OOC: YEA, Completely sorry about the delay in starting this; between work and a flat tire on sunday, I haven't really been in the right mental state to start this ... =/ BUT we're starting NOW *NODS*

MMHM... of course you liked it there, Treyen. But tough. Continuing giving him a look, she nodded satisfactorily when he finally returned to his own desk. Even if he was sitting on it, well it was better than him being at her desk.


...

Now enough delay. Time for the lesson, hopefully. "So this term, we've discussed our families and their name number, divination with sticks, or Chien Tung... For previous terms, for those who were present, we've had discussions about the numbers two, seven, and nine, the personal year number, varying forms of cryptography, personal day number, and even some review of the basic core numbers..." Hadley began in a brief review of past topics in her class. Forget about her predecessors. "But now we're going to move onto something related and yet what I find a simple number to understand. Karmic numbers. Who can tell me first of all, what is karma?" Surely they've all heard of it by now.

Oh, class was startiiiiing. Meep!

Turning her attention back to the Professor, the Slytherin slumped in her seat and listened to the review. Good Merlin, they learned all that? She was too tired to remember half of those! A good nights rest was in order for tonight. Or just an extremely long nap after this lesson. That seemed fine to her too.

However, she had to keep away. Especially when a question was being asked. And...great. A topic that she was already fuzzy and non-understandable in her mind. But well, she raised her hand anyway. "Karma is the actions or events that take place in the future of the persons life as a result from that person's past actions..." Erm...right? Fuzzy...ness.

Emily was excited that the lesson was beginning. Arithmancy was one of her favourite classes.
Raising her hand, she answered Professor Hadleys question.
"Karma is the belief that what you put out into the world is what you'll recieve back. So... if you do good things, then good things will happen to you. But if you do bad things, then bad things will happen to you."

Yup....... Karma, the vengeful elephant.

Oh, ...class was starting.

...joy.

Sierra glanced up with a rather unamused expression. She meant absolutely nothing toward the professor, but final exams pretty much had her feeling dead as a dodo, and she had zero spunk left for classes.

Nevertheless, she raised her hand. If she showed up for class, she may as well try and earn some house points. Or, you know--learn something, too. "Karma pretty much means a person is going to get what they deserve," she summarized.

The class started not too long after Vashti had arrived, so she could have been late if she hadn't run the whole way. That was how she was going to look at it anyway, instead of thinking she'd run for nothing.

Hm, what was karma? Easy enough question, so she raised a hand. "It's basically defined as 'what goes around comes around,' meaning that if you do something mean to someone, at some point later in your life another person will do that to you too. And if you do something nice for someone, another person will do the same for you too."

Basically yes, everyone was correct, who spoke up. Which wasn't many? HMM... HAD they fallen asleep?! Because Fina was sure that more people had entered the classroom than just four. "Precisely right. Karma relates to the concepts of actions or deeds which causes ultimately the cycle of cause and effect. The idea of this concept originated in ancient India." Not something they needed to know, but it was always nice to have a little back history.

"Yes, ultimately that is the beliefs set forth by karma, in its most simplest way of saying it. Thank you, Miss Browne," Professor Hadley nodded at the seventh year.

Moving on to explaining more about karma; "As mentioned, karma is not merely punishment or retribution, but more extended consequence of natural acts. It literally translates to deed or act and broadly defines the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction. These effects are able to be moderated by actions and is not necessarily fate. Ultimately, a particular action now does ultimately lead to some pre-existing future reaction or experience." Fina paused, allowing them to finish up their notes on that part before moving on. "Again, I repeat, karma is NOT fate, as we act with free will and despite what our numbers MAY tell us and guide us, we do still create our own destiny. But ultimately, what karma does try to offer us is that if one sows goodness, one will reap goodness."


"There are two important types to consider when talking about karma. Can anyone explain to me the difference between Karmic Lessons and Karmic Debts? What numbers are required of you in order to figure these out?"

Nika raised her hand confidently. She knew the answer to the first question. She had remembered reading about it the night before class. "I can tell you the difference! Well Karmic Lessons are the energy stuff that you have to learn now or later because you didn't have it before. It's the missing numbers or something like that..." Nika twirled a strand of hair around her finger. At least that's what she thought she read. "And er Karmic Debts are err the debts that people get that are related to abuse and other bad type things. It's really saying that your future will give you chances to redeem yourself kinda." Nika raised her eyebrows and gave her professor a unsure look. Hopefully that would do. As to which numbers and such she couldn't remember. Her brain could only retain so much information at a time.

"A Karmic Lesson," Sierra said, raising her hand, "is a lesson you have to learn, because...well, you didn't learn it in the past. You find this by using your full birth name, assigning each letter in your name a number, and figuring out the single digit numbers that are missing." There. That sounded like a pretty good summary. ...and Karmic Debts? Hmm... "A Karmic Debt is, I think, a chance to correct what didn't do right in the first place. You find it by checking to see if a 13, 14, 16, or 19 was in your Birthday Number, Maturity number, or four Core Numbers before they were reduced."

Merlin, that was a lot of information!

Oohhh Emily only had a vague idea about that karmic lessons were and what karmic debt was... but still this was an opportunity the broaden her understanding. Brilliant!

After considering what she was going to say she raised her hand to address Professor Hadley.
"Professor... is it that a karmic lesson is, the number which reflects what we must learn in the present or the future because we have not learned it in the past?" she paused for a breath, still unsure as to whether or not she was making any sense.
"And... karmic debt... is the representation of all the wrongs we have done in our past? so that way.. we'll have an understanding of what we need to do in order to make up for our wrong doings?"

Yep... Karama.... was.... complicated.

Focus!

"Um... to calsulate our karmic debt number we need out birthday number, maturity number or one of our four core numbers."

Yes... yes they did.... she thought. *confused*

Samira raised her hand. "In spiritual circles, it's pretty well accepted that our most important lessons come through our relationships with others. This most specifically applies to romantic and familial relationships, but a business partnership or your connection with your best friend certainly qualifies as well.

Some relationships will impose very "heavy" karmic lessons. Examples of these are:Illness, Addiction, Criminality, Death, and Betrayal."

Well, that summed up karmic lessons. Now karmic debts...

"Karmic debt means that something negative happened in the past that must be addressed in the present or the future before you can continue to enjoy your life fully," said Samira. "I guess the difference is that Karmic Lessons are...well, lessons. Things you learn from. And Karmic Debt is paying up for something you did before."

That was an acceptable answer wasn't it? Samira was a bit nervous; this was never really her strongest subject...

Ah yes, karma. Kurumi's grandmother had always been raving about it and used it more as a threatening device to make her and her brothers behave. Kurumi was still waiting for the karmic payback from when she had broken her grandmother's old bronze mirror.

"Professor Hadley," Kurumi said raising her hand. "As we have already discussed, karma is the energy created based on the relationships and actions we have done in our past and present lives. Karmic debt, as is my understanding, is a result of negative actions you have done. Most of the time, these come from mundane activities. For example, if your profession was a tree cutter, you would build up karmic debt to nature with each tree you cut down. The only way to repay this debt would be to do something positive for the environment."

She paused for a moment to consider the other half of what Professor Hadley had asked. "I think that Karmic Lessons come as a result of our Karmic Debt. The only way to pay back the debt earned is to understand the reason why we got it in the first place. If one continues to think they are a victim of karmic activities, but does nothing to ease that suffering, then that person has not learned their karmic lesson and will continue to earn karmic debt."

Selina sat in the lesson and listened to Hadley speak. Her grandfather always talked about karma, it was funny that they were talking about it in class. Arithmancy was always interesting to Selina although she was not as informed about this class. So she sat back and listened to the explanations of the other students around her. Maybe she would learn something, that was the goal.

Haha! See, reading textbooks before the school year started was finally paying off!
"Karmic lessons are the numbers missing from your birth name, and are lessons you'll need to learn in the future, because you haven't experienced them in your past. You need the number that results when you turn your birth name into numbers, and which digits are missing. Karmic debts are things you've done in the past that you need to correct. You need the most frequent digit that appears when you turn your birth name into numbers." Wow. That... was a lot. Ariana was quite surprised that that all came out of her mouth just now actually. Hmm, guess she knew more than she knew she knew!!!

Well clearly some of the first years had studied up on karma! Either that or they've read the textbook. "Precisely right, Miss Adler. Couldn't have said it better myself." Well actually, she probably could have, but ssh!

Oh good, at least someone was awake and paying attention the second part of the question; what you use to find these karmic numbers. "Yes. Finding your karmic debts is a much more time consuming process than finding your karmic lessons, as you have at minimum six numbers to actually run the calculations for." Good thing they had a little bit of time.

"Ultimately, yes, that is correct in regards to what karmic lessons and debts are." Fina said, nodding at the older girl, who well, by now she should be able to grasp this stuff easily, considering younger classmates do. "But actually, with the karmic debt number, its not ONE of your four core numbers, but ALL of them that you need." But if it showed up in one of them, then that would be a karmic debt. Confusing yes, indeed if you didn't pay attention to those minute details.

Josephina stared at the next girl... A young Slytherin and blinked a few times. What did she? Swallow an encyclopedia? "Now Miss Spinks, if tape recorders worked at Hogwarts, I'd have loved to have tape recorded you. Because to me, that just sounded like A LOT of words and perfect reciting of the textbook."

In other words, acceptable, but totally textbook recycled.

ooc: Please don't copy word-for-word from sources. The least you could have done was listed the resources used, but nonetheless it's STILL plagiarism which is BAD and makes a sad Professor Hadley. =(

"Very wise understanding of the subject matter, Miss Hollingberry." Professor Hadley said, nodding and smiling subtly at her example. Clearly she's had some experience with karma or something.

"Um...." Fina eyed the girl carefully, pondering what she was saying. "Right about the Karmic lessons, but well for Karmic debts, you're looking for four particular numbers to be present before the final reduction of your Birthday number, Maturity number, and core numbers." And hopefully that made some sense. Maybe. Either way, they were moving on, because there wasn't much time left.



Moving on .... "As Miss Greingoth mentioned, you find your karmic lessons by using your full name listed on your birth certificate. Below each letter, you should write the corresponding number associated with each letter according to the Pythagorean Number System. The single digits missing are your karmic lessons."

Flickering her wand, her own name spelled itself out on the chalkboard for an example:

J-O-S-E-P-H-I-N-A F-A-I-T-H H-A-D-L-E-Y
1-6-1-5-7-8-9-5-1 6-1-9-2-8 8-1-4-3-5-7

"As you can see from my--" long, Fina inserted mentally. "name. I have no Karmic Lessons. Go ahead and write out your own names and discover if you have any missing numbers and therefore missing energies from that number."

ooc: I'll be continuing onward with the lesson in about 12 hours or so... Though you'll still be welcome to backtrack and calculate out your karmic lessons for as long as the lesson is going, which won't be past Sat night, Sunday morning the latest ;D

Hmm yes...it was official.

Evelyn was, for once, lost in this class.

Then again, karma was still a fuzzy subject to her, and she had no interest in these particular numbers considering it was all fuzzzzzy in her mind soooo... wait, what were they doing?

Bleh. Their full name from their birth certificate? Pfft. Aw well, she was getting over the whole 'hating the real last name' so, for now, it was no big deal. Staring at the example of the professor's name on the board, Evelyn blinked and then...stared. Stared with an unblinking gaze. And yes...she did just zone out.

Taking out her notebook, Ariana wrote out her name.
A-R-I-A-N-A-E-M-M-A-H-A-R-T-L-E-Y Then, opening the textbook to the page that showed the letters to numbers conversions, she carefully wrote down the numbers of her name, taking care not to make any mistakes!
1-9-9-1-5-1-5-4-4-1-8-1-9-2-3-5-7 Now she had to check it... 1s? Yup. 2s? Yup. 3s?... Oh no! No sixes! Ariana wrote down the number six underneath her name and numbers. 7s? Yup. 8s... So just six, then.
According to the textbook, six normally meant "Balance, nurturing, service-oriented, responsibility/duty, family focus, domestic and work issues". Ariana wondered what that meant her Karmic Lesson was.

K-Lee wrote a few quick notes down before going on with the task at hand. So Karmic Lessons. Interesting.

Okay dokey. No 7 or 8's. What did that mean? K-Lee wasn't too sure.

The textbook for 7 and 8 had some meanings, but was that what she was meant to look at? She would stick to just finding the numbers for now.

"Professor you know my weird liney hyphen thingy. Is it called a hyphen? Anyways, does that do anything to the Karmic Lessons?" K-Lee asked, pointing at the liney hyphen thingy.

Emily groaned....
her whole name? ... Really!... was it necessary?

She began to write it down on her parchment... pulling out her notebook she wrote each corresponding number beneath the letters.

Right... so... numbers... it appeared that Emily was missing digit 8.
Frowning she flipped through her text book again.
What karmic lesson was she missing!?!?

What in the blazes did that mean?!... was she not successful enough for Karma?!... rude.

"Professor?... is this right?.. is this the lesson I'm missing?" she asked looking for conformation that she had done it right.

How was it that will ALL the letters in her LONG name she didn't have a single H, Q or Z... silly.

Hyun listened as the professor was talking about karma..something. His textbook layed open on the table and he had his left arm on the surface, resting his palm on his chin. He looked at the front with interest even though his body language didn't show.

When they were instructed to find their Karma numbers , Hyun grabbed his quill and paper and started writing.

He placed his quill down next to his parchment and looked at the numbers. He looked at them a few times before coming with the conlusion that he had no Karma..something..numbers. Did that mean he was *complete* ? O_o

Kurumi staaaaaaaaaaaaaared at Professor Hadley as she explained the concept of karmic numbers and karmic lessons and suddnely had a craving for caramel...perhaps when class was done she could make some caramel based cookies. She did have a recipe for pumpkin cookies with a caramel icing.

Pulling out some parchment, Kurumi got back into the routine of writing her name and associating numbers. She really out to memorize them to make these calculations easier.

Okay, so now she needed to check and make sure that all numbers were paired off? Was that how it worked? Kurumi looked at her notes again and realized that that was not what she was supposed to do. Now it was a game of what number is missing...

Well, right off the bat Kurumi saw that she was missing a 1.

She checked out all the other numbers, and they checked out. So, now she was supposed to look at what the number one represented...Kurumi flipped through her book and re-read the description.

"One represents beginning, independence, innovation, leadership..." she read catching herself on her words. "Professor, what does it mean we have to do now that we know what karmic lesson we haven't learned?" Did this mean she needed to stop running away and take on a leadership role?

Uhm..yeah, no. Ellie was not putting her middle name in this. First year had been one thing; she hadn't known anyone. Plus, she'd worked with a Seventh year, who could care less about exploiting her, and had left soon afterward. No harm, no foul.

But now she KNEW people. And people had annoying, wandering eyes. And she just refused to let anyone know her middle name. Refused.

She didn't even like using her first name. It was livable, though, unlike...the middle name. Yeah.

So...what now? She was looking for missing numbers one through 9, was it?

That'd be...four, seven, and eight. Yeah?

Ellie glanced at the textbook to see if she had used her middle name, what would happen....and she'd have only had one missing number. Oh well. Unimportant.

This was one of those moment when Patroclus just seemed, his perfect smile........


He completely and utterly lost, but a big grin always made it look like he got what was going on, and lots of "Oh yeah I get it!" "Geez, it's so easy, why didn't I see that," and a few "Now we are rolling!"


But there was also a good thing to help Patroclus, and that was the Professors examples, as she completed the example on the board, all he had to do, was repace his name with hers and go from there......simple right?

Quote:

PATROCLUS JULIUS HUDSON
7129932 133931 834165

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9.....all there, yep once again the world of Arithmancy was declaring that he, Patroclus Julius Hudson, was perfect!

Karmic numbers. Mmm. Arithmancy. At least it was near the end of term so he could have summer without needing to do any calculations. He was looking forward to that a lot. But yes. Time to see if he had any Karmic numbers

Quote:

F I N L A Y J O E S P H C A R M I C H E A L
6 - 9 - 5 - 3 - 1 - 7 1 - 6 - 5 - 1 - 7 - 8 3 - 1 - 9 - 4 - 9 - 3 - 8 - 5 - 1 - 3

Hmmm. The only number that he didn't have was a two. Finlay glanced at the textbook to have a quick mooch at what the number two actually meant.

Quote:

2: Harmony, unity, relationships, collaboration

Oh...so that was what he was missing??? Maybe that was why he wasn't too good at relationships...opps. He figured that the interpretation kind of suited him, a little bit maybe.

As the professor and his classmates had that conversation about Karma, Karmic...stuff or whatever they were, Josh had been busying himself with advancing his skills of scraping unique figures on the desk with the sharp tip of his quill. And though there were no certain figure in shape of anything present in this world -except a little lizard and a roughly drawn Thestral image-, the Gryffindor boy thought they were each a masterpiece. Yeah, they were because anything the Master of Everything happened to produce would be a MASTERpiece.

Hehehehee...

Yet once they started the practical part of the class, if you called it practical of course, which he always preferred to participate rather than the theoretical part as he did in every class, the boy stopped working on his scraped masterpiece and looked up to pay attention, finally, to the class. Well...examining the example on the board, this looked rather easy to find out...this lesson thing. So, grabbing the quill back the lion boy started to work on his own name.

No 'sevens'? What did that mean? Well...he actually was not bothered by that fact because he already did not like the number 'seven' but it did not stop his curiosity. He wanted to know what it meant! Like NOW!

''Professor! There isn't a 7 in mine. Yeah 7. What does that mean?''

Tell me now! Tell me now!

7

Ha?

...

Oh yey! They were starting to work things out. Her favourite part!
Dipping her quill in her ink, she wrote her... birth name. She didn't want to use her birth name, but if they had too *shrug*
In scratchy letters she wrote, then put the numbers underneath.

Quote:

E M I L Y C A T H E R I N E S M I T H
5 4 9 3 7 3 1 2 8 5 9 9 5 5 1 4 9 2 8

1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Oh, no 6! 7, 8, 9. Man. So close!
She looked in the text book and laughed.

Quote:

6: Balance, nurturing, service-oriented, responsibility/duty, family focus, domestic and work issues

That was what she was missing? Ha! That was totally true. Except mabye the responsibility bit. She felt like she'd got a lot of that at home.
But the family focus bit She'd agree she was missing that!