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Post by River Antonucchi on Jun 23, 2015 12:57:03 GMT -5
River's classroom was always wide open to the other teachers, less ajar for the students except when they need help with Transfiguration or had something to tell him about his Transfiguration class, may that be a bully or a hard time asking him questions due to anxiety. But he usually tended to the teachers, students don't really want to hang around him unless they need to, surprisingly enough, you'd think he'd keep the door locked shut and guarded by a dragon or something. But that wasn't really the case, he was still trying to be a good teacher.
Usually he also ate lunch and breakfast in his classroom. Something about eating in front of students disturbed him. It just made him feel awkward, not to mention he'd be passing out detentions most of the time when he sees the trouble a lot of the kids make during lunch and breakfast. Dinner was already bad enough, and that's the only time he actually goes out to eat with the others, and even then he usually tries to leave as fast as he could, luckily for the students. He didn't like to see them too, you know. The feeling was totally mutual between him and the students. They didn't like him, and he didn't like them, he was traumatized by them to never have kids.
He was suffering a bad case of back pain and spell damage from the kids. Back pain because he'd been sitting straighter than a board that day (manners) and leaning down to help the students continuously that day, spell damage because one of his idiot fifth year student almost shot a hex to a little first year. And he was the bigger idiot because he didn't think to use a protego charm, though if he had, he knew that by then the kid would have been hit by the hex and would have a bad week with a nasty second degree burn where the spell would have hit, he had luckily gotten hit on his right hand, he was an ambidextrous person, though at first he was left-handed. Not to mention, second degree burns didn't hurt River, it was usually nothing to him since he had a knack for burning people, sometimes he'd accidentally burn himself too . See, and people tell him he had no heart, fucking saving a first year student from a nasty hex, but he did send the older student a semester's worth of detentions and a visit to the Headmaster. If he had a say about it, he would have kicked out the student from the school. Unfortunately, that wasn't his call.
So here he was in his classroom eating a mostly chicken salad with rice that he stole in the kitchens, placed in a fancy-looking jar where he was eating with an equally fancy-looking fork since tupperwares weren't invented yet. He would have shot himself in the future when he would get to see the invention of the tupperware, amazing thing from the 1940s. He had his bad hand out, unhealed because the infirmary was dealing with many people today for some reason, and he wouldn't want to add more to that for a silly second-degree burn that he could probably handle himself.
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Post by Nixie Auttenberg on Jun 23, 2015 13:37:35 GMT -5
Week two was going somewhat better than week one. Students were beginning to adapt at least a little to her accent, which was helpful after her voice nearly went hoarse from having yo repeat things four or five times in order for the students to understand her the week before. German was first language, and while she was fluent in English, the strength of her accent still made it exceedingly difficult for her students to understand her. One student in particular - a sixth year boy named Emyr - had a particularly difficult time learning to tie a knot, and she felt personally responsible for his failure due to her unable to communicate certain words very clearly.
She heaved a heavy sigh as she dismissed her class to lunch, feeling relief lift off of her shoulders as they flooded out the exit. This was definitely something she could get through, and truthfully, she did enjoy teaching. But this was definitely going to be a challenge for her in multiple ways - the first being getting her head on straight. She needed to work on overcoming her shell shock as well as her self-loathing for the things she had done. But on top of everything, she needed to do everything she could to redeem herself... If that was even possible this late in the game.
But she needed help with her lesson plan, as shameless as that was. She knew how to truly teach, but there was something keeping her from being able to convey her messages correctly to her students. With notebook in hand, she got to her feet, feeling the grinding feeling at the back of her brain telling her to stop. She didn't need help; she was better than that. Why would she take advice from someone else?
...Because she needed it.
Nixie began to stroll down the hallway, checking classrooms to see if any professors were still in their room for lunch. Potions, no luck. Herbology, nope. Not even the DADA professor was available. Another heavy sigh escaped her, and she almost admitted defeat before passing by the Transfiguration room. The professor was present, causing her to stop and turn around to knock on the open door. "Professor Holland?" She called out before stepping over the threshold. "Do you have moment? My lesson plan is disaster," she sighed softly, frowning as her accent exploded from her mouth.
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Post by River Antonucchi on Jun 23, 2015 14:07:28 GMT -5
He had to admit, he didn't expect anyone that lunch. Especially not that German teacher. Of course by the moment she spoke, he understood what she was saying. Something about him and her lesson plan being a disaster. "Come on in," River called out, looking at the doorway where the teacher was, looking at her and wandlessly procuring a seat on the other side of his table. One of the first things he knew how to do wandlessly was to conjure up a seat. You never know when you're going to be in line for a long time waiting for tickets for a Quidditch match.
He never had teachers come in for help, and especially not with their lesson plans. He guessed the new teacher was still getting used to it, he didn't blame her. Being a teacher was quite the work, and students don't necessarily look at it that way. The organization it takes to teach a bunch of idiots, they think it's just writing stuff on the board and speaking. Well, sometimes that was the case with him, but that rarely happened. He could sympathize with the new teacher, he had been like her. Though he never asked for help was his greatest regret, and in turn, it made his first year an increasingly hard year. Maybe that's why he turned bitter, mean, and cold...
"What exactly in your lesson plan do you need help with? Or do you need help with making a lesson plan because you don't have one?" Unlike most people, he understood more of the gibberish talk that this new teacher would say. A lot of the times where he would bed German women, he had to deal with their 'almost-impossible-to-decipher' speech. He knew a lot of useless words that could be used mostly in bed, but in all truthfulness, it did help him have less of a headache when trying to communicate with the teacher. Or any German in particular, they were famous for having to repeat things a lot, but that's just their way of speaking. He thought the German dialect was very beautiful, of course he preferred Italian, it was the tongue of the Gods, a lot of Italians would boast.
He hid his right hand from her quickly, setting his jar and fork aside in his table. This lady needed his help, and he was a gentleman who wouldn't refuse a chance helping a woman. Truthfully he knew that women can do anything men can do, so if they needed help, it must be something they're really struggling with. And he was willing to help anyone of course. Teachers especially since they were his only shot of making friends— not that he needed any, he would insist otherwise to his brother. But River just had a very hard time connecting with the others here, excluding his brother.
He just wasn't as friendly as Pietro, he wishes he was him, life would be easier if he could ask for help from some of the people here. Because he knew Pietro isn't going to ways be there, and with that, River always ended up doing things alone and figuring things out for himself. Sometimes it was his pride that prevented him from asking help, but most of the time it was just him not able to communicate with others. If he was going to change that, it might as well be now.
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Post by Nixie Auttenberg on Jun 23, 2015 19:37:00 GMT -5
It was a relief to be welcomed into the classroom with the professor who had been here for far longer than she had been, so she let out a small sigh of contentment as she began to close the distance between them. A chair came sliding across the floor to sit across from his desk, and she sat down in it as she laid the notebook and folders down on the desk in between them. "I am sorry to bother you," she said with a regretful shake of her head. "I just... I struggle with English, and students aren't understanding of me."
Asking for his help and admitting her failure as a teacher was a devastating blow to her pride, but this was the only option she had at the given moment. She opened up the notebook and showed her notes to him made up on broken English that probably made better sense to her than it did to him. "Easy stuff. We are going over material that is easy, but they don't understand. Is it lesson plan or is it accent?" She asked with a tilt of her head.
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Post by River Antonucchi on Jun 23, 2015 20:02:51 GMT -5
"Well you don't have to worry about bothering me, Miss Auttenberg," River told her in response to her words sitting down on the chair he had conjured up. He felt a bad for her, it must be hard for her to get used to speaking in English when you have been speaking something else your whole life, even if you are fluent at English. You don't just simply switch over to speaking something perfectly. Though, he can't empathize with her on this one, he was a former student here, he had learned how to speak English overtime while he was a kid here.
River looked over her notebook, reading silently and quickly through the broken English. Sadly, he has seen worse of some of his seventh year American students, so this one was easy to go through. You'd think as a teacher you can reteach the students easily with numbers and letters, correct grammatical structure and punctuation over the seven years that you would spend with them. It was just so sad that wasn't really happening for some of the students that he had to teach. Buffoons, that's what they are, and they ask him why he's so hard on his students.
After reading her notes, River looked up at the new teacher as her head was tilted. He found himself smiling, well she was kinda cute. "Well, I would say it was the accent, but it's so hard to blame cute European accents," was the first thing that came out of his mouth. He smacked himself mentally for the first time for flirting, he was supposed to help her, not flirt. She was a lady who needed his help with trying to teach her students, and somehow River couldn't find it in himself to take advantage of her.
But he had smoothly recovered from his mistake, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... you know," he shook his head at her and sighed. "What I really mean to say is that it is sadly your accent, Miss Auttenberg. But not to worry, as a teacher here for years, I assure you. I've dealt with American students who are far worse in the speaking department," River assured the woman who seemed to have trouble getting used to speaking English.
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Post by Nixie Auttenberg on Jun 23, 2015 21:17:11 GMT -5
It was reassuring to know that, even with her crippling pride on the line, she wasn't being bothersome to the poor gentleman in front of her who decided to let her enter his classroom. He didn't know what he was getting himself into with trying to help her with her lesson plan for the next day, but she was grateful that he was willing to lend a hand. It wasn't until now that she realized just how much assistance she would require with her teaching skills seeing as this was her first year. Until she was able to truly master the art of speaking to the students in a way that they would understand, she feared she truly would be a hopeless cause.
"I am thankful for your kindness," she told him with a nod. She observed him as he looked over her notes and scratches and ideas jotted down on the pages of notebook paper, hoping to hear at least something good. After a minute or two, he looked back up to her and was smiling, but she didn't smile in return. Instead, she just kept her eyes hopeful and waited for him to speak. Truthfully, she wasn't sure if she was even capable of genuine smiles anymore. After all, she hadn't really had a reason to smile in quite some time.
What came out of his mouth, though, caused her eyes to widen and her cheeks to redden. He told her that her accent was "cute," which wasn't what she was expecting. It was a kind gesture, she assumed, but she bit her bottom lip nervously as her eyes dropped down to the pages between them. "I, erm... Thank you," she said sheepishly, unaware of exactly how to handle this sort of a situation. She knew she was capable of flirting and being friends with people from her teenage years before the war, but that had been about eight years prior at this point. It was almost as if she had forgotten how to truly live a normal life.
A moment later, and the man was apologizing to her. Oh no... Had she offended him? "No, no," she replied quickly, shaking her head and pointing her gaze back to him. "Okay. It is okay," she promised. "I am just not used to accent being 'cute' is all." He confirmed, though, that is was in fact her accent that was giving students problems. That was what she feared, seeing as it wasn't really something she could just change overnight unlike a lesson plan. She sighed softly to herself and nodded to his statement. "I was afraid of this, but how do I make better? They cannot learn if they cannot understand.."
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Post by River Antonucchi on Jun 23, 2015 21:58:58 GMT -5
River had sighed out in a breath he didn't know he was holding as she didn't just bitch-slap him for hitting on her on such a serious note. Well, no one has done that before actually, but this woman definitely wasn't a regular cause, he observed. He also wasn't surprised that she wasn't used to getting complimented about her accent, she did seem to look like she was even embarrassed by her accent. Especially when he confirmed that it was the reason her kids might not be learning what they need to learn. And again, he felt bad about admitting the truth to her. Damnit, he knew he wasn't being himself right now. Maybe he's just having a little soft spot with new female teachers, or maybe just sympathy because he had been once like her, turned down the wrong path because he never tried to seek for help.
"Miss Auttenberg, I believe you are fluent in English, yes? Don't worry about it, I can help you with it as much as I could, you did ask me for help," he mused at her, not seeming to be fazed by her worries. "Throughout the year, you would discover that even some of your students are struggling to speak and write in English just like you," he further assured, taking her notebook and a quill from his quill holder and flipped over to a blank page. He might not be all-round smart like Pietro, but he was academically smart, and he knew his English fairly well.
"We should start with prepositions such as 'but', 'by', 'to' and such, I noticed it isn't one of your strong points, can you name me some?" He quickly got into teacher mode, but he was already guessing he wouldn't be able to be the terrifying teacher he was to his students as to her, a fellow teacher. Part of the reason why, he didn't know. But he was set to help her, she was smart enough to ask for help, and he was willing to give it to this beautiful young lady.
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Post by Nixie Auttenberg on Jun 26, 2015 0:50:39 GMT -5
"You are nice man," she told him with a light nod. "You do not have to help me but do anyway." A very small smile graced her lips as she glanced down at her own notes. Perhaps she should work on her penmanship as well - not having written much in several years other than warning letters to the British had definitely taken its toll on her writing skills. "I hope students are better than me, anyway. If they confused about writing too, then job will be twice as hard," she sighed.
But then he began to ask her about prepositions, which was something she only knew vaguely of. "Prepositions... You don't end sentence with those, yes? Words like 'from' and 'with'? Is that right?" Goodness, she hoped so. She already made an idiot out of herself with the students, and now she was about to do so in front of a colleague as well. A colleague that she hoped to possibly even befriend if she could ever regain her social skills.
But would that help, anyway? She was determined to keep her past under wraps for as long as possible, but would that really work out? It was inevitable to completely escape the actions one had performed, so she assumed it was only a matter of time before her dark secrets came pouring out. And then would she be hated? Shunned? Probably so, but she was determined to try and do as much good as humanly possible before her time ran out. Before this man before her and the other professors ran her off for the murderous monster she once was.
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Post by River Antonucchi on Jun 26, 2015 1:35:51 GMT -5
"Well, it's the least I could do for a fellow teacher... It's for the kids too as well," he smiled at her genuinely, rather crooked as well. Woah, when did that happen? River had felt the strong urge to laugh, him as a nice man? He was about the meanest in this academy. River wasn't nice at all, at least he wasn't nice for quite a while now. Things change with certain circumstances that simply changes things inside a man, in this case for his circumstance it was probably teaching little bastards and being part of the mafia.
He took note when she spoke some more, her contractions needed some work too, but that will come in all later, of course. He nodded, scribbling the words she had said, and some more for her to look over later. "That's quite correct, Miss Auttenberg. If you weren't asking for help I'd have thought you were doing fine on your own," he said. He scribbled some things, like the articles and contraptions, some books she might need to borrow in the library. He talked to her about her pronounciations, and a little bit about her contractions, often explaining to her with examples that he'd written down and showed her in her notebook. Of course it was a much easier read than her writing, but River always did have a pleasant handwriting. Almost... spidery in a way.
She knew her English, it was just hard for her to adjust, River figured. From speaking German most of her life, he understood that she wasn't going to just transition smoothly into one of the hardest languages in the world. "Well, I listed some things here that you need to review, also some books you might want to borrow. But I think the best thing for you to do is to talk to more, holding a conversation from people and especially students here with their slang, will make it easier for you to pick up some of the things you're struggling with," River said, then he smirked, "It would also be a shame if you keep your cute accent to yourself," now that was intended, and also the next words he hoped would end up with him taking her out. "How about I take you around town this weekend and I'll let you do all the talking with the people there?" River always made the best of things, which included multitasking. An educational date, he would say was what he offered to her.
At the first moment he was already different and confused, one part of him just really wanted to help her, one part was just wanted to say screw it. For the most part, it was just him deciding to be nice to this lady, a needed change. He decided to make a friend for once, and to be nice to another human being that wasn't a member of his family. Maybe it was that, the need for a friend. After all, Pietro wasn't going to be there with him all the time. Other than that, he didn't know why he suddenly just asked her on a date. Because as far as he knew, he wasn't planning on screwing this one just yet. Or maybe he did, just not on the first date, if there was more to come. Never had he been anymore confused than just now.
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Post by Nixie Auttenberg on Jun 28, 2015 0:53:03 GMT -5
It was nice to know that someone had faith in her, and it was also reassuring to know that she at least had a decent understanding of the English language. Her actual execution of her words was what was causing her problem, but she supposed that she could fix that with practice. After all, she had only been in the United States for a short period of time at this point. "Thank you, Professor Holland," she told him with a nod, smiling ever so slightly towards him. "It is nice that you have faith in me. I think I am unsure of self more often than not."
He was beginning to suggest just what she was thinking: practice. River asked her to join him over the weekend out on the town so that she could meet people and work on her communication skills. It was a really good idea, honestly, and she couldn't really argue with it. And while he might have seen it at some sort of "date" type encounter, she was too naive to truly realize what he was getting at. So instead of being wary of a date - like she would have been had she known what was going on - she lit up slightly with excitement. Her eyes grew wide with anticipation, and her faint smile turned into one that was more genuine and bright.
"That sounds great," she said excitedly. "Maybe I can get better with words this way. Then students will comprehend, and I won't fail them so bad." She couldn't hide her excitement as she spoke, and she quickly collected her papers and hugged them to her chest. "When do we meet?" she asked him with a light tilt of her head, pushing her seat back slightly in order to stand.
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Post by River Antonucchi on Jun 28, 2015 1:18:33 GMT -5
River looked at his co-worker and shook his head, "River, call me River. Like the body of water, you know— River. With a mouth... And yeah," he somewhat sighed. Well that was a bit awkward in his side of the conversation, he had a really weird name and he blamed his mother because she was probably on weed when she was naming him, and his sister. Damnit Pietro, he got the good end of the deal. He had the Italian name. He just got the watery loo of a name. Not fair, totally not fair.
River realized that she definitely didn't have the intention to hang out like he had in mind. And wow, it amazed him because she seemed so dedicated to learn English for a bunch of baboons. Something River could never do, because he had lack of compassion for others. His was destroyed the moment he knew who he was: an Antonucchi.
He chuckled at her excitement, it amused him because she was working so hard for nothing. Well, the students were the future but... Eh, he'd probably be dead before the future generation was upon them. He found her excitement rather endearing in a friend-kind of way. Like him being excited when his brother comes up with an order for them to do something, mainly torture to extract information. Her little broken English made it better as well, to add it on. He cleared his throat, "Great, how about let's meet up in front of the wandshop in town, it probably wouldn't be crowded there... How about at six in the evening, not too dark..." River told her with a crooked grin. This was bound to be interesting for sure, if not awkward.
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Post by Nixie Auttenberg on Jun 28, 2015 11:37:15 GMT -5
He requested that she use his first name, and while it was extremely informal, she would oblige. This would make things a bit easier if she was able to get on the same page with the other Professor Holland, seeing as she wouldn't have to essentially think of them as number one and number two. "River," she repeated with a nod. "River it is, and you can call me Nixie. Auttenberg is pain to say all the time." Smiling... Where were these smiles coming from? Was she actually becoming a human again.
For a moment, Nixie had to rummage through her brain to find her mental map of the downtown area. She was still so new to town that it was difficult for her to know exactly where everything was, but she knew for a fact she had seen the wand shop before. It didn't take her too long to recall which block it was on - right across the street from the pet store - and she quickly nodded in agreement. "Yes, wand shop," she said with an understanding nod. "Six o'clock, I will be there," she confirmed. But before she left, she looked to him with excitement and gratefulness once more.
"Thank you, River," she said with gratitude. "I will see you this weekend." And with that, she gave a small curtsy before turning to exit the room.
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