Kendra's eyebrows knitted into a frown as she concentrated whilst she thought. Numbers had never been such a strong point with her, but yet she was here to give it a go. This was a different form of numbers at least, so maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

She had looked through her Arithimancy book earlier in the week, flicking through the pages with tired eyes as the rest of her dorm fell asleep around her. It hadn't made any sense then, and was making little more now.

Quill in hand, Kendra wrote down some notes about the methods they were talking about. Something called 'Agrippen' and another called 'Chaldean.' Her expression turning a little lost, Kendra hoped that it would all become a little clearer than the thick fog it now was.

LuLu... liked Arithmancy.. But it seemed other students thought otherwise about the subject... The sign was they weren't answering.. She kinda had the same problem at first but she got the hang of it her hand went into the air ''The methods are the Agrippan Method and the Chaldean Method, the main difference between the to is that the Chaldean Method doesn't go any higher than the number eight, But the Agrippan Method goes 1-9 and can use all the letters of the alphabet,''

It sounded okay.. To her anyways

Harvey watched as the professor shut the door and started the lesson. He got ready for the lesson. She started off asking them a question as part of a review.. Harvey put up his hand "The two major methods in existance are the Pythagorean Methoda and the Chaldean Method. The Major distinction between the two is that one of the methods the Pythagorean Method uses the number 9 whereas the other method, the Chaldean Method does not use this number." he answered the question.

Well that was slightly odd. The first few people who answered the question totally went more complicated than she would have expected. At least terms of knowing the terminology. "You're correct, yes, but a bit more technical." Not that those technical terms weren't important. They might need them for exam purposes, but everyday world? Laymen terms were just as, if not more valuable. Which of course was why they had to know both.



"Yes, the Pythagorean system is the more widely used terminology for the Agrippan Method," Fina replied as those who all added this to their answers instead of Agrippan. She was actually willing to bet that those who learned mathematics in the muggle world learned about good old Pythagoras, with little knowledge of who he really was, of course. "Due to the fact that the Pythagorean Method is more common, we will mostly be working with that. So unless I tell you otherwise, then that is the system we use."

"Those aren't methods..." Fina commented at hearing a rather different suggestion about the two methods. "BUT, I will say that numbers and letters are what you use when dealing with the methods of Arithmancy. As mentioned by some of your classmates, you assign the letters A through Z to the numerical values of 1 through 9."



Then two students, rather than adding more about the Pythagorean method - in which they used - they elaborated about the Chaldeans. And Josephina had to smile at this because of how rare it was that students actually knew a bit about the other method. Perhaps if she did teach a lesson using that method, she would have to keep Keefer and Kurumi in mind.

"Yes, you're both correct. The Chaldeans used a method that is not as widely known and definitely doesn't seem to line up as nicely as things do with the Pythagorean method."


But moving on because they spent just a bit longer than she expected on the two methods. "The numbers 1 through 9 each have unique symbolic meanings that correspond to the evolution of a person's life. So does it really come as a surprise to you that on some days you might feel certain vibes? Whether these vibes are color related or characteristics, they might be felt at different times in each of us, which could perhaps be attributed to whatever number is yours that day." She paused a brief moment. "Sometimes you might not understand why your friend says they are feeling strong... or feeling blue... Which is of course due to the nature of numbers. They are affective to each of us on a personal level; sometimes we feel their presence and other times we don't. Times when you may wish to pay attention to these days are when your number that day matches your life path or soul number, as what is a subtle influence in your life will become stronger as its added to the stronger influences in your life."

She paused as her glance fell on a couple of the newer students in the classroom who probably thought she was speaking French right now. "So let's backtrack just a bit off the daily vibes for a moment. Soul urge and Life Path numbers; what are they? How do you calculate them?" You know, since they were all related, it was a good idea to go back and review, yes?


ooc: my apologies. I meant to post again last night, but for some reason I just couldn't muster the energy at keeping my eyes open. Tis happens <3.

Laura looked at the Professor and smiled. "Life Path, wouldn't that be where you decided what you want to do in life?" Laura was sure she had heard something about that. "So that would mean that Life Path is going to be important to me because I have to decide later on what my future in life would be." Laura had no idea what a soul number was.

Jotting down a few notes here and there, but mostly cross referencing previous term's notes to make sure that she had everything Professor Hadley was saying already covered, Kurumi scribbled in the margins a few notes and then set her quill down and raising her hand. "One's Life Path and Soul Urge, which is also sometimes called the Heart's Desire, Numbers are part of your Core Numbers. I suppose you could almost call you Life Path Number your personal road map through life. It tells you what road you are following in life and what sort of personal attributes are needed to help you excel down that road," Kurumi began. "To find this number, you take number value for your month, day, and year you were born. Then, using the addition method of reducing each compound separate, you add the remaining numbers together." It was sort of hard to explain out loud. Kurumi had always thought of Arithmancy as one of those classes were you learned through doing more than verbal cues.

Kurumi quickly scribbled some numbers and calculations on her piece of paper.
At least, Kurumi was pretty sure that was right. She was known to make little mistakes here and there. Call it over eagerness.

Glaring at Paulie settling down next to her, Louisa was about to shoo him away. It was absolutely NOT the right move to sit next to her when this particular professor questioned their relationship. But knowing Paulie more now, Louisa didn't say a thing, she merely rolled her eyes and focused on the lesson. He probably did it on purpose, heh.

Life Path numbers. Louisa's favorite. Well, if she had any favorites in Arithmancy, it'd be Life Path numbers. Raising her hand again, she replied, "The Life Path number, professor, is pretty much what its name indicates. It's the number that talks about your road in life since your birth." Gesturing to her Arithmancy textbook, the girl went on, "There are a list of numbers and their indication in the textbook. When we calculate the Life Path number, we refer to that list and find out what our path in life is."

As for calculating them, "There are three methods to calculate it. Some numerologists simply add the numbers as they appear in the date of birth, then break them down to a single digit by continuously adding the digits of the result number." She hesitated before adding, "Also most numerologists will note the double-digit number behind the single digit as well and would write it down side by side to the single digit. The reason they do that is that it influences the nature of the single digit it produces sometimes." It was very confusing without an example, though. Louisa didn't know whether or not it was her place to give one now. She just fell awkwardly silent in the end.

Zhenya looked around the class to see if people were actually following... because she wasn't. She was actually frightened that she might do very poorly in this lesson, but she didn't want to. She rested her hands over her eyes to help her concentrate, then raised her hand with her eyes still closed. She paused like that a moment to make sure she remembered what she was saying, then opened her eyes, "Uhh Professor maybe Life path numbers are what we calculate from births and stuff. I think it might um... show where you are headed in life, perhaps. And Soul urge...maybe they represent what your soul is wanting and desiring," she said. But... how were they calculated? "And life path numbers are calculated er... by using your birth date, and the soul urge well... I think because our names each hold unique meanings behind them, then behind that meaning we can use numbers. So maybe certain letters of the name could help with calculating that one?" she asked.

My web filter blocks this type of stuff, doing this from memory!
 

Oh, now she was going to clear the cobwebs from his brain. Back to the Muggle maths stuff he wasn't good at. He strained his mind to remember. He must've looked in pain, because Treyen actually looked concerned.

Soul urge... life path... ok, think Keef! He got something, but whether right or not he wasn't sure. And the soul urge number was nowhere in his mental filing cabinet.

He raised both hands. Only for Hadley would he willingly put his neck out there with a likely wrong answer. "Those are Core Numbers, right? I can't remember a thing about the Soul Urge number, but the Life Path is sorta coming back. It's all about your personality and what characteristics you will need to help you succeed in life. Kinda like a guardian or tour guide in a sense, no? As far as calculations..."

He trailed off. How on earth would you explain it? "You assign numeric values based on the day, month, and year of your birth. You reduce the separate parts to a number one through nine and then add those three digits. It's sort of hard to explain." He had newly found admiration for teachers. Arithmancy really required practice and demonstrations.

Mickey almost felt bored in this class. Bored and frustrated, her main problem was that everything in this class had it's own set of rules, and everything had to be done in a specific way other wise it was wrong... even if the answer she had matched the the one that was supposed to be the correct answer. She nibbled the end of her quill as she stared at the blank piece of parchment in front of her. She didn't have a clue. Mickey became lost once the word perag- what ever it was, was said. Giving up she threw down her quill and ruffled her hair. The student next to her looked quite lost too.
"Impossible," Mickey muttered leaning back in her seat.

"Yes and no," Fina smiled, content that the girl wasn't actually terribly too far off with her suggestion. "It is the road you will follow throughout your life, also telling you the talents and abilities that will help you along the road. But it might not explicitly spell out for you that you will be a healer or a curse-breaker." No. That part was very vague.

As Kurumi just explained what she said to Laura. "Quite right. The soul urge and Life Path numbers are a part of your core numbers. The life path could be in a sense, described as your road map." She noticed the fifth year then scribbling something down and Fina had to stride to peek down at them.

"Ah yes. Wonderful, Kurumi. Your life path number is an 8!" She beamed. "Would you mind transcribing that on the board as an example?"

Everyone wanted to describe the life path, but no one seemed willing to take a stab at the soul urge number. Josephina just nodded though, as Louisa answered, with nothing really new.

"Why so hesitant?" Josephina noticed in the girl's voice. "You're quite on the right line of thinking." And besides, the girl was young. She even described the soul urge very slightly. "Yes, the soul urge, since it describes your secret thoughts and wishes, your desires, you will use your name to help figure it out. The vowels are used to find your soul urge number."

As her captain seemed to be struggling to formulate an answer, she smiled when he went on about the life path. "Precisely. A guardian or tour guide, in a sense." She nodded at him.

As she was about to continue on about the soul urge - the students already touched a lot on the life path themselves, Josephina heard the muttering of a word she never liked to hear. "Young lady! Pick that quill back up. Nothing is impossible and it's prudent to jump to such conclusions when we haven't even started any calculations yet!" She will not have her students leaning back.


"Now, back to the soul urge number. As you've already talked a lot about the life path, the soul urge number, or your heart's desire is just that. It's what you desire. Your true motivation behind that life path. Behind your destiny. What you value." Fina explained, hopefully in terms that they could understand.

"To calculate this number, you use your full name on your birth certificate, and assign the corresponding number from the chart in chapter two to each vowel in your name." She wrote her own full name on the board to demonstrate:

J-O-S-E-P-H-I-N-A F-A-I-T-H H-A-D-L-E-Y
--6---5------9---1 --1-9---- --1-----5--

"One that it is important to remember is that you figure out each name separately, reducing to a single digit, before combining the names to find the single-digit root number." She continued. "If you remember from last term, we talked about PEDMAS, the order of operations. Just think of that when doing your calculations."

J-O-S-E-P-H-I-N-A F-A-I-T-H H-A-D-L-E-Y
--6---5------9---1 --1-9---- --1-----5--

(6+5+9+1) + (1+9) + (1+5)
(21) + (10) + (6)
(2+1) + (1+0) + (6)
(3) + (1) + (6)
10 = 1

"Now, because I know some of you are going to ask," Josephina said as she addressed the class once more. "Why I didn't include in the Y in my calculations? This is because the Y in my surname does not act as a vowel. If it acts as a vowel, then it is one. If it does not act as a vowel, then do not include it in your soul urge number calculations. Go ahead and calculate this number and your life path number; Kurumi will be putting an example of that calculation on the board."


ooc: You have about 12 hours to work on this activity, since I have work tonight. So we'll continue - hopefully - at about 11pm EST with at least one new thing, hopefully but since i have the turnaround shift tonight into tomorrow, it'll be a brief continuation tonight <3

Alyssa remembered those from the lesson she learnt last term. So she raised her hand and answered.

"Professor, the Life Path and Soul Urge Numbers are Core Numbers. In order to calculate the Life Path Numbers, you take the day, month and year you were born, add them up using the reducing method, keep adding them till you end up with single digit.

As for the Soul Urge number you take the full name and using just the vowels, you assign a number to each vowel using the Pythagorean table where each letter is assigned a number between 1-9. We first the add numbers for each name using the reducing method and then we add the reduced numbers of each name together. Then using the same reducing method we add the reduced numbers of the name until we come up with a single root digit number." Alyssa hoped she made sense.

Zhenya got out her quill and dipped it in her ink. For the first time since stepping into this lesson, and realising how difficult it might be, she had hope she would be able to finish the class well. The Professor did know what she was talking about, and Zhenya was very thankful that she had addressed her answer. She had a little more confidence in what she was trying to achieve out of this lesson.

Zhenya Gredippe Burton - she wrote down. Now for the tricky part... assigning numbers...

Z H E N Y A / G R E D I P P E / B U R T O N
5 1 / 5 9 5 / 3 6
(5+1)+(5+9+5)+(3+6)
(6)+ (19) + (9)
(6) + (1+9) + (9)
(6) + (10) + (9)
(6) + (1+0) + (9)
(6) + (1) + (9)
=16
=1+6
=7

She worked it out, and raised her hand, "Professor, did I do this correct?" she asked. "I'm sure the Y in my name isn't a vowel... but I might be mistaken."

And here we go with Muggle maths.

He whipped out a new piece of parchment on which to do his calculations. At the top, he wrote his name. Flipping his textbook to chapter two, he searched until he found the chart that told what each of the vowels corresponded to. Thus began the tabulations.



He put a circle around the final number, an 8.

He scanned the textbook until he found a list of the Soul Urge numbers and what they meant. His was the same as Kurumi's, so it should be the same, but he wanted to read it for himself. He underlined the parts that definitely fit him without a shadow of a doubt.

The other parts... Well, I am the Captain, so whether I want to or not I am the boss and have power. Maybe I'll learn to enjoy it, then? What would this season bring?

Answers to Questions Two and Three: Soul Urge, Life Path, Calculations
 

"The Soul Urge number is also called the Heart's Desire since it refers to one's secret wishes and what one values most. A person's full birth name is used to calculate it," Tayla replied as she raised her hand. "The Life Path number on the other hand, shows the road one will follow in life and what one can depend on to become successful. To calculate this number, the birthday is used."

As Professor Hadley explained the topics some more, Tayla took down notes as quickly as she could and tried her best to catch up.

"There," Tayla said, reviewing what she did. "Did I get mine correctly, Professor?"

Alyssa was trying to catch up as fast as she could. She first calculated the Soul Urge Number of her name as according to her birth certificate and assigned a number to each vowel using the Pythagoran Table.



Now to calculate her Life Path Number, using the day, month and year of her birth, Alyssa calculated what her Life Path Number would be.



After she had finished her calculations, Alyssa raised her hand, to reveal her answers.

Ira had known the answer to previous question, but since many others had already answered, and that she didn't have anything that she could add, she kept quiet.

Then, Ira removed her quill and a parchment from her bag. Here came the calculation! Ira thought. Last term, Ira had liked Arithmancy but hated those damn calculations!

She wrote down her full name on it: Ira Adam Wilson like professor had written on her board. Now the numbers..
She turned to chapter two as instructed by the professor to find the corresponding number of the vowels. She wrote in her parchment:

So that meant that her soul urge number was 8. She hoped her calculations had been correct!

"That looks correct," Fina nodded, as she contemplated for a bit too long about the Y in the girl's name. "Yes, I think I'm inclined to agree with you. The Y doesn't seem like a vowel in your name, so I'd go with that."

Scanning over the sixth year's work, she nodded in approval at his calculations. For a moment she thought he had the same number as the Gryffindor Prefect, but then remembered that the Prefect's Life Path was 8, whereas Keefer's soul urge was 8. Slight difference.

Hearing another student ask for her to check her work, Fina strode over to the young Gryffindor and looked it over. "Correct, yes, on both numbers, but remember PEDMAS in regards to the calculations. Reduce the components to a single digit before you add them together." She pointed to her Life path number in particular.

Seeing another student raise her hand, Josephina hurried over to check out her work. And shook her head almost immediately. "No... no... Your Soul Urge number. Remember about the vowels? I do believe in both your first and middle name, that Y does act as a vowel." So in other words, yes, you should count them toward your soul urge number. "And as a reference point, your life path number is actually 11/2, a master number."

Seeing another student finishing up, Josephina strode over to have a peek at her parchment. "Er... two things, dear... In your first name, I is a vowel." She missed that. "And in your surname, check that addition..." Because she was fairly sure that 9 plus 6 did NOT equal 14.

Sophie was still feeling lost in the subject. She loved numbers and calculation - math was one of her best subjects back in her muggle school -, but all of the theory part sounded too weird to her. That didn't make her feel bad, though, she knew she could catch up during the term.

Opening her textbook on chapter two, Sophie started doing the exercise.


Sophie put down her quill and looked around, trying to see her classmates work and see if hers was right. She decided to ask the professor herself. "Professor, did I do it right?" she asked raising her hand.

See, that was why Ira hated calculations! But yeah, she should have been a little more careful. How could she possibly have made a mistake in seeing her own name letters' vowels? "Er.. Thanks professor" she said and proceeded to rectify her mistake.


So her soul urge number was 9.

After rectifying her mistake, Ira looked around on what to do next.

Okay, so now that she had calculated her soul urge number, Ira proceeded to calculate her Life Path number. For this, she wrote down her date of birth in her parchment and started to calculate it:

Woots! She got her life path number.. And it was a magic number 11!

Then she showed both her parchments containing her two calculations to the professor to verify it.

Oh. They were going to calculate the soul urge number. Louisa glanced briefly at Paulie before taking out her quill and started scribbling on her parchment.



Circling the result, Louisa opened her textbook and searched for what the number eight indicated.



What the heck. Louisa frowned at this. "Tis not true," she murmured to herself. Well, it was shocking to the girl to read her 'heart desires' written on an Arithmancy book and suggesting that she was... not into friendship or love affairs.

Pout.