InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Badger badger badger"

Juno MacGuff [Juno] (sacredvessel) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2011-02-26 07:59:00

Entry tags:

james watson, juno weasley

WHO: Juno, Watson (& Watson?)
WHAT: Homework of the scientific variety
WHEN: Backdated to the first week of the marriage plot!
WHERE: The family digs
WARNINGS: tba

Juno had homework. Lots of it. Particularly math and science, because she'd done all the easy, fun stuff like literature first. Then she'd tackled history, and slogged through it, and now she was looking at science as possible escapism from the memorization of dates and events that were all swimming together in a sea of meaninglessness, considering she was biffles with a couple of wizard dudes from the seventies, and currently living with not one but two--count them--two of the greatest science nerds that ever lived.

"Ugh, this was all so much easier in elementary school, my dear Watsons," she groaned from her nest of couch cushions. "And I wish my biology teacher would stop looking at me like she's wondering how politically incorrect it would be to use me as an object lesson! I swear, if I get the stink-eye one more time, I'm popping the question, and playing hooky." The question being, 'why are we here?' and Juno's answer being 'now you see me, now you don't!'

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sacredvessel
2011-02-27 06:40 am UTC (link)

"Yeah. I'm not so great at science. I'm easily distracted, and it's kind of gotten worse with all the pregnancy hormones, and the, uh..." She winced as she got a small but determined knee in the ribs. "General aches and pains associated with it."

She shifted so that she was sitting up straighter, trying to correct her posture and get a little more comfortable. "The lab portion is easier because it's hands-on, and I can kind of move around a little. But I've kind of realized lately that I shouldn't use my 'condition,'" She made finger quotes to go with the word condition. "As an excuse to slack off."

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holmesianmodel
2011-02-27 09:38 am UTC (link)

Though this is probably where Watson might have said something about how he didn't know how she was feeling, or that he was fascinated by her distraction levels, he wisely chose to shut his mouth. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that you didn't make a pregnant woman angry. Not for any reason in the world. Only and idiot would do that. "All right then, let's see."

Getting up from his chair, he went to sit down beside her, making it a bit more easy for her to tell him what she was working on. "I heard it's better to slack off before the baby comes than after, if only for lack of sleep. All right then, so. Is this multiple choice? Short answer? What can I do to help?"

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	sacredvessel 2011-02-27 07:46 pm UTC (link)
	"Most of our actual tests are multiple choice, but I'm just trying to go through the review questions at the end of the chapter, now that I've managed to read through it." She shrugged, turning the book so he could see which portion she'd been reading. "Maybe you can quiz me?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

holmesianmodel
2011-02-27 08:24 pm UTC (link)

Glancing over at the book, he hm'd and skimmed through what he could read and then nodded. "All right, I'll quiz you. Hand the book over." Though he didn't need the answers of course, it would probably be good if he had the right questions and wasn't asking her things that were several chapters later. Once the book was in his hands, he flipped to the beginning of the chapter and asked her, "What is the hormone in plants called which causes them to bend towards the light?"

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sacredvessel
2011-02-27 10:02 pm UTC (link)

Juno handed the book over, trying to picture the words on the page associated with James' question. Her mind was a vast well of trivia, some of it useful, and some of it not so useful. It was keeping it all organized that she seemed to have trouble with.

"Ugh. Hormones?" She had to laugh. She remembered that bending toward a light source was called phototropism, which made her think of TV Tropes, which made her think of cliched celebrities posing for the cameras, thus: bending toward the light of flash bulbs. But the name of the hormone that caused it? They all ended with -in, or -sin (fancy that!). How was she supposed to remember which one did what?

Juno frowned, realizing she was letting herself get distracted already. "Is it...auxin?"

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holmesianmodel
2011-02-28 12:10 am UTC (link)

"Hormones, the chemical, that sort of thing," he agreed nodding his head a bit. Hormones were one of the harder things to remember. But they were covered in this chapter, so he figured it was easier to start with the harder stuff. Somewhere in his logic-filled mind, that made sense anyway. Since she seemed to be familiar with hormones as of late. Another statement he was never going to make.

"Correct, good job." He skimmed for another review question and then asked her that one. This time about chlorophyll and fertilizer and things like that. Plants fascinated him, though not as much as other things.

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sacredvessel
2011-02-28 01:15 am UTC (link)

"I saw that," Juno said, pointing at him, "You're laughing on the inside. I know you have some amusing commentary going on in there that you refuse to share because everybody thinks pregnant women's hormones supersede their sense of humor."

She babbled about chlorophyll at some length, eventually answering the question in a meandering, round-about sort of way. She had a feeling if she ever aspired to teach, she would be one of those professors whose students would have to rephrase their questions until she was forced to give them a yes or no answer. "So were you always good at science? Or did you have to work really hard to get that way?"

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holmesianmodel
2011-02-28 02:43 am UTC (link)

James had the decency to look as innocent as possible when she said she caught him. "Laughing? I have no idea what you're talking about." Might as well at least try to deny it, right? "I wouldn't dream of laughing at you, dear. Not you or any other woman." Sure, pregnant women were nothing to be laughed at, but he was always raised to believe that you didn't make fun of a woman at all. It was a very ungentlemanly thing to do. "You're a young lady, I wouldn't dream of it."

That's what you got for being raised in the 19th century. He listened to her answer and nodded his head. "That about sums it up, good." Just as he was going through to the next question, he glanced up at her again. "Hm? Oh, well I guess so. I've always worked really hard to be as educated as I am, but I admit most of it's come naturally for some reason." Good genetics, he supposed.

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	sacredvessel 2011-02-28 03:14 am UTC (link)
	"That's cool." Juno smiled a little pensively, tapping her forehead. "I think it's all in there somewhere, but it comes out all mixed up." She shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to muddle through." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	holmesianmodel 2011-02-28 06:27 am UTC (link)
	"To me, it's all about trying to associate the answers with something ordinary that you have no problem remembering. Even if it's something as simple as rhyming a word with another." That was how he usually remembered things when he didn't remember automatically. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

sacredvessel
2011-02-28 06:42 am UTC (link)

"Like...Oxen eat plants." Even if she was slightly butchering the name of that particular chemical, the mnemonic served well enough to remind her that Auxins were plant hormones. "That just seems, like, really simplistic. But then, I probably won't ever go into forensics, so I guess I don't have to worry so much about making mind boggling deductions. You were right, though."

She paused, taking a sip from her water bottle before she elaborated. "My friend with the PTSD? Your advice was right on, Homes." The familiarity slipped out before she quite realized how much it sounded like she was calling him Holmes. "Even if I don't always to a good job of reading his cues."

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holmesianmodel
2011-02-28 09:47 am UTC (link)

"Right, exactly. That's usually the best way of remembering. Or if you think you remember best by seeing something, draw a picture of what you associate it with. It's all about technique." That's what James' father always used to teach him when he had gone to school. Of course by then he was more of a know-it-all than his teachers and not the most beloved student in the world but that was semantics. "It's often the simplest things that work the best. If it's too long, the brain jumbles it all up."

Though he really had no idea what a 'homes' was, he just figured that she was calling him by his last name. Even if he'd lived for a really long time, he hardly knew the lingo. Plus he'd been dead for a while. "I'm glad to help, that can be an awful and tricky thing to deal with. The mind copes in many mysterious and miraculous ways."

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sacredvessel
2011-02-28 01:05 pm UTC (link)

"Yeah. I'm still not sure he's coping very well sometimes, but there's probably only so much I can do about that." She shrugged. It was probably good that she was working on her brain/mouth filters. And her patience.

"Eighteen seems awfully young to be dealing with that, but I guess, war is no respecter of age. Anyway. I don't mean to be depressing. Where were we?"

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holmesianmodel
2011-02-28 08:42 pm UTC (link)

"You just have to be there to listen and help if he needs it, sadly that's mostly anyone can ever do." Though he supposed there were drugs and therapies the man could try, but it didn't seem like he was the type to. Especially being a wizard and all. "In the end, I think everyone just needs someone to care for and care be cared about in return. And don't go telling anyone I said that." He'd never hear the end of it.

He nodded slightly, "I went through two world wars. It's no picnic at any age, you're right." Glancing down, he picked up the book again to read her another question. Better to talk about plants than war.

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sacredvessel
2011-03-03 08:40 pm UTC (link)

Plants were cool. Juno was cool with plants. As long as the subject didn't turn to cactus. Valentine's day had just passed, after all, which was the time of year when her mother inexplicalbly mailed her the annual cactus.

This was be the first year since she was five that Juno didn't be getting one, and in spite of her purported resentment of her mother, she almost missed it. Everything had changed so much in the past few months, it was sometimes hard to find a constant. Odd that her pregnancy had become something of a focus for her, when before her arrival in Colligo, she had tried not to become too attached to the little one growing in her womb.

And she was getting distracted again. "Sorry. Sorry. I was just thinking about motherhood."

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holmesianmodel
2011-03-04 02:56 am UTC (link)

"Well sadly that really is one topic that I have no idea about. At all." No kids, and no one that ever wanted kids. It was just something he didn't know too much about. Once upon a time, he had thought about having them, but that never worked out. Then just like that, he'd been dead. One tended not to think about trivial things after dying.

"Quite all right though, let's see.. Here, let's go over the parts of a plant. Starting with the root, and what the function of the part of the plant is."

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sacredvessel
2011-03-04 05:14 am UTC (link)

Juno leaned over to look at the diagram, opening her notebook and laying it across her stomach, doodling as they read. Glancing down, she realized she was sketching out the root system she was looking at, and she was actually sitting still.

"So the carbon dioxide gets absorbed through the leaves, while the roots suck up water and minerals through capillary action in the roots and stem, and it's fueled by energy from sunlight that gets trapped in the chloroplasts--which are also in the leaves. Except for cacti, the photosynthesis happens mostly in the stems, doesn't it? To keep the water from evaporating the way it does out of normal leaves."

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holmesianmodel
2011-03-04 08:03 am UTC (link)

All of this reading and doodling seemed to be working. James smiled a bit and nodded. "That's right. You know once I ran into a eight foot tall man eating cactus? Nasty things, and the spines actually shot out at you. Those are the ones you want to watch out for. Kind of like a venus fly trap." Though the cactus never really talked, unlike in that musical about the singing venus fly trap.

Not that James had ever seen anything like that. Nope.

He rattled off a couple more questions that were for that chapter, making sure that she had all the right knowledge down for her test.

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