, John took the stacks of graded exams and papers and began handing them back to their owners.

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0 Professor Fawcett Lesson Two for Intermediates (3rd-5th Years) 0 Professor Fawcett 1 5

Marissa Stephenson

April 23, 2011 2:53 PM
Potions was demanding, but it was still Marissa’s favorite class. The only thing she didn’t like was the irony of the one required class where she thought she could have easily kept up with the sixth years being one of the ones where she wasn’t asked to.

She smiled pleasantly at Professor Fawcett as she entered the classroom, early as always, and took a seat near the front and off to the side closest to the door. She needed to run to the library between this class and her Divinations one, which meant getting out as soon as possible after the bell. Since she would still have to help clean up if it wasn’t a quick potion today and tell multiple people, including the professor, good-bye and to have a good day, the only way to increase her exit speed was to sit close to the door. She just hoped it didn’t make Fawcett think she was eager to leave his class. That would be…not good.

Her hands tightened, one on her pen and the other around the edge of her notebook, at the mention of their projects from before the end of the term. She’d been worrying about that ever since she’d gone home for Christmas, and had to bite her lip to keep from making an annoyed sound when the professor, having told them the stupid things were done, didn’t immediately return them. It was so hard to focus on lessons when she knew a grade was coming back….

At least today didn’t sound so bad. Two potions was a tall order, but if she took one and whoever she worked with took the other, they hit the fine line between picking something too simple – she truly believed, on these days when Professor Fawcett gave them some latitude, that he was judging them based on what they selected – and picking something too complicated to finish in the time they had, and they didn’t spend too long arguing during the discussion part, it would still be a good day for her. She’d get to show her best.

“Hi,” she started to say to another student, but then her papers came back. “Hang on one second,” she added, turning them over to see the grades and then squeaking slightly in excitement, a wide smile spreading across her face,. An E on the exam, and an O on the research paper. The exam was a little disappointing, she’d really expected to do better on that one, but the paper made it all better. She had pushed herself as far as she thought she could have on that one, and it was nice to see all that work pay off like this.

Mindful that she wasn’t being very polite, though, she forced herself to put them away and get back to today. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I spent two weeks just obsessing over those, I had to see how I did before my head exploded. Do you want to work together today?”
16 Marissa Stephenson This is a totally awesome, really good day. 147 Marissa Stephenson 0 5

Andrew Duell

April 26, 2011 8:46 PM
Potions. Andrew did not like this class, he just didn't quite 'get it'. Transfigurations and Charms were one thing, they were 'magic'. Potions just didn't quite fit the same niche in his head. It was more like chemistry, but not. He knew that there was magic involved, in some of the same way as his other classes, but it didn't work the same. Oh well, it didn't matter, he was here. He took a seat and got out his things, just as always. Break had been to short as always, and from the sounds of it Professor Fawcett wasn't going to let them ease back into things. Great. He cringed in fear as the professor started handing back the papers. This would not be good.

Andrew got his paper back and eventually looked at it. He pretty much instantly regretted it. How could he have done so poorly? He skimmed over the various comments and notes, none of them made him feel any better. The girl next to him said 'Hi' then was distracted by her paper. It was Marissa, and she looked very happy with her paper. That also did not make him feel better. Although... he whisked his papers away into his bag and smiled at her. "No problem," he responded to her, "Looks like you did pretty well, congratulations. Sure I'm up for working together, how do you think we should tackle this?" He took out his notebook and desperately hoped that she wouldn't ask how he had done on the papers.
2 Andrew Duell It is good that someone is having one 145 Andrew Duell 0 5

Marissa

April 28, 2011 2:15 PM
Marissa had grown up in the best private schools her parents could locate, get her to every day, and afford, among other high achievers destined, in high school, to become flat-out overachievers. Most of them had also been the daughters and sons of people she and her parents knew socially. Between those two things, a certain code had sprung up when it came to grades, and even though she spent more than half her time here on completely the other end of the spectrum from what she had been in Georgia, she had still never given up on the Golden Rule: Thou Shalt Not Ask Directly About Other People’s Grades.

That was a basic version, anyway. There were always nuances. For instance, it was perfectly acceptable for Andrew to say what he’d said, and it might have been okay under several circumstances for her to ask how he’d done, but since he’d clearly mentioned grades and then failed to offer any information about his own, it would be inexcusably rude, under the code, for her to ask. Either he didn’t want to talk about it, or he didn’t want to talk about it because it was bad. Marissa doubted anything could ever go as poorly as that one Transfiguration practical where she’d been so nervous the night before that she hadn’t slept and had come in with her brain in a fog and her everything else shaking from the overenthusiastic application of coffee to the problem, but everyone had a right to his or her feelings about any given grade. She tried to tone down her smile a little. She liked Andrew pretty well and didn’t want to risk maybe hurting his feelings.

“Thanks,” she said. “It went okay. I’m mostly just glad to have it over with, you know?”

Nuances. And a bit better, maybe. At home, she guessed anyone who knew her would have seen through that, but since she was not known for being a top student here due to her magic problem, there was a chance Andrew would believe her about it going only okay.

Luckily, they were able to shift into work. “Um, okay, I was thinking that we could take a potion apiece during the brewing section,” she said. “I can write out the statements, my handwriting’s okay and I’m pretty good at, you know – “ she glanced toward Professor Fawcett, just to make sure he wasn’t standing right behind her – “making things sound good.” Paige had told her that she’d had a teacher in high school who’d encouraged them to learn the art of talking in circles until it sounded like they knew what they were talking about, but it still wasn’t an area Marissa liked to admit, at least to adults, she had some proficiency in. With other people her own age, it could be good, but not with adults. “Maybe come up with categories of potions, then fill in the specifics? We could make a sort of extended t-chart for that.”
16 Marissa I wish everyone could. 147 Marissa 0 5

Andrew

April 29, 2011 8:01 PM
Andrew definitely knew what it was like to have it over with. Unfortunately, with results like he had gotten, he also knew what it was like to come back and viciously attack him later. He had a bad feeling that this was going to be one of those times. He breathed a huge sigh of relief when she started talking about how to tackle their current assignment. She had either sensed his desire to bury that paper in some very, very deep hole and put every kind of sealing, obscuring and protective charm over it known to man... or she just wasn't that interested. Strangely, he found himself a little saddened by the thought of the second option. Oh well, he shrugged it off as best he could and turned his attention to the task at hand.

He smiled at her, "Sounds like a good plan. I don't have to even see your handwriting to know that it's better than mine." He grinned. "And making things sound good is a great skill." he thought of that stupid paper tucked away, "There are times I wish I had that skill." He opened up his potions book to the index and started scanning down the list. "Okay, let's see what types of potions are there? I guess we're just looking for potions that do similar things to other potions, right? Not potions that do similar things to charms or tranfigurations or anything like that." He looked back up at her, "I wonder how similar in function should they be? Potions that physically alter a person's appearance or is that to broad? Potions that turn your left eyebrow blue?" He sighed quietly, was this fair to her? Maybe he should tell her how his paper went so she could find someone competent to partner with.
2 Andrew That would be great, maybe someday 145 Andrew 0 5

Marissa

April 30, 2011 1:42 PM
Marissa bit her lip around a slight smile, a little embarrassed, when Andrew expressed a desire to share her skill for making things sound good. “I’d tell you how if I knew,” she said. “I swear I’ve spent half my life trying to figure out the rules, but....” She shrugged helplessly. “I really have no idea how it’s done, I don’t even think I do it that well. Professors – “ she spread her hands – “just disagree.”

That was nothing more or less than unvarnished truth. Marissa didn’t know how to be a good suck-up, playing to what teachers wanted in both behavior and writing style. She just did what felt natural, and somehow, it worked. She didn’t regret it or question it too much, because it had served her well for the past fifteen and a half years, but she did feel a little guilty about it, sometimes, around other people who disavowed a similar ability. How had she gotten the luck, anyway? And even disregarding that, did she deserve it?

She didn’t know, and there wasn’t really a good time to wonder too much about it. That kind of worrying just clouded her focus, and for her magical classes, far more than the material her mother had her studying so she could test out of college classes and pass for homeschooled all at once, she had to have all her focus. Now was an especially bad time not to be focused, too, because Andrew had just presented her with a variety of angles that hadn’t crossed her mind. Even as it did, again, make her wonder why people had thought she was smart, when she could see how much sharper everyone around her was despite their apparently lesser ability to spout nonsense in a pleasing manner on a paper.

“Wow,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of half of that.” She bit her bottom lip. “Okay – and this is just me thinking things, I have no idea if I’m right – I think that yes, it’s potions that do things similar to each other, and yes, ‘turns your left eyebrow blue’ is probably too specific.” She finished that with a smile. “Maybe we could do a side bit about potions with relationships to other subjects if we have some time left at the end?” That was one of the rules she had successfully worked out. Teachers appreciated interest and extra effort.

As for what was narrow enough, without being too wide….Argh, she loved Fawcett for not making her do much magic and giving enough writing to balance out the occasional spell or really horrendous math problem, but sometimes she hated him for his ‘learn to think’ strategy. She didn’t want to learn to think, she wanted an O in the one standard, often-considered-academic Sonora class where she had the remotest chance in the deepest circle of Dante’s Inferno of getting one.

“Maybe, like, hair potions?” she suggested, then realized that could sound like she was one of those girls whose knowledge of the craft they were all here to study extended to magic and potions that could be used to make her prettier. “Instead of something as broad as a whole appearance or as narrow as an eyebrow, I mean,” she said. “Just extending your example. So it’s somewhere in the middle.” She looked at Andrew, biting her bottom lip again. “Does that sound right, maybe, or do you think something that makes more sense? Because I’m really not sure at all about this one.” One good thing about Sonora was that she could now utter that sentence more easily.
16 Marissa We'll have to work on making that happen. 147 Marissa 0 5

Andrew

April 30, 2011 6:10 PM
There was no way around it, Andrew had to admit it at least at some level to himself. He liked Marissa. Okay, there he admitted it. Now maybe he could stop trying to hide it from himself and focus on this class so he doesn't destroy her grade as well as finishing off any hope he has in his. Right, work. Work, potions, with Marissa. Dangit! That was supposed to allow him to focus and set it aside, not sink farther into some obsession. He could almost hear his mother, she wouldn't mind if he bombed potions completely if he found a girl in the process. That probably wasn't going to happen though, Marissa had to have far better options than him at her fingertips. So, in light of that... back to work.

To help with his decision, he looked back intently at the index of his book while he responded. "Hair should be a good basis. The professor just said potions that do similar things, right? So we can define out study to 'Potions that change a person's hair'. Maybe we can do some subcategories or something to encompass different aspects; color, length, style, etc. We can then see how many potions fit into each of those categories and see which would be the most viable for study." As he scanned he wrote down a few names and page numbers of possibilities as he came across them. "Do you want to start writing up preliminary ideas for why different potions may exist for doing the same thing while I make this list of potions we could try?" He looked up from the book, turned generally towards her but kept his eyes roving about as though he was thinking. He didn't want to be rude like he was ignoring her, but he wasn't sure if he'd relapse if he'd look directly at her again. This was fairly terrible. "The chief reasons I could see would be availability of ingredients or ease of mixing. Hmm.. we may have to study the histories of these potions, one may be older and someone just figured out an easier way of doing the same thing."

He looked at her, "What do you think?" Well... that was a mistake. What was happening? Where had this infatuation come from all the sudden? He had spent the past few years here focusing on school and not much else. Now that he finally let his mother convince him that more 'social interaction' might not be a bad thing, and that he'd just allowed himself to admit that he liked her... was the past few years of repressed whatever going to come crashing down on poor Marissa? He did like her, but... he realized that he was staring just a bit, and even blushing. He quickly turned back to the index to scribble down more potions.
2 Andrew With your help, I'm sure that it could 145 Andrew 0 5

Marissa

May 02, 2011 5:47 PM
“Sure,” Marissa said when Andrew suggested she go ahead and start on their preliminary statement about why the basis for their assignment even existed in the first place, glad to be told what to do. The badges indicated someone thought she could function as a leader person, but she really preferred being told what to do. That way, she couldn’t screw it up as easily as she could if she was the one who made a call.

She listened to his quick theories, then jotted them down on her notes page, beside the blank one she planned to use for the actual statements. “Those sound great,” she said, meaning it. Marissa knew that different things grew in different areas, so it made sense that people in those areas, before widespread travel became a big thing, would have to develop different ways of accomplishing the same feat. “I’ll run with those. They can both be right.”

She drummed her fingers on the edge of the table. “I don’t want to write something about people playing around just to make a name for themselves….” That was more or less a joke, though on her more cynical days, she could believe it. “Oh, I know another one. Different levels of doing something – you know?” she knew her statement had not been clear and easy to understand. “This is probably more medical potions, but this section is more general – different strength levels? I know there’s different, like, mood potions, because I was reading about them last week.” There was, she thought, a sort of little club of independent study students focused around Fawcett which did a lot in the social studies, and she wanted in next year, but since she wasn’t an Aladren, she thought she might have to work extra hard to get there.

She realized, too, that she was distracting him from his list when he seemed suddenly uncomfortable, which she interpreted as wanting her to shut up and get to work. “And I’ll do that now and stop distracting you from the list of potions,” she said. “Let me know when you’re done if I’m not done yet.”
16 Marissa Aw, you're sweet. 147 Marissa 0 5

Andrew

May 02, 2011 10:45 PM
Yeah right... like she could possibly not distract him. He kept his eyes on the index as he wrote and replied, "That's another good aspect. I guess it doesn't really apply to our examples... unless we're talking shades of color or something like that." His eyes wandered up off the pages he had been focusing on while his mind similarly wandered trying to think of more possibilities along her theory. He pulled himself back to the task at hand, and decided to lie to her, "Don't worry, you're not distracting me." He continued, "I ruminate out loud a lot, other people doing it is a lot better than them staring at me like I'm crazy." He grinned.

Andrew scribbled down a few more potions, "Okay I think we have enough to work with here." He had managed to find a couple for each of the categories, but there was one clear winner. "Looks like our best bet is going to be color. There are quite a few that seem to do the same thing. I wonder why that is? Anyway, I guess it doesn't really matter." He slid his notebook over to her, "Which one of those do you want to try?" He started flipping through the rest of his book looking for the pages for the potions he had listed. Gotta keep busy, gotta stay focused, mind wandering at this point is dangerous. He glanced at Marissa again, that didn't help, what was he looking for in this book again?
2 Andrew Sweet? I've been called many things, but that may be a first 145 Andrew 0 5

Marissa

May 04, 2011 6:03 PM
“True,” Marissa said when he pointed out that the strength problem didn’t really apply to hair potions. “I might include that in a general statement, then state the category we’ve narrowed it down to, then state the potions we’ve picked.” She scribbled a note, in her own form of abbreviations and shorthand, to do exactly that on the margin of her ‘loose notes’ page, where she got her thoughts in order before putting them into pretty form for Fawcett.

She smiled back when he disclaimed distraction. He was probably just being polite, but it was nice to be assured anyway. It made her feel less bad. “Oh, good,” she said. “I’ll agree you’re not crazy if you’ll agree I’m not.”

When he finished his list, she looked it over. “Color, or maybe conditioning potions,” Marissa commented. “Different formulas to make things shiny!” She decided to be serious again. “If we go with color, I think we should probably go with two that would turn your hair kind of the same color, but have different ingredients…” she found two reds, then looked them up in the text.

“There’s no way on earth I’m ever going to agree to demonstrate,” she began, “but these seem like they could work.” She checked the pages of her book, open to the pages for the potions, which she was holding open with one hand, then pointed out the two with her other one. “One’s just got a few more steps than the other. You might want to take that one, because it ends with a setting spell, and….” She shrugged, forcing herself to smile. Andrew had worked with her in Charms before, he knew about that meant.
16 Marissa They say there's a first time for everything. 147 Marissa 0 5

Andrew

May 05, 2011 9:49 PM
"You? Crazy?" He nearly laughed at the idea, then he made a show of looking around the room at their classmates. He leaned in close and in a playful whisper to her, "Don't tell anyone, but I think you're one of the sanest people in this classroom right now." He gave her an exaggerated wink, then darted his eyes around the room again, pretending to make sure nobody had overhead. He relaxed back in his chair and gave her a grin. Okay, enough goofing off now, he thought to himself. But, it had allowed him to get closer to her than usual. She smelled nice.

"Anyway," he forced his mind back on track. Class. Work. Potions. "Your plan sounds good, except I think you'd look nice with red hair." Wait... how would she take that? Quick, keep going, "Not that you don't look nice now..." umm, that wasn't where he wanted to go. Ummm.... crap... crap.... back to class stuff. Yes, that was safe. "I can do it though, if you don't want to, so no worries there." He buried his nose in the book with the potion she had indicated for him and read, desperately trying to not see whatever strange look she was giving him after that. Maybe if he kept talking, yeah, that would cover it up. Sure, why not? "This potion doesn't look to bad, I should be able to pull it off."

The setting spell at the end didn't scare him to much, he had done them before, once or twice they had even came out right. He knew what that smile he had given meant. She still didn't think she was very good with the actual casting spells. He really wished there was something he could do to help her with that. His charms were not the best though, so offering to help her with those didn't seem like the best idea. Maybe he'd have to team up with her in Transfigurations, he was okay with those. But first she'd have to figure out that she could get better at them with work and practice; the smile also seemed to mean, to him anyway, that she'd nearly given up on them. She'd have to see that she could do them, Hmm... maybe.... "Do you think each doing a potion is best, or do you think we should both work together on them both. If we are comparing the processes, it might be more enlightening if we both saw and experienced the creation of both of the potions."
2 Andrew Personally, I'm a fan of trying new things. 145 Andrew 0 5

Marissa

May 23, 2011 2:26 PM
Marissa laughed at Andrew’s antics. He was funny, she’d give him that. Always a little bigger than life, too.

She couldn’t help but admire people like that, the ones who could just ‘put on a show’ like that and not seem embarrassed or like they could think of nothing but what other people were secretly thinking of it. The psychology text she’d been reading in preparation for a credit exam this summer had indicated that it wasn’t possible, that people under twelve or so didn’t think that way, but she could remember worrying about the inflections of her voice when she said something influencing how it was taken, if not in those exact words, when she was four. By seven, it had been a firmly ingrained habit, to the point where any moment where her inhibitions fell could make her, as soon as she got home, nearly panic and think she could never leave her room and face those people again.

Nothing bad had ever happened to her until she got to Sonora and got a crash course in the difference between just not being quite the best, which had been her childhood, and not even being in the running. That was the strange part. Even her parents said it was weird, and they were generally fond of putting positive spins on their girls’ peculiarities and habits, to make it sound better.

“I’ll do my best to keep it under wraps,” she whispered back, and immediately felt sure she’d done it wrong, somehow, and looked like a fool. Oh, well.

“Oh, thank you,” she said when he first said she’d look good with red hair, then immediately turned around and verified that she looked nice now. “But it was sort of, um, a joke. I’m not very good at them, sorry. I don’t think Professor Fawcett is actually going to make us dye our hair.” It just seemed so far out of character that she had trouble imagining it. Fawcett could be…whimsical, in a very academic way, sometimes, but not like that. She thought. Who knew? People did things that were out of character all the time.

“That makes sense,” she said when he suggested they should both work on both the potions. It would at least make her feel less guilty about being sure she’d somehow gotten the easy one, and if it did involve extra keeping up with things to make sure they didn’t get something mixed up, she could do that. Organization was one of the things she was good at. She was actually pretty proud of that. Not a glamorous skill, but most people weren’t going to have glamorous lives. Organized people, though, got through their plain ones much better than the disorganized. At least in her opinion. “What parts do you prefer?”
16 Marissa It can have its benefits. 147 Marissa 0 5