Qrow Branwen is a bad luck charm (scareqrow) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-12-07 21:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, qrow branwen, spencer hastings |
Who: Qrow and Spencer
What: Spencer's in class, but she's having trouble taking notes
When: Late Novemberish
Where: UC Irvine
Rating/Warnings: Low
Status: Complete!
Spencer was in class. Actually, this was one of her favorite classes, mostly because the professor was so interesting. He seemed really laid-back, and really knowledgable. Spencer could really appreciate that in a teacher. The high-strung ones didn’t really mesh well with Spencer, probably because she was so high-strung herself.
She was taking notes in class, having just opened a brand new pack of pens, and frowned when her pen suddenly stopped working. Ran out of ink? She gave it a shake, licked the tip, and tried scribbling, but the thing just wouldn’t write.
As far as professors went, Qrow liked to think he was fairly laid back. He wanted to be able to present the course material in a way that his students would be interested. There were times in which lectures were unavoidable, but Qrow liked to keep his lectures interesting and more conversational and engaging his students than simply him standing at a podium and talking at them non-stop for an hour.
The earlier classes were always a little more difficult than the later classes. Qrow wasn’t exactly what one would call a morning person. Most of his students weren’t either. And considering a handful of them were actually Dreamers like he was, he honestly couldn’t blame them. This particular class, however, was later in the day. Qrow’d had a couple cups of coffee, his students were more awake and over all the lecture regarding immigration into the United States during the early and mid-part of the 19th century was going well. The point of this particular unit of his U.S. History class was to get the students to draw comparisons between immigration of that time period to the way immigration is viewed today.
Though Qrow liked to engage his students during class, he was sure to stay in front of the class and not meander through the desks. He’d used to once when he’d first started teaching, however it was inevitable that by the end of the class at least one of his students’d had an accident of some kind, whether it was a papercut, an exploded pen, a forgotten book, a spilt water bottle, a cell phone going off. Eventually Qrow began regulating himself to the front of the classroom. The area effect of his semblance was still there, but it was less likely to go off this way. Or so Qrow liked to believe.
As he was talking about the famine-Irish experience in Boston and New York, he noted that Spencer Hastings, one of his students who also happened to be on the Network and who also liked to sit up front, was having difficulties with one of her pens. She was shaking it and scribbling on her notebook in an attempt to try to get it to work. Considering Qrow had watched her tear it out of a package before class started, he had a feeling it wasn’t going to.
Without stopping what he was saying, he stepped up to Spencer’s desk and removed the pen from her hand before she scribbled a hole right through her paper. With the same movement, he slid that package closer to her, silently indicating she just pick another pen. His lecture continued.
Spencer was a little embarrassed when the teacher came over and took her broken pen from her hand. It was frustrating, too, to know that the brand new pen wasn’t working. She gave Professor Branwen an apologetic smile, and pulled another pen out of the box.
“Sorry!” She whispered, and a quick, “Thanks!” before she started to take notes again. At least the next pen was working.
She got through about a paragraph’s worth of Cornell Notes. But then the ink seemed to run dry. Spencer frowned and gave the pen a shake. She put the tip to the paper again, and it worked for half a word. She shook it. Another half word. Frustration bubbled within her again and she scribbled again, frantically, trying to get the pen to work.
The scribbling in the front row caught Qrow’s attention and he glanced towards the girl with a subtly raised brow. Again? Seriously? He’d already tucked the first broken pen away into the collar of his shirt. He was in the process of answering a question from one of the other students further towards the back of the room, and prompting the class to draw their own conclusions regarding why there had been such a resistance from “native born” Americans to accept the newly immigrated Irish. Without skipping a beat, he stepped forward again, deftly reaching out and taking Miss Hasting’s second non-functioning pen away from her and clipping it, along with the first into the collar of his shirt. Again he nudged the package of pens towards his student. Hopefully the one remaining pen would actually work for her.
What.The.Heck? Spencer frowned as Professor Branwen pulled the pen away from her. She glanced up at him with an absolutely mortified look. Then she lifted the box of pens and inspected it, as if wondering if this was a trick pack--a practical joke pack, accidentally marketed as a real pack of pens. Seeing nothing to indicate as such, Spencer shrugged it off. Two bad pens in a bunch, right? One in a million, yet it could happen. She pulled the next pen out and started to take notes again. It was working pretty well. She turned the page.
With the issue of Miss Hasting’s pens seemingly resolved, Qrow turned his full attention back to the immigration discussion he was more or less now moderating among his students. They had successfully made the leap about the hardships facing newly immigrated individuals in the late 1800’s to the issue of immigration today. It was interesting to hear how the idealism of youth influenced their thoughts and opinions, but they were asking the right questions now. Was it right for U.S. to limit the number of people coming in from other countries? Was that a direct cause for the illegal immigration that was happening along the border between the U.S. and Mexico? Did this modern wave of immigration parallel the immigration a century before? What about refugees from war-torn countries in the middle east and Africa? What about those seeking asylum due to religious or racial persecution?
When his students stumbled on a question they couldn’t quite get an answer to, such as the difference between refugees and asylum seekers, Qrow supplied an answer that kept the discussion moving forward while also encouraging those interested to do further research on their own. The class as a whole seemed very much into this discussion and while some were very staunch in their opinions either for or against immigration, for the most part the discussion was civil. If things got a little intense (which they always do when dealing with people’s ideals and beliefs, no matter what age they may be), Qrow stepped in and either offered a third counterpoint to the issue causing the strife, or shifted the discussion all together. His students were gaining an idea of cause and effect and that a sensitive issue such as immigration was far more complicated than what they may have originally thought. That was history in a nutshell, a jumble of stories that relate to one another and there was no real right way of viewing it.
Spencer was very involved in the conversation. For a couple minutes she tried to get her mind off of the pens that kept breaking, and finally gave up writing anything down. She offered opinions and correct facts about the matter at hand. Spencer was one of the top students in her class, it was obvious by how she presented herself, the quality of her work, and how prepared she always was for lecture and discussions. Her essays were flawless. But today, whenever she moved to write anything, she was distracted by the pen in her hand. Was it going to give out?
As Professor Branwen moved away from her at the front of the room, Spencer’s pen began to work again. When he came back over, the ink seemingly ran dry. A fourth pen stopped working all together, and Spencer was starting to get frustrated. Was it a defunct pack? Was it well past its expiration date??
At least class was almost over. She leaned back in her chair as the professor started to wrap things up, angry at herself for not just grabbing a damn pencil.
The unfortunate reality -- a reality that Spencer had no way of knowing -- was that even if she had come to class with a pencil, the point probably would have continued to break, or the mechanism that produced a new piece of lead out the bottom would have broken. Seeing the poor girl continue to struggle, Qrow stepped back from the desks. The class discussion was more or less running itself and all he really had to do was listen and moderate. It was a fantastic discussion and Qrow hated to have to bring it to an end.
However, the class period was coming to an end and it was time to wrap the discussion. “I hate to cut this short,” he told the class, “but unfortunately class for today is over. We can continue this on Thursday when we meet again.”
And with that his students started scurrying to gather their belongings and hurry to their next classes. “Your final papers are due at the end of next week,” he reminded his class. “I’ll be holding regular office hours if you have any questions.”
The class all seemed to know that it was time to go. They started to pack just before Professor Branwen gave them the instructions.
Spencer capped her useless pen and tossed it into her bag. She’d already finished her paper, and was simply putting the finishing touches on the thing. Final read-throughs, etc. So she wasn’t worried about it being due soon. Some of the others in her class hadn’t even started on theirs. Spencer was ahead of the game.
She stood from her desk and shouldered her bag, then gave Professor Branwen a smile. “Thank you, professor. See you Tuesday.”
Qrow lingered at the front of the class room as the students started to leave. There was always one or two (sometimes three or four) who simply could not wait for office hours to ask a few quick questions. He didn’t mind answering. That was what he was there for after all. And better they approach him after class than at one of the many bars he sometimes crossed paths with his students in.
He glanced up from one of those students when he heard someone call to him. Ah, Spencer. Right. He should probably give her back her pens. He motioned for the student he was with to wait just a moment. “Ms. Hastings,” he called to stop her before catching her at the door. “You might want these,” he took the pens that had been tucked inside his collar and handed them back to her. “You might find that they’ll work fine later. I’ll see you Tuesday.”
With that he made his way back to the other student. Maybe he should start recording his classes and have them transcribed. Might cut down on student’s becoming distracted with malfunctioning pens.