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Old 05-08-2019, 11:44 PM   #86 (permalink)
Stormdancer


DMC & DMAC
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Scotland, [GMT]
Posts: 10,058

Hogwarts RPG Name:
Bennett Potter
Slytherin
Sixth Year

Hogwarts RPG Name:
Atlas Ward
Ravenclaw
First Year
Default Welp. Playing catch up
Toto * RotiSila * ToRo * Braveheart * Grandma & Mama Tori

SPOILER!!: Professor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daemon View Post
Ah, this one looked appropriately excited! Ayana appreciated that. "Good morning to you too."

Ah, still a few more minutes to go. Ayana's eyes moved to look over the students currently present, and noted with some sadness that no one had seemed to bring any water with them. Hydration is so important at every stage of a person's life, she sincerely hoped they'd had a lot to drink at breakfast. And would hydrate more at lunch. Perhaps she'd put up a fun little sign reminding them how vital it was to have drink at least two litres of water a day.

Speaking of, she reached for her hip, where her own water flask was located, and took a few sips.[/color][/color]

Another smile to the Professor. She wasn’t sure about anything though… so Holly was just hoping to not make a fool of herself. Reallllly hoping not to make a fool of herself. Here’s hoping. Twirling her quill between her fingers, she waited for the lesson to start… Though she really wasn’t sure what was up with everything on the Professor’s desk. They looked so… random.

SPOILER!!: Professor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daemon View Post
Ayana glanced at her watch and saw that 9am had almost arrived. She turned towards the area to the left of her desk and quietly murmured under her breath, casting a quick series of charms and immediately conjured a rope around the blink-and-you'll-miss-it shimmer her spells produced. Excellent. Now it was less likely any students should wander into the area.

The door closed gently behind any students cutting it close as Ayana walked in front of her desk to smile at her class. "Good morning everyone! Welcome back from your summer holidays. My name is Ayana Sissay, and I'm your new Arithmancy professor here at Hogwarts," she introduced herself, just in case anyone had missed the official announcement. Or all of the dinners after that. Or her general presence. Students could be impressively unobservant.

"Arithmancy, for those joining us for the first time, is a subject that deals primarily with numbers, magical properties of numbers, and the numerical properties of the world around us." Ayana smiled kindly at all the younger students, hands moving around as she spoke. She was very excited for them to be taking their first Arithmancy lesson, even if they themselves had heard less than pleasant things about her subject. Arithmancy got such a bad reputation, it was quite disconcerting considering how beautiful and pure it is.

Light golden robes shimmering as she crossed a sunbeam streaming through the window, Ayana addressed the class at large. "What are some uses of Arithmancy that you have heard of? Most of you must know that it is a calculations based field. On what parameters do these calculations depend? Also, please tell me your name before you answer, so that I might start learning who each of you are." She was quite talented with names, if she did say so herself. The talent, she suspected, went hand in hand with her knack for number manipulation and memorisation, and had proved to be extremely useful ever since she'd become a teacher.

Sissay. She had thought it beautiful the first time she had heard it… And she still thought it was.

With her chin in her hand, Holly watched the way the new Professor moved around her desk and the way she dealt and spoke to the class. Personally, there was no way she had missed her arrival. Or the arrival of the other Professors. She was, in fact, pretty sure that there were a larger number of new Professors than there were returning ones. Head tilting to the side slightly, she pondered if that was something Professor Sissay's numbers could explain.

Especially if they explained the world. Hmm. Sticking her hand in the air, her head buzzing with how she could relate to Arithmancy, and knowing very very close to nothing about the subject. "I'm Holly, Professor. Hi, hi. Could they explain Quidditch probabilities or the exact equations needed for a great handstand or barre routine?..." The third-year looked at the woman expectantly, smiling the whole time.

SPOILER!!: Professor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daemon View Post
Ayana responded to each of the students in kind, smiling and nodding as they all voiced their thoughts, and committing their names to memory. On the inside however? She was quite perturbed. She knew, as all Arithmancers do, that name-based Arithmancy has taken over during the recent centuries and become the most popular of all the subjects within the world of magical numbers, but she wondered about the British curriculum. Were the rest of the topics covered only in Advanced Arithmancy? If that were the case, Ayana felt a great sadness for all the young minds who would have loved to learn about the wonderful ways of arithmalethilogy. To name but one.

"Name based Arithmancy is a vast and fascinating field," Ayana walked slowly as her hands circled the air to gesture just how vast the field was, before coming to a stop just in front of the air that she'd sectioned off with a rope before the lesson began. She had no qualms with it, and did enjoy lengthy debates on the topic. "What other uses have you heard of? Cursebreaking is a wonderful example, provided by Aaron," she nodded as she looked a few of her students in the eye, honestly and genuinely trying to gauge their knowledge. "And don't forget my second question; the parameters. Think about how you would carry out a numerological calculation. What do you need in order for that calculation to be possible?"[/color]

OOC: Still plenty of time to get posts in!
[/color]

What was needed? "Correct, up to date information and knowledge about… Well, whatever you are looking to do Arithmancy on? Whether it's a person or a Quidditch team, a rock or a puppy… Or maybe a pregnant animal?" Nope, she had no idea… She needed more information to help her understand.

SPOILER!!: Professor
[QUOTE=Daemon;12411599]Ayana slowly paced to and fro at the front of her classroom, nodding towards each student who wanted to speak and listening intently to their results. She carefully made sure never to cross the roped area, and gently nudged an elephant back towards the centre of their little enclosure when it got too close to the edge. Wouldn't want any tiny elephant deaths on her hand.

Were they real elephants? Or would they shatter? What about the sticky things? Would they move and break too? So. Many. Questions.

SPOILER!!: Professor
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daemon View Post
Ayana returned to the centre of her classroom, robes shimmering once again as they settled to hang loosely around her and complementing her face as she beamed at her students. "Excellent class, some very well thought out responses and concepts. Allow me to summarise quickly. As we all know, Arithmancy is based on numbers, and there are a great many fields that require arithmancy, including wandlore, theoretical magic, defensive ward building and many more, fields that do not necessarily incorporate the classical "predicative" nature of the subject. The most prominent parameter that Arithmancy supposedly depends on is, as some of you have mentioned, names. Your name, the one you were born as, the one you use daily, they hold a lot of magical properties, as do your birthday, your family's names and so on and so forth." So far so good, they had reached these conclusions themselves.

"But let's look at names of things. What about the word tree? It is the name of the objects that make up a forest, correct? What about the word forest then? If we tried to analyse them using numerology, would it make sense if we discovered that the two words were not connected at all? How would we analyse them? Predicative numerology is usually applied to humans, but we have wanted to learn more about forests ever since the dawn of time, surely humanity has devised some method of acquiring this knowledge," Ayana paused to allow them to take notes, quietly walking around the front of the classroom. "And let's think about the word niffler. It's not the same as tree, this time it's the name of an animal. Perhaps closer to human numerological analysis then? I could give my niffler a proper name after all. If I named my niffler George, would the niffler share the exact same properties as all the other George's of the world?" Ayana suggested with a grin, and sincerely hoped there wasn't anyone named George around. She meant no offence to anyone named George, or Georgios or Jorge or Yuri, or any other version of the name.

There were so many interesting concepts to consider, and Ayana hoped to hear some well thought out responses. "And finally, what about Saint Petersburg, in Russia? Istanbul? Mumbai? They are also names, but do they truly represent the physical location as accurately as the word tree represents that plant growing out there in the forest? We can apply an analysis to all of these words, but sooner rather than later we should see problems emerge." Were they still with her? Yes? Good.

"I'd like for you to name some of these problems. One or two answers per student will do." Ayana glided over to the right of the classroom with a wide smile, and quietly matched each face to the name she remembered as she waited for someone to bravely choose to speak up first.

… Surmise quickly, meant lots of notes and a furrowed brow as Holly attempted to keep up in both her note taking and her understanding. She tried not to let her ink smudge otherwise she would be really up Knockturn Alley when it came to doing her homework and studying for her exams. No, she needed to make sure that her notes all stayed in tact.

Pausing in her notes, she looked up as she the Professor started talking about the names of things. Trees, forests, humans and nifflers… but What??!??!!?? How… Did nifflers work with Arithmancy?? Shouldn’t they be taught in Care of Magical Creatures??? Had she missed something? Had a bludger hit her head?

Still frowning, quill loose in her hand, Holly’s head tilted slightly as she listened to the end of the Professor’s speech and to her classmates who spoke up after her. …………………. Okay… Maybe… she understood? Maybe.

”So.. It’s easy to state that we need balls for Quidditch - but snitches, bludgers and quaffles are very different - in their names, attitudes and appearances?... Thus treating them the same, analysing them as if they were the same… would be an injustice.” She thought. Or… at least she hoped that was what the Professor meant. ”And perhaps … like someone saying they have hair when they are really using a wig?”

…. Okay. Even she had no idea where that last one had come from. SorryProfessor.
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