Muggle Studies ((All years!))

[dana]

Dana patted Kris’s arm with amusement as she stood and smoothed down her clothes while offering Luna a calm smile. „Partners?“ Dana sked the other Ravenclaw 6th year who had chosen to sit next to her in this class so they might as well finish the class working as partners.
Moving trough the classroom Dana chose one of the phones and seated herself at it. Picking up the hand-set Dana swore mentally at the breaking of her nail. Tapping in 0-1 Dana listened to the tone in the phone before Luna picked them up. Holding the head-set up at her ear with the help of her shoulder. Frowning at her broken nail Dana sumouned the nail-filer from her bag and set to work smoothening the nails edges once again as she kept up a half-hearted conversation with Luna.
„This telephone and um... regularly written letters I presume? And don’t they have those fast-travelling letters? Telegrams?“ Dana offered her suggestions for how the muggles were able to communicate.
Listening and answering to Luna’s answers calmly Dana settled herslef comfortably while working on her nail absent-mindedly as she tried to come up with a couple more answers for the question Hardy had presented them with.


((Luna was sitting next to Dana in class, so I presumed they would be working as partners. If you do mind this or the slight god-moding I did, then I'm truly sorry, Luna. But get back to me about this will you? Either via PM or on MSN. )

[cleo]

„See, you are contributing to the class,“ Cleo smirked at Kris’s arm as she stood and smoothed down the fabric of her pants on her legs. Only to have the boy moving next to her and a few moments later strong fingers woudn their way around Cleo’s wrist pulling her forward rather abruptly as Kris found his way with his black and silver walking-cane.
„Of course. Even if I don’t care or don’t bother, I still am simply ingenious,“ Kris replied calmly reaching out his hand and laying it on Dana’s shoudler while letting go of Cleo, „Go and ring me up, will you? One time where the girl has to seek contact.“
„Why should... oh,“ Cleo scowled at Kris’s back who Dana lead to a telephone booth next to the one she herself occupied. It was true. Cleo would hve to call Kris, however much she disliked the idea after the way Kris presented it. But he had a point. Being blind how could he see the phone-handle that he would have to pick up? And how would he be able to dial the correct numbers?

Cleo made her way accross the classroom with her high heels clicking loudly feeling rather pleased at the rather ancient-looking telephone displayed here. Picking up the phone-handle Cleo let one of her fingers appreciatively slide down the engravements in the phone before she dialed the required number. Zero and then one.
It didn’t take long for Kris to pick up the phone as the tow engaged in a mocking conversation.
„Phone, e-mails, letters that can be shipped via phones for them to move quicker,“ Cleo counted up a couple of things immidiately after Kris had picked up the handle.
„Why, it’s been so long since I heard your voice. Though it does sound a bit metallic right now. I’m good. How have you been?“ Kris asked mockingly from the other side making Cleo smile slightly in front of her.
„What else? Doubt sign-language counts as you have to be near enough to see it. Somekind of radio signals?“ Cleo offered thoughtfully.
„At war-time in medieval times and in abbys pigeon post was relatively popular. Rather romantical way of sending mail. And don’t forget Buffalo Bill,“ came the drawling responce that widened Cleo’s grin.

„Buffalo Bill and pony-express! But the rail-roads weren’t very popular among indians, so perhaps we should also take smoke-signals into account?“ Cleo offered as they were already on this topic only to hear a slight note of amusement form Kris’s voice as he replied: „And the drummings of the natives where announcments were forwarded by different speed and rhythm?“
„Don’t forget ships with their signalizing flags,“ Cleo piped in only to hear an immidiate responce: „And the light-signals supposedly used to make contact with UFO’s in case they wouldn’t know our language. Though if UFO’s actually came then they might be idiotic enough to not learn the native language first. Or they will simply enslave mankind.“
„Trumpet calls in battles!“ came Cleo’s offer only to be counted by „Squires for messengers.“
Snickering lightly at each other the two began bickering as it was so characteristic for themselves while challenging each other in an intellectual level as they went into depth about the ways of different messaging throughout history.

[ryan]

Ryan listened to the answers being given out happily grinning widely as Ravenclaw earned a couple of points. Points were always welcomed. After all how could Ravenclaw not win the Houce Cup again this year? It would be unheard of! Ryan had search a little before he found some parchemnt before finally ripping a corner away from an history of magic essay. Binns would never notice anyway or at the least he would be less likely to make a hassle about it than Snape. Scribbling down with a couple of words the new information professor Hardy was giving them Ryan jumped up enthusiastically anxious to try out the funny looking... um... telephones Ryan thought they were.

Stumbling Ryan almost fell onto his face but managed to catch himself with the help of a table-edge only to almost run into some girl. „Sorry,“ Ryan told the girl with a rather sheepish smile as he finsihed the way to one of the telephones after his rather eventful flight to the front of the classroom. Taking hold of the sleek black looking handle of the telephone Ryan had to spend a moment blinking before he finally managed to push on the required number. Hearing a funny voice comign form the handle Ryan almost dropped the piece as he hurriedly tapped the correct buttons again only ot have nothing change. Ryan glanced warily around looking at Cleo and that Graas-boy who seemed to be alreayd conversing without any problems.

Ryan tried again. He pushed 0-1 quickly and tried holding the buttons down for a long time. In the end he even tapped both numbers a couple of times but nothing seemed to work. Tehre was still an eerie tone not someone’s voice coming form the handle so Ryan had to admit his defeat with a sigh.
„Professor!“ Ryan called out looking at the handle in his hand with a bit sad puppy look, „I don’t think my te-le-phone is working properly!“

[leon]

Leon listened closely ask people spoke, about money, which interested Leon greatly, and then about the phones. Although he had heard many things about these 'Telephones', Leon had never used one before and got to work eagerly. He sidled towards Katrina, and politley asked her if they could work together.

Once she had agreed he walked over to the odd, hard things, gazing at them with awe. How could they work? It didn't make any sense. This thing- ee-lec-tri-citi. Very odd. To Leon, it seemed as though Muggles did truly know magic, and that the 'elec' business was just a lame cover. Only once had he seen a telephone before- when he and his family had gone on holiday to Italy. They had phones everywhere- odd black ones hanging in the street, on walls, and sometimes huge red 'phone-boxes' were dotted on the street, where one could go inside and dial a number, for the price of some silver.

Grinning at Katrina, Leon bent over a pale green phone, picking up the long banana-like reciever and poking a cautious finger at the two needed numbers. It took him some time, as the '0' on his phone had almost faded and he had a little trouble finding it. However, once he had located it's position and pressed it hard, he waited patiently as a low, ringing sound echoed in his ear, stopping as someone picked up the other end.

[luna]

Luna danced on the desk in front of her with her fingers looking up at Dana curiously as she asked to be partners in the class. Luna often had to do work alone in class. Some people called her Loony and laughed at her never wanting to do anything WITH her.
Standing up Luna pranced happily over to the other side of the funny looking PHON-EEEE the professor had wanted them to use. Luna jumped as the thing rang loudly and then looked at professor Hardy with some disappointment.
“Does it have to shout at me professor? I would understand regular speaking too!” Luna picked up the phone and smiled at Dana across the room. It was funny. It was as if Dana was speaking in two different places. Luna could here her voice from the funny instrument they were supposed to be studying today and she could faintly make out her voice over the other sounds in the room.

“Hey Dana!” Luna shouted happily at Dana waving at the other girl as she put the PHON-EEEE to her ear and then removed it from there again.
“What about those Webs muggles constantly get into? The World Wide Web? I’m not sure I would like to see a spider big enough to cover the world with a wet. I don’t think Ronald would like it either. Do you think the spider will succeed in making the web soon?”

[Sita Mehadi H7]

A warm feeling rushed through Sita at the praise from Professor Hardy - but more at the fact she had earned 10 points for her house. That made her feel very pleased indeed; she thought of the little jewels making their way into the correct hourglass, moving in favour of her house because she had answered a question correctly. Then Professor Hardy was explaining how telephones worked - something Sita had never thought about, merely taking them for granted in all her years she had spent in the Muggle world. She didn't think many Muggles stopped to consider it either, but followed the lead of other students who were making notes and scribbled down some notes in her rough book about how they worked. She liked her rough book. It was from the Muggle world - WHSmith in fact - an A5 hardback with different coloured circles all over and a furry feel to it. Very cheery, and Sita liked that a lot.

Sita rose from her seat eagerly as Professor Hardy explained what they were to do. She knew how to use a telephone since it was something Muggles used nearly everyday, and most of Sita's friends had been Muggles, but she was interested to see how they'd been set up. Some of the telephones there were rather antiquated looking, while others were perfectly new. There weren't any of those cordless phones which had started to come in in recent years, but then again she supposed that would be rather harder to set up. As Professor Hardy had finished giving them their instructions, she turned to Danielle, simply asking aimiably, "Partners?" She thought for a moment, her mind already running through all the different ways she used to communicate with people, as well as what they'd learned at school about how they did it in the past, and then remembered to add "You can dial and ring me." She approached the telephones, eager to start - she wasn't sure how long the ideas she had in her head would deem to stay there - and selected an old-fashioned design of telephone which had a vibrant red handset that had caught her eye earlier on, sitting down there and making herself comfortable while she waited for Danielle.

((You don't have to work with Sita if you don't want to Danielle - just she's assumed that you hopefully will. But I've done my very best there to ensure there was no G-moding! Any problems let me know.))

[Professor Amaryllis Hardy]

Amaryllis smiled to herself as the members of the class set to work, walking round to her front desk where an extra telephone was set up which could listen to all of the pairs of telephones she had placed in the classroom, so that she could listen to the conversations - especially of those that had paired off without any fuss and were now busy firing ideas down the phone-lines at each other. Cleo Hardwick was working well from her side of the phone and Kris Graas also appeared to be working well. She listened unobtrusively for a while to their light intellectual banter before saying, "Excellent, Miss Hardwick and Mr. Graas. 15 points to both your houses." Luna Lovegood was now complaining about the loud ringing tone of her telephone and Amaryllis stood up to answer her question, taking a few paces across the room so that it was possible to give her a personal answer that wouldn't stop everyone from doing what they were supposed to be doing to listen to her.

"It's called a ringtone, in actual fact, Miss Lovegood," she informed the Ravenclaw. "You do happen to have chosen a phone which doesn't boast the most tuneful ring, but the phone can't speak to you. Unless you were to pre-record a message onto it telling you to pick it up. That would be a bit like charming an object to perform a certain task - for instance charming a candle to light itself and extinguish itself in a sequence. Except Muggles can't use magic to do that, so it would most likely involve the sound waves being converted into some sort of electrical signal and back again." Amaryllis gave the sixth year a smile and went back to her master telephone to listen in to some more conversations.

Mr. Harrow appeared to have managed to get the phone to work but had not yet started the assignment, so Amaryllis decided to give some encouragement to get their work moving and then leave them to it while she listened in to some other pairs. "Well done for managing to use the phone correctly, Mr. Harrow - 5 points to Ravenclaw." she spoke into the phone. "Try thinking of some other ways that Muggles communicate with each other now - the telephone you're using is just one of them." Dialling '07' for the pair of telephones she wanted to listen to, Amaryllis evaluated the conversation between Dana Coran and Miss Lovegood, finding it perhaps a little lacking in Miss Coran's usual concise detail. She glanced over towards the phone at which the Ravenclaw prefect was sitting and indeed she was occupying herself with more than one task. Amaryllis raised her eyebrows a little before commenting down the handset, "Well done, Miss Coran and Miss Lovegood. 10 points to Ravenclaw each. Do carry on."

Amaryllis was now being summoned by Mr. Wilkinson, a fifth year Ravenclaw as far as she was aware, although she'd never encountered him much before, never having seen him in the duelling classroom. He claimed there was something wrong with his telephone. Amaryllis came over and took the handset from him, dialling '01' while commenting, "I doubt that's the case - I tested each telephone personally before this lesson." On hearing the ringing tone uninterrupted by anyone picking it up, Amaryllis stood up and looked over to the other side of the partition. It was as she had thought - there was no person sitting or standing there anxiously hoping their partner could get the telephone to work. "I did suggest you find yourself a partner for a reason, Mr. Wilkinson," Amaryllis told the Ravenclaw, smiling so as not to be too cutting. "It's no use trying to have a conversation with yourself unless you have two phones at once. Why don't you pair yourself with Mr. MacMillan here and then you can exchange your thoughts on Muggle communications." Amaryllis had drawn the Hufflepuff in as she saw him nearby and now left the two of them to sort themselves out. "Come on Miss Mehadi, Miss Pewter," she said to two first year girls she saw standing fairly close together as she passed. "Get started, now." Glancing around the classroom at the numbers of people who had not yet started their work properly, she raised the level of her voice so it would carry to everyone. "That goes for everyone that hasn't yet started working," she said. "You need to find yourself someone to work with quickly and start thinking about different ways Muggle use to communicate." That said, Amaryllis returned to her telephone which would allow her to listen to the conversations of those people for whom she had not already done so.

[Rosaliz Hernandez G6]

Rosaliz dragged her self from her other class to this one. When is this day going to end? she questioned herself. It seemed to be going so slow. She was totally confused in her last class to which spell was what and how to pronounce them. Trying to shrug that idea off her mind she had apparently stuck. She sat at a table waiting for class to begin. As class started the professor started talking about what they were going to do. Rosaliz had difficulty saying telephone instead she said. "Fellyfone" But it was close enough to what the teacher had said she thought. When they had to pick partners for the fellyfone Rosaliz was sadden by this. All the pairs were all ready taken and she was left alone. Instead Rosaliz grabbed the last spare phone and started to examine it. All the buttons and numbers. "What are these buttons for?" she thought and if somebody had explained it earlier she had surely missed it. She gulped afraid to pick up the other piece of the phone apparently everybody had them on their ears so she decide to do so to. Slowly she picked it up and attached it to her ear. Suddenly she screamed. "AHHHHH" The loud humming sound had scared her. She thought it was a humming of a spells wand trying to spike at her since she thought that it sound like it. This had frightened her so much that she started to cry. She pushed this fellyfone away from her she didn't want to get hurt from it.

[Monica Henshaw S5]

Monica woke up early this mourning for which it was very usual for her. She feed her owl and got dressed. She put her her skirt on that broke the school rules. It was three inches above her knee showing some of her thighs. Her white blouse wasn't tucked in with her tie lose around her neck. She then walked over to her trunk getting her make-up and a mirror she applied the right amount of black eyeliner and red lipstick. After she finished applying he make-up she combed her hair letting it loosely down. She grabbed her robe putting it ontop of her clothes with a finishing touch of perfume. Monica made it to the great hall eating a blueberry muffing. After finishing her drink she walked to wards her class.

Apparently she had been early and she sat in the back of the class. How Monica hated the drench and damp smell of wood. Mainly she was allergic to it. before class she'd take a position before walking in that st. Mungo's had assigned since Hogwarts was always worried about their students. Monica rolled her eyes at that. As if they cared about this slytherin? She listened how the professor explained what a telephone was. Monica shrugged at this. She was paired with another slytherin. She thought it was awesome how quick the sound waves traveled to the phone and how it probably be the best muggle invention. She was surprised she was doing work. Usually her lack of working was very low. The professor had assigned questions to them which Monica already had answered them. She had a sharp mind and sometimes she put it to work for classes but for other things it was always needed and if not she probably wouldn't have been in this class.

She smirked at the amount of knowledge these muggles had just enough for survival. All of a sudden she had been awakened from her thoughts changing her facial expression. She had heared somebody yell in fear, Monica immediately looked in search for whom it was. She always found amusement in these kinds of things. Quickly she looked around to see who it was. She started to laugh really so hard on the top of her lungs when she found out it was Rosaliz a gryffindor. "I'll get her later" she said under her breath she wouldn't want to put this professor off task. She smirked at this absent mindly. She sighed since there wasn't anything else to do and waited for further instructions for the professor.

[Professor Amaryllis Hardy]

Amaryllis watched and listened as the students continued with their task, giving the Slytherin Miss Henshaw a stern, disapproving glance as she appeared to be laughing openly at another student's misfortune. Amaryllis approached the second year Gryffindor student who seemed to be having some trouble with her phone, picked the handset up and offered it back to Miss Hernandez gently.
"It's quite all right," she reassured her, though without much friendliness in her voice. "It doesn't bite; it won't hurt you. All telephones make a buzzing noise if you're not talking to anyone else. It indicates that you can go ahead and dial a number. So who are you working with?" Amaryllis looked over the other side of the partition and found nobody sitting on the opposite side. "Ah." she said, privately wishing finding a partner was not quite such a complicated task for a group of youngsters. "How about you work with Miss Murvac here? And don't be worried by any sounds the phone makes. It's unlikely to break and it won't hurt you."

As the majority of students appeared to be finishing their task, Amaryllis soon clapped her hands to silence the class. She glanced around to check they were listening to her before saying,
"All right, well done everyone! I hope you've got more of an idea now of how Muggles actually use telephones. Your homework is to produce a list of as many Muggle currencies as you can think of, and match them up with their countries. No need to go overboard, but do try to get at least ten if you can." Amaryllis waited for the students to start writing it down in case one of them needed her to repeat or clarify what she had said, before dismissing the class. "You may go whenever you're ready." As students began to leave the room, Amaryllis returned to her desk to collect up her papers, making a little note on a page of her diary to indicate how she thought the class had gone and what problems had cropped up. Hopefully she would be able to improve it for the next year.

((This class is now finished and I will not be giving out any more house points for the assignment - just for the homework. PM homework to me by 12am Pacific time on Monday February 6th 2006. If you have more than one student in class, put all their names on your homework - you need only do the homework once. Thanks to everyone who came.))