Robin glanced down at the two books she had brought- she knew she would have to pick one, but she was incredibly indecisive. She reached her hand out and grabbed one at random- picking up Short Stories from Around the World. She was glad she picked it of course, she loved traveling and learning about different places and the cultures there. Plus if they were going to pick words or phrases from a book, this one would be a great deal more interesting than the other book she had brought on herbs.
"This is a book with short stories from all around the world." She spoke softly but clearly- she didn't dislike having attention drawn to her but she wasn't used to it at all. "I brought it because I think short stories tell so much more than tales, they also give you an idea of what the culture is like and stuff. I think it has made me curious about the world, which is why I picked it.

In some way or another they were right. Well that was comforting and had Alexa scribbling down what she could remember of what her classmates had just been saying. Something about truth and ancient people and .....yeah, nevermind. Her thoughts, when written down didn't seem that coherent. She'd try getting the notes from Mo later. He seemed to always be paying attention in this class.

When it came time to give response to the Professor's next question, Lex didn't know whether or not she should be enthused about giving a response but any opportunity to speak about her curse book would be welcomed.

Once it was her turn, the girl held the book up for everyone to see how beautiful it was.

"The book I brought to class is 'A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions' and I brought it because you said we needed to bring a book to class." Why else would Alexa be walking around with books? It certainly wasn't so she could read them. Nope. Time and place for everything, you know? "I think the personality trait that got that helped me pick this one is probably venegeful? I dunno, but I do know how to put some of these curses to good use." It might have been a warning to certain people in the class, maybe, you couldn't prove it.

This was an easy answer his hand shot straight up. "I choose Quidditch through the ages, Professor. I picked it mostly because its the only book nontext book I have." He chuckled it was true. He had others just not here with him at school. Not like he had many others at home either."And characteristic? I don't read much."

SPOILER!!: Schuyler and Alice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cedric

.......except Professor Elwood didn't answer them. Hmm. Well.. okay. Maybe some student had cut her off with a response and distracted her. Who knew.

She raised her hand. "Professor, could you answer the questions Alice had asked, about the Rhapso.. something? I brought a book of poems."

And now was probably a good time to provide answers to Elwood's what book? Why? One characteristic? questions. "I brought The Complete Works of Walt Whitman because if I read for pleasure, it's more often poems than books that I'll choose." It was still reading. It counted. "And one characteristic I have would be... well, I think I have an appreciation for nature. And Whitman does a good job of somehow winding together natural imagery with themes about life. And he does it in such a way that sounds really, really pretty." And spot on. That was a sort of magic of its own.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemon

Yes, please. Alice would like it if her questions were answered, too. She watched Elwood patiently, wondering if she'd been too quiet.

LOL. No. No, that definitely wasn't it.

Schuyler got a wink, though. 'Cause Whitman poems. Was the Learn'd Astronomer one in there?



Merlin. What? What had he said? Alice did a full turn in her seat just so she could stare at Mo, a bewildered expression on her face. Why that book? He hadn't.... he hadn't..... told Elwood stuff, yeah? In his SNAC essay? 'Cause he was in that club, she knew.

Eyeballing him for a little while longer, she turned back around and tried to put the thought out of her head. Yeah. Whew. Breathe.



Er, yeah. Did the Divination lady know that these were really personal things she was asking Alice to share? Stuff she didn't want Elwood know about, let alone an entire classroom full of people. Which meant vague answers for the win.

"I brought Anna Karenina. Why? Because I like it. And the personality trait that made me bring it is that I have really good taste." Nod. Nod nod. You're welcome, professor.

Oh she had missed a question, Callie must have just gotten caught up in all the answers about why holy books had been such popular choices for Bibliomancy. "So sorry about that Miss Fischer. She said with an apologetic smile towards the Gryffindor, the other Lion (Schuyler) got a nod as well when she mentioned her Whitman poem collection.

"Rhapsodomancy is more or less a synonym of Bibliomancy. Originally it DID mean just the art of divining through passages or lines from poetry rather than prose but nowadays, they have all sort of morphed into one study." So yes, her poems by the famous American poet would work just fine for today. Well even, Whitman was one of her favorites too.

-----

"Excellent. It is nice to hear all the different reasons you all chose your books but don't you see how they can be connected to your personality?" They were doing good so far. "Do you think you might be ready to take a crack at actually doing a reading now?"

She stood up and pointed at the board with her wand so that the steps for doing a reading appeared:

Quote:

The Board
Procedure:
Step 1: Think of a question.
Step 2: Focus your attention on question and clear mind of all but that.
Step 3: Close eyes and let book fall open on desk and point at a random passage.
Step 4: Read line and see how it pertains to your question.

Sample Questions:
* How will I do on my homework?
* Will I have a good holiday?
* My friends in I will be having some fun soon, will we land in Detention?
* Will my crush notice that I have feelings for them?

"Go ahead and prepare yourselves. Do a bit of deep breathing if you think it will help you." It always did her. "I'd like for you to start out with just one reading for now but if you finish before others you can do another one. But don't rush through it. If you need help with your reading, perhaps trying to see how the passage or line pertains to the question feel free to ask me or a classmate and talk it out." Sound good?

OOC: No post # necessary I'd just like to see some quality Rping please. When you pick a line or passage have it included somehow in your post for reference or for if your character decides to ask someone or myself for help.

Adi watched (and feeling rather bored by now) as the steps for the book reading magically appeared on the board. He hadn't the faintest idea of what his question should be right now. Maybe he should try that deep breathing thingy. Would that really help? Adi was rather skeptical about these things.

Concentrating on the picture of the lizard on his book cover, Adi took a nice deeeeeeep breath. He felt no different. Another deep breath would help, perhaps? He inhaled deeply once more. He still felt the same way. Heh. Best get started since he was getting no where with that.

Ian listened to the other reasons for books because it was required. Oddly enough though, as much as he enjoyed books, most books chosen seemed to be rather plain. Finally the teacher broke the monotony of reasoning and gave instructions. He decided to take some time and breathe. Hopefully, he wouldn't fall asleep.

Deep breath in......................................30 count
Deep breath out.....................................20 count
Deep breath in........................................30 count
Deep breath out.....................................20 count

....what a pleasant way to relax.

Oichi chuckled lightly as she read the assignment. A book passage could predict all that. Right? Still she decided to give it a try and wrote out the procedure.

Oichi then started to concentrate the best she could but ended up thinking this is too Ridiculous and could not even come up with a question. Still she did her best to calm down so she could seriously attempt a fair go at this divinatory art.

Sander looked up when Professor Elwood began to speak. Then he glanced at the board and what appeared on it. Quickly taking out his quill, he wrote down the instructions in his journal.



Sander looked at the last sample question that appeared on the board. Sander read it and then looked over at the Professor. Did Professor Elwood know that he liked Tessa a lot? No that couldn't be. There were lots of couples in Hogwarts. The question wasn't meant for him...surely not. Sander shook his head pushing that idea out altogether, before concentrating on the task at hand.

Whether that sample question was meant for him or not, it did influence what he decided his own question for the reading would be. But first he needed to clear his mind. He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. slowly releasing each one before inhaling the next one. When he began to feel relaxed, he opened his eyes and picked up the book in his hand. He placed the book on the desk, and held it up, balancing it on its spine.

Then he cleared his mind of all thoughts except for the one question he wanted to ask. He concentrated as hard as he could on the question, 'Do Tessa and I have a future together?' he repeatedly asked the question over and over in his mind.

Lux wrote down notes as she listened to what the Professor had to say. She really did not give much believe to Divination, but she thought it was fun enough in it's own way; after all, she was a member of the SNAC.

Right, it was time for her to do a reading...

Biting her lip, she tried to think of a question to ask, looking at the board's examples to see if any would be useful to her or give her an idea. Well, she certainly didn't have a crush on anyone, so that was a no go...

Out of nowhere it hit her. She had her question sorted. Will Bay ever like cucumber sandwiches?

It was something she needed to know.

Yes, Toby could do a reading, sure. It didn't really seem that hard. To be honest, you could interpret something from ANYTHING, as long as you had a sound line of reasoning. That seemed like all the professor was asking for.

Soooooooo time to think of a question. Tobias uncapped his bottle of ink and dipped the nib of his quill into it. As he brushed stray droplets of the dark ink off of the tip, Tobias went over the different questions he might like to ask, and then started to write them down.

Will my tryouts go well in the summer?
Will I ever be a professional Quidditch player?
Should I go home for Christmas or stay at Hogwarts?
What will the weather be like next week?
Will I be happy for the rest of my life?

Tobias stared at his questions for a moment before raising his hand and looking to the professor.

"Professor, I was wondering... what's the best type of question to ask? I know it's Divination, so questions about what's going to happen should work. But what about questions about things that have happened, or asking for advice on what you should do? And what about 'wheres' and 'whys' and 'hows'? Does it need to be simple or can it be complex?"

Tobias lowered his hand again, aware he'd asked a lot, but eager for answers. He supposed the best way to find them would be to try it out, but how would he ever know if it was right. How could he know the answers were correct, really? The professor was the expert, so she'd know, right?

Still, he didn't need an answer to pick a question and try a reading, so Tobias went ahead and stared at his questions for a while, eventually putting a star next to 'Will my tryouts go well this summer?', which was the question he would be asking.

Sander kept repeating his question over and over in his mind. "Will Tess and I have a future together?" He thought of nothing else but that one specific question. Feeling that the time was right to find his answer, Sander closed his eyes, released his hold on the book and let it fall open on the desk in front of him.

When he heard the thud of the book cover landing on the desk, Sander leaned over, still with his eyes closed, and felt around blindly for the book, until his hands found it with its pages open.

Now it was time for his finger to search out the answer to his question.

Gwen held her book, balancing it perfectly on it's side. What question did she want to ask it? Is it worth it, being a part of the magical world and losing most everything else?" She asked finally. Because more and more these days it was getting harder to mesh the two worlds.

She took a deep breath, trying to force all other distractions from her mind. She imagined standing in a blindingly white room and hearing the question being asked. That was good. She dropped her hands and let the book fall open.

Now that he had gotten past the breathing part and felt no different, Adi searched his mind for a question. Hmmm. What could he ask? Oh that's right! The question he had been wondering ever since he started learning the guitar last term. He had been unable to do any practice recently so it seemed like a good question.

"Will I master the guitar soon?'' he asked himself. Not focusing on anything else, Adi repeated the question. ''Will I master the guitar soon? Will I master the guitar soon? Will I master the guitar soon?''

The book Blair had chosen was The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The reasoning behind this was she had got it as a present from her father but had not yet got round to reading it. It was the only book in her trunk that was not a textbook.

As she had not yet thought of a question to ask, Blair decided she would follow the first of the Professor's instructions: Deep breathing.

Breathe in... and out...in...and out...

She carried on with this pattern until she felt suitably relaxed.

In time Oichi calmed down and started to breathe in and out slowly and started to think more positively about the activity at hand. Okay, perhaps this activity may help me. My NEWTS are this year and its terrifying. Perhaps I could ask the question of 'How prepared am I for my NEWTS? Lets try this. She closed her eyes and dropped her book which opened somewhere on the table. wondering what passage it would land at. She was hoping for an Esmerelda quote.

Asking questions of BOOKS? Caleb seriously doubted that Scarlett O'Hara had the answers to his questions, but he'd at least give it a shot. No wonder so many people thought this class was a bunch of nonsense. You're not helping your case here, Elwood!

Picking up the brick of a book he'd selected, he closed his eyes and cleared his mind. Breathing in, breathing out...breathing IN...breathing OUT...

Will I do well in Quidditch? Will I do well in Quidditch? he asked himself over and over again. He knew it was a relatively vague question, but he just wanted to know if he'd been successful at all in the sport. He didn't care what position or anything, just...would he be GOOD?

Nigel did not know who to feel about this. His was a dictionary on Phobias. The only questions that would work are phobia related. All that was in this book was definitions. Fine, Alright, Let's get this over with.

Nigel got his book out, closed his eyes, and opened up to a random page. So now it was question time. So what did he want to think.

Will my Grey Hair disappear?.

That was a seriously important question.

See, this is why Sophie hated Divination. How was Quidditch Through the Ages supposed to tell her anything about her life? Maybe if she asked a Quidditch-related question, but she had other thoughts on her mind. She knew Healer Tillstorm had written her parents and grandparents to tell them about that fight she and Caleb had gotten into. She wanted to know what would come of that.

Will I be in loads of trouble for getting into that fight with Genie Pilliwickle?

Okay, so that was her question. Now what was step number two?

Oichi slowly opened her mind keeping her mind concentrated on her question and slowly put her finger on a passage in her book. She read it and was giddy to see it was an Esmerelda quote and read it giddily. Thinking about the quote she actually felt a really strong connection to the passage and wrote what was on her mind

Gwen stared at it, struggling to read the words. It took her a few minutes, but it would be awkward to read out loud, so she let it take her longer.

But what did it mean? Was this the right choice? To become meant accepting risk. Did that mean she should just keep going, because the price of magical education was risking everything else?

She wanted to ask the professor for help deciphering her passage, but she didn't particularly want to share what the question was, so she wouldn't do that.

She re-read it one more time, mouthing the words as she read them. 'We will hurt each other.' Did that mean she shouldn't stay? Hurting each other, if it was referring to her and the magical world, she didn't want to hurt it.

Maybe she had it all backward. Maybe it was referring to her and her family. Of course they would hurt each other, but that was the risk of being a family? Whatever the details, she was sure the passage was telling her to remain at Hogwarts, something she wasn't sure how she felt about.

Ouch. Her hip was all achy. Gwen shifted her body weight off of the hip and tried to arrange it so it was comfortable. Nope. Maybe she had tweaked something earlier, or slept on it wrong.

... Oh? They were getting started? AWESOME.

He picked up his quill and glanced over at the instructions on the board. It didn't sound like a hard activity. Thinking of questions he wanted answering really wasn't difficult; he had too many questions floating through his mind. Clearing his mind was going to be hard, he knew that. Again, too many questions.

After scribbling down the instructions on his piece of parchment, he placed his quill down and glanced over at his book. Question first. There was a lot he wanted an answer to but if they were only starting with one reading for now... maybe he should just... pick his favourite? Or the most important question? Or the answer he really wanted an answer to.

Yeah... yeah that was an awesome decision.

With the question picked out, he closed his eyes and started taking deep breaths with only the question in mind. He had to clear everything else out, right? Deep breaths... only thinking about the question... deep breaths... deep breaths...

Time for the activity, then?

Ella glanced up at the board so she could get an idea of the proper procedure, then back at her parchment so she could take it all down. You never knew what was going to pop up on the NEWTs. That is, if she decided to take this one. She had mixed feelings but she did enjoy learning about this stuff and it was interesting enough. Just...something to consider. Maybe she could ask about that. Yeah.



Notes down, it was time for some breathing. The blonde glanced around curiously before closing her own eyes and trying to clear her mind. She just needed to relax and focus for this to work, right? Right.

Breathe in, breath out. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

She wasn't the only one doing this, yeah?

As she continued to breath, the eighteen year old tried to think of the question she wanted to focus on. There were so many that came to mind, especially since she'd be graduating this year. The future stuff still held a lot of uncertainty so maybe she could focus her attention there.

Maybe.

Okay, perfect, yay, phew. Schuyler didn't have to follow any separate instructions. That made things less complicated.

Her eyes flickered to the board as Elwood motioned towards it.

Steps for their reading. Got it. The Gryffindor dipped her quill in ink and wrote down the first decent question that came to mind..

'What profession should I go into?'

Yeah. That was a big one. And she had no idea what she wanted to do. Sixth year. No idea. Yep. Lovely.

Now it was time to focus on this question. Juuuuust this question. That meant no occasional glances towards a particular Hufflepuff, yeah? Yeah. Unfortunately.

She drew a breath and closed her eyes.

Career. What. Career. Profession. Occupation. Me.

Ian had finished relaxing. He relaxed almost to the point of falling asleep. He decided he needed to get to this or he wouldn't stay awake.

He focused on a question. Will I make good friends? He set the book on it's binding and watched as the first the covers opened sideways and then the pages followed. He waited to see what would happen and finally there was a stop as the pages settled themselves. He looked down to find the following phrase:

“A friend is someone who knows where all your bodies are buried. Because they're the ones who helped you put them there."
And sometimes, if you're really lucky, they help you dig them back up.”

Awesome! Ian thought to himself. Not only will I have friends, but they will be accessories as well.

With his eyes closed, still thinking about the question he wanted to find the answer to, Sander let his finger hover over the open pages of the book. "Will Tessa and I have a future together?' Sander kept asking the question over and over again. Then he felt this strange urge that he needed to drop his finger and he instinctually did that. His finger fell on a spot in one of the pages that lay open before him.

Sander opened his eyes and looked down to read the passage his finger was lying on.



Sander frowned when he read the passage. He was familiar with it. This was when Lady Galadriel gave the phial to Frodo right before the Fellowship left Lothlorien. But what did the passage mean for him? How did it answer his question?