Simone Ayers

From Secondheaven

Revision as of 17:49, 19 April 2007

Basic Information

Full Name: Simone Ayers
Player: Douwe
Date of Birth: May 6th
Age: 31
Journal: dropsofsun
Height: 5'6"
Weight:: 130 lbs

Appearance

Simone looks delicate, from her features to her build and her coloring. She doesn't do much to go against that look, as she is usually in semi-formal, feminine clothes even when the environment is casual, almost always in wearing natural-looking making, and so on.

Her hair is gold-blonde, very straight and very, very fine. Her eyes are blue, her skin fair (and kept very fair by copious amounts of sunscreen in summer).

Simone's PB is Cate Blanchett

Personality

Simone is sort of odd. And by sort of, it means quite a bit. She looks very lady-like, very prim, proper, and for the most part she acts like it, speaking with a soft voice that somehow holds onto that softness when she raises it, referring to everyone with Mr., Mrs. Miss, etc, and other such things.

But she generally just sort of seems…off. Absent-minded, maybe. She’s interested in nearly everything, which is why her writing profession fits so well, and while she switches things she’s fascinated with on nearly a weekly basis, she doesn’t forget it and can often bring it up in conversation later (and she has a habit of bringing in topics that she’s thinking about but not saying, so when she does bring it in it’s very much a o.O reaction on the parts of the other speaker, since they could be discussing cooking and she’ll ask a random question about mechanics of sunlight).

She adores student writing, even if it’s not good. In fact, it’s more fun for her when it isn’t good, because then there’s stuff to work on and work towards and discover what they’re good at or interested in, writing-wise. She believes she gets to know her students really well through what they write, since it often demonstrates a part of them that they may not have yet discovered, and watching them do so is fascinating.

History

She was born in Toronto is a typical middle class family, her father usually working and a bit distant because of it, but her mother was a homemaker and was almost always there if Simone needed her or if there was an activity to go to.

She managed to get into a good scholarship at Cornell, in NY, and moved from major to major, not entirely sure which one she wanted to settle into. They were all too…limiting, almost, and she finally chose English with a creative writing focus and graduated. She was soon married after and, at a loss of what to do outside of being a homemaker like her mother (which she did not wish to do, especially not right after going through so much effort in college), she went abroad to South America and teach English. This caused issues in the marriage and within two years they were divorced.

When she returned, she still had no idea what to do, so she went back to get a Masters in education with an English focus, still focusing more on writing than anything else. She started writing short stories for magazines on a regular basis, winning some awards and supplementing her finances that way, but had decided that teaching was probably the best path for her, possibly even when she could get somewhere with her writing.

Other Information

Birth Location: Toronto, Canada
Why Second Heaven?: She liked the concept of high school that was international and based on the Japanese school system, as opposed to an European-styled school, and that it was a high school that would avoid most the slackers and idiots you get in a typical American/Canadian high school.
Favourite color/food/activity/subject: White, peanut butter cookies, listening to classical music, Writing
Least favourite color/food/activity/subject: Olive green; Relish, Heavy lifting, Physics
Likes: Sunshine, picnics, cooking and baking, writing stories, learning about new things
Dislikes: Bugs of all kinds, bland foods, messy handwriting, a disorganized desk
Family: Parents

Teaching Style/Schedule

She's pretty laid back as a teacher, so as long as the stories are turned in on (or close to on) time, she'll accept it, and grade well if the story follows whatever guidelines she's given and has proper grammar. All stories need to be typed, however, since she sucks at deciphering handwriting.

First year is the most structured, as she tries to introduce all the styles that one can write in and allow students to discover which one they like best. In second and third year, she mostly lets them pick whichever style they like (poetry, lyrics, short stories, chapters in a longer story, round robins, whatever) and gives prompts out to see how people with it.

Some are very simple: a word, a color, an emotion, a song etc. Others are more complicated, like using these lyrics in a story, and not all lyrics can be quoted/or sung by a character, or writing a sequel to a story she hands out (using the same characters as in the story).

Many of her classes are workshops, which can either be full-class workshops or small-group workshops. She does require copies of the draft and the final, so she can see that some change has taken place. About half her grade is based on the workshops, ten percent on the final story (that's required to be ten pages or beyond), and the rest is on the stories handed in by the class.

Relationships