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Post by william on Oct 2, 2006 20:55:19 GMT -5
It was an under-statement to say that the professor was looking forward to this class. His only 7th year actually liked learning runes. Sure she seemed a bit clueless at times, but her questions often made him look up different references, and that, was very refreshing.
He took a sip of coffee as he prepared the class material. With a simple yet eager flick of his wand, the words "Prefixes and Suffixes" appeared on the board.
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Post by cappuccino on Oct 2, 2006 21:05:23 GMT -5
Ivy, back from the Holiday break, walked into the classroom. She brushed the snow off of her hair and smiled softly at Professor Mason. "Hello Professor," she greeted him. "I bought you something from China," Ivy slipped her bag off and placed it on top of her desk. Rummaging through her bag, she took out some parchment, a quill and her reference book for Ancient Runes. It took her a while longer until she pulled out long package wrapped in white and red. Walking over to her teacher, she held out her present to him.
"I bought it when I was up in the mountains. It's an ancient Chinese scroll, I thought you might like it,"
The scroll had archaic Chinese writing from wizards who were studying the properties of the sun and moon. Ivy couldn't read the scroll, but maybe Mason could after studying it. Along with the vertical words, a beautiful picture of a cloudy full-moon night was painted onto the parchment.
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Post by william on Oct 5, 2006 7:19:47 GMT -5
"Oh Miss Xin, how nice of you," the professor accepted the gift. Perhaps it's more professional of him to decline it, since a professor shouldn't really receive any gifts from his students. But he's an honest and straightforward man, that he didn't consider the gift as anything other than a nice gestures. So, in his mind, it's quite alright.
He unrolled the scroll and just stared at it. He had students bringing him gifts before. Nothing too fancy. Perhaps a quill for his birthday, a pair of gloves for digging around on his runes trip, maybe a coffee or two when he looked a bit tired. But nothing quite exquisite.
"It's stunning," he examined the writings. He recognized them as Chinese writings, but he didn't understand them either. Chinese wasn't exactly what he studied. But hey, he was sure he could look into that. "It's so..beautiful."
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Post by cappuccino on Oct 5, 2006 20:23:29 GMT -5
“I’m glad that you like it, Professor,” she said with a soft smile, nodding a bit. She was happy that he accepted the gift. As soon as she saw the scroll in the ancient temple, it reminded her of Professor Mason. Ivy felt that he tried so hard, especially with Ivy as his only seventh-year student. “Maybe one day we’ll be able to read it…” she tilted her head slowly, as if trying to decipher the script. “Aye, but Chinese writings are difficult… they are all so complex and each character means something completely different.” Ivy shrugged and made her way back to her seat.
The bell to begin class hadn’t rang yet, so she had a chance to ask Professor Mason a question as she sat down in her seat. “So, Professor Mason, how was your holiday? Relaxing, I hope?”
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Post by william on Oct 10, 2006 22:18:54 GMT -5
"Very, just the way I like my vacations," he answered with a smile, eyes still looking at the drawings and writings. Chinese writing wasn't exactly part of his expertise, but helping a student to learn certainly was a teacher's job.
"Miss Xin, I certainly could find out something about Chinese writing," he continued. "In fact, if you are really interested, we can try to finish the Tengwar material within this class, and we can explore some Chinese writing next time."
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Post by cappuccino on Oct 14, 2006 16:10:20 GMT -5
Ivy nodded at Professor Mason, and spoke sincerely "Yes, that would be great, Professor." Professor Mason was one of the few people that had faith in Ivy. Most professors thought Ivy was some sort of fool, and she was, but that didn't mean that fools couldn't accomplish great things. She had made an effort to try hard in this class, especially since she was the only seventh year taking Runes this year.
In fact, like Ash, Runes was her favorite class this year.
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Post by william on Oct 16, 2006 22:42:02 GMT -5
"That's settled then," he nodded at the girl with a pleased smile. Students who were willing to learn were always pleasant to teach. Of course, as a teacher, it's his responsibility to share his knowledge whether the students wanted to learn or not. But sometimes, that bit of appreciation really made a difference.
"So, we know that a prefix is something added to the beginning of a word and a suffix is added to the end," he began, writing the words "Adjectives" and "Pronouns" on the board. "And in Quenya, they serve more functions than just that."
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Post by cappuccino on Oct 23, 2006 17:43:50 GMT -5
Ivy quickly jotted down some notes. She expected that adjectives and pronouns were probably within the word itself, added into the suffix or prefix.
"Like Spanish, right? Where the suffix was based on gender?" she said absentmindedly, trying to relate this to her own life. "Like hermano, hermana?" She wasn't sure if that's what he meant, but knew that he would probably end up explaining.
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Post by william on Oct 31, 2006 23:30:48 GMT -5
Professor Mason blinked, then smiled a tad nervously. Was it bad that while he could claim he knew almost every ancient runic language people had ever studied, yet he didn't know Spanish? He wasn't sure. But it wasn't like he had to know Spanish to decipher anything...
"I actually don't know Spanish," he scratched his head just behind his ear. "But the idea is correct, like suffix based on gender."
"For example, in Tengwar, vanya stands for beautiful. English use the word "most" to intensify the meaning. In Tengwar, we add 'an' in front of 'vanya'," he wrote the word anvanya on the board, "if we want to say 'the most beautiful'."
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Post by cappuccino on Nov 2, 2006 10:48:31 GMT -5
Okay... an = most. Like connecting words right? Okay, this isn't so hard!
Ivy scribbled down some notes. Tengwar wasn't so hard; maybe she'll do well on the final exam without studying so hard. Mason made things easy to learn, and it wasn't so bad. "Ivy is anvanya..." she muttered quietly and unconcisiously to herself.
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Post by william on Nov 7, 2006 23:09:44 GMT -5
"We add "an" to the adjective if it begins with c, n, qu, t, v, w, y, f, h, or any other vowels," he continued, writing the letter on the board. "However, if the adjective starts with l, r, s, or m, we double the first letter before adding "a" to the beginning."
He didn't hear what Ivy muttered to herself. But it's almost as if he knew, he made an example. "So, if we want to say Ivy is the most beautiful witch, we would say Ivy na i anvanya curuni."
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Post by william on Nov 12, 2006 13:50:49 GMT -5
(Class over, see you in lesson 4!)
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