Looking forward

[alt_sinistra]

As promised, 5th and 7th years, I am extending my regular office hours as you continue to review for your upcoming exams. A schedule of chances to practice charting with the projection stones (or outside, if the weather allows) is also posted. If you need additional time, or the scheduled times don’t work for you, please let me know, and we’ll find a time that does.

In addition, I have my own list of topics we’ll be reviewing in class, but please let me know about any areas where you would like additional time or conversation.

7th years: I am also reminded by a chat last night that many of you are looking ahead to life after Hogwarts. I do know of a few possible apprenticeships requiring good results on the Astronomy NEWT exam, but I also sometimes hear of others, and plan to do my usual asking around at the next Astronomy Guild meeting. If you are considering future plans, do let me know your interests and I’ll be glad to see what I can do to put you in touch with people with related positions.

My other years: please do be considerate of the exam year students. I am of course always glad to help you, or to discuss astronomy, but for the next month or so, do need to give priority to exam-related questions during office hours.

Comments

Private message to Chloe Selwyn

[alt_sinistra]

Chloe -

I'm sorry we didn't get more chance to talk and follow up at the wedding, but Raz and I were doing our very best to put some of the gossip to rest. (Looking at the papers since, not nearly enough, but I suppose every bit helps.)

I do keep thinking over what we talked about at tea. About what it means to marry in. The implications. The costs. What you said about the constant maneuvering and power struggles, and how that affects everything around, even when nothing actually changes. And I do appreciate your honesty, truly.

And yet, as I pointed out to a friend this past winter, what would change if I said no to him? (Not that I want to: it's not Raz himself who's the difficulty at all.) Everything else would still be as it is, and being slightly more distant from it isn't that much of a salve to the soul, really. This year at Hogwarts has brought that home and home again.

And I - stars and planets, of course I won't share about your worries. It's not like I don't have worries too, the ones that keep me up at night. I told Raz we talked a bit, about what being a Council wife is like, but not anything in detail.

I've never put much stock in Divination, which is why I didn't say much when you brought it up, what you remember seeing. Not seeing. But if it's worrying at you so much - would you feel better if you tried again, or worse? (I'd ask if there were someone you trusted, family or whoever - but I know what you'd say to that, so never mind.)

The thing I keep coming back to is making the most of the days we do get, however many of them there are. I'm not sure anyone anywhere can do better than that, even without the other pieces in play that you've lived with, and I'm learning to.

Private message to Storm Sinistra

[alt_sinistra]

Thanks again for the time Friday. (Do I need to say you are better and better at your craft every time I see you? Now if we can just get things so I can give Raz his wedding present. The desk for Tosha is also coming along gloriously. I made appropriate noises at him about it.)

I keep thinking about what Dittany said, when we were out rambling. That the waiting for the wedding was the hardest for her, waiting to anchor her loyalties where everyone could see, and begin to make something new. Tell her she's brill, would you? It finally helped me figure out why I've been so on edge this fortnight.

It's that conversation with students. What I said to them sounded so feeble and selfish and pitiful, the more I thought about it. Part of it's logic: what right do I have to risk Mum or Orion or Chiron or Dad, without asking? (Which is true, but not enough.)

But part of it is - how do you balance harm against harm, or help against help? Mum's doing real good right now with that programme she pushed through about the infusions and instruction and the supplements. The latest study - she just owled - says the deficiency conditions seem to be in decline. Slow, but measureable. And that's all Mum's stubborn insistence they could make it work.

And for all Chiron's a stick in the mud sometimes, he's not petty, and he's fair-minded, and he thinks through the implications of things, and if we've got to have an Internal Affairs department, I'd far rather people like him working in it than some.

And if Madam Pinkness removed me tomorrow, I think my students would pass their exams now. All the ones who would have, anyway. And I think Mum's job might be safe enough, or recoverable. It's not like it would have been in February. Madam Pinkness has fewer friends than she used to. This last round over hols, when she was poking at the Ministry again, stirred things up, I guess.

I'm not brave. But maybe I can be enough braver. If the opportunity comes. It might feel better than this feeling helpless and hopeless. I'm done with that.

Private message to Gilly Chadwick

[alt_sinistra]

Gil -

Keeping my promise and checking in. It's harder than I hoped being back, and I hate how much my frustration and exhaustion kept bubbling over during hols themselves. (On that note, Tosha came and fiddled with my wards, and that, at least, is helping more than I thought it might. Tell Delilah if you would?)

I keep thinking back to last week, the two students I mentioned I'd seen. They - they're smart young women, and practical, not just brainy. They got pretty close to the truth on their own. It was so very hard talking about it (I can see your eyebrow go up at that understatement, but I did manage to duck out and hold onto my shreds of dignity when they named names.)

Part of me knows they're young. That there are things they needn't know about me, about Madam Headmistress, about their housemate. And then there's the part of me that won that night, that says that when I was their age, Alcor asked me if I'd be his successor. That remembers you working so hard to find your current orbit. All the other people, sure they knew what they needed and wanted.

And ... I won't dim the brightness of their stars in the sky. I'd never have told them if they hadn't asked, but they did. Guessed at a lot of it. And even while some of what I said sounded so feeble and so selfish (and probably is), at least talking is better than silence. Holds more hope than silence.

Maybe.

Re: Private message to Gilly Chadwick

[alt_sinistra]

Also, look. I know you're reading a lot out of Hogwarts these days, because of me. I - Miss Jones. That essay, Sunday. I just keep coming back to it. Or that horrible thing from Miss Parkinson. (She is not normally like that, I promise.)

You know that's not how I think, right? Not about you, not about Dai, not about your Juniper. Not about my students who are halfbloods. It's - it's so hard to figure out what to do about it, outside the little personal things. And I know you'd tell me, if I could do something specific.

It's just such a waste. How long it took you to find something that really uses your brains and how precarious you feel it is. Dai. The other stories you and Sigrun have told us. And I hate that that kind of - Hogwarts should be the place where the people who can be of use, can do good things, can be found and developed. We're not, right now, and it's getting worse and worse.

What surprised me a little is - there's more variation, among the Council, than I'd have thought. They fought for things to be like they are now, of course. But it's not black and white. They had different reasons, different bits they care about. Lots of planets around the sun. Similar, and yet not the same.

I'm saying this badly. I remember our school years and how it was different Never mind.

[alt_cedric]

Thank you for the talk this afternoon, you continue to be immensely helpful in my thinking about and struggle to find appropriate and personally fulfilling non-quidditch related job prospects.

I think I will try and take that interview we discussed. Maybe there would be enough fulfilling about that sort of position to overcome my fear of a life stuck behind a desk. It would certainly be less risky than attempting to start my own business.

[alt_sinistra]

Quite welcome. (I'll make sure the note goes out as soon as I can, then.)

I've been thinking rather a lot the past few weeks about how we figure out what we're supposed to be doing with ourselves. Certainly glad to help you explore more options, and see what comes of it. And of course, the point of looking at the options is that one can decide not to take them.

Office work's not glamorous, but there's a certain stability in it - I've seen that from my parents. And I know from watching my brother how hard getting a business off the ground is. All a question of which risks you want to take when, and what parts of what you love could be done on your own time.

(I think I mentioned, most of my astronomy colleagues do it as a sideline, not the way they earn a living. It's hard sometimes on the sleep, but rewarding, all the same.)