Welcome to Hickstead, home to both Seven Oak Stables, and Blue Acre - two rival stables. Both offer opportunities for their clients to reach the highest level of excellence. Each stable differs from the other, so choose wisely and never forget, loyalty is everything... Meanwhile as the stables battle it out, there's trouble brewing at the university. Be careful, if you don't pick a side you may get caught in the cross-fire...
This is an chilled out rpg with a super friendly and relaxed atmosphere! Remember to sign up with your characters full name in all caps and don't forget to do your claims! Thank you and Welcome, we've been established since 10th March 2009 but unfortunately have had to close guest view of our boards due to multiple sites ripping off our hard work, such a shame! Come chat to us in Discord before joining if you like!.
Truly, Oliver was not in the mood to do anything today. Usually, he was happy to run amuck and all that – but he had spent all weekend up north for a dive competition. His body wasn’t usually as tired, but the cold weather had made recovery and warm-up a lot harder than it was in the summer.
A yawn escaped him as he dragged his feet to music class. Oliver liked music class, as he enjoyed the brain challenge of learning new music. He just didn’t know if he could concentrate as well today. Oliver stopped in the bathroom before class and popped some painkillers to ease the headache that formed a bit after lunch.
After seeing how awful his eyes looked, Oliver just hoped the lighting in the music room didn’t make him look worse. He found his desk and sat down. He was early, as he liked the extra warm-up time. But Oliver found himself, hunched over. Head was rested on his arms – and he found his eyes slowly closing. A few minutes of sleep wouldn’t be too bad, right?
aron made sure he was early to work. He usually was though as it was a habit that had been ingrained into him ever since his university courses.
It would be a while before any of his students came into the classroom. He used this time to get the class ready, making sure the instruments were in their cases and on the shelves. Some students took their instruments home to practice, but he made sure he had enough for everyone. He knew his students had more than just his class on the brain and things were often forgotten.
He took a sip of his coffee, always glad for a kick of caffeine in the morning. Once he set the navy-blue thermos on the corner of his desk, he noticed that the first student was already sitting down at his desk.
Aaron thought Oliver looked off. He was often a morning person and had his head down on the desk. Aaron walked over to the desk and stood beside it. "Oliver? Everything alright with you this morning?" He knew not every one of his students was welcoming to his caring nature, but he would have felt terrible if he didn't at least check in on him.
A few moments later, more students began filing into the classroom - all with tired looks on their faces.
Oh fuck, he wasn’t expecting to fall asleep. The voice over him jolted Oliver up so fast, his chair screeched. He groaned and rubbed his eyes. Thankfully, it was just Mr. Stonehouse. But it didn’t help that other students were in the classroom, and he could feel their eyes looking at him with confused glares.
After a few minutes – Oliver let out a soft breath. “Sorry about that, Mr. Stonehouse.” The young man readjusted his seat, letting out a yawn. “I guess the dive meet got the best of me this weekend.” He really needed a coffee or a pick-me-up. There was the vending machine but it was too far and the class was about to start. Plus, sugar and musical instruments did not work well together.
aron didn't realize how fast asleep his student was. Clearly, it was either a late night or an early morning for Oliver. Aaron could see that the student was startled by his voice. It seemed to take him a moment to realize where he was and truly wake up. After a quick glance, Aaron realized that his students were staring.
"No need to apologize. Just make sure you rest up though. It can be hard juggling sports and school." He had a few other students who were athletes and had similar problems. It was a bit of cause for concern seeing his students sleep during class, even if they were a bit older. "Did the swim meet go well at least?" Aaron did try to pay attention to what his students were interested in and what their extra curriculars were.
"If you need to get a coffee or something quickly, go ahead." His students weren't robots after all and needed sustenance. He signaled to the rest of the class to sit down and start to settle in. There were a few minutes left before class officially started.
“Yeah,” Oliver smiled. “It was a long travel weekend, unfortunately. We got second, so it wasn’t too bad.” While third or first was preferred, the school was going against some of the best teams. He was looking forward to not having to travel so far until the summer and spring. The training was still there, but it wasn’t as grueling.
Well, since he offered. “Okay, yes, thanks! I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Oliver stood up and grabbed his wallet, and fast walked to the hallway. On his way, he saw Janie in the hall headed toward her own class. She gave him a look and then noticed his eyes and face. His friend shook her head and handed him the rest of her iced coffee. He voiced a thank you and got back to class before the first bell.
Oliver took a comically long sip from the caramel latte. It was sweet, just as he liked it. Perks of having someone with just the right amount of sweet tooth. The rest was sipped down with much vigor, as it was small. Oliver finished it and threw the cup out; hand sanitized his hands – just in time for the third bell rang for class to start.
Congratulations, where did you end up traveling to?" He asked, walking back to his desk to get himself ready for class. It would be easy enough with their Winter concert around the corner.
Aaron turned and nodded when Oliver left to grab himself a coffee. He wasn't too sure if his students even drank coffee or if some of them were more into drinking energy drinks for an extra caffeine boost.
It wasn't long after that when the bell rang, he was glad to see Oliver back in his seat. The shuffle of chairs echoed across the room as the rest of the class was getting into their seats. "Good morning, class. Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!" He sounded enthusiastic, but he finally was able to have a weekend full of rest.
"Did everyone remember to think of ideas of what we want to do for the upcoming concert. Does anyone want to share their ideas?" Aaron turned back to face the whiteboard and pulled out a black whiteboard marker from the pocket of his dress pants. After that, he took the lid off and was ready to write down the ideas his students had come up with.
He was thankful that more students would be coming in. It meant he wouldn’t be facing Mr. Stonehouse by himself. Not that the teacher did anything wrong. Oliver was just happy to have a bit of a cover or something. Or the idiocy of the other students to keep him awake. There was nothing like a badly tuned oboe to jolt someone up.
Mr. Stonehouse began asking about the winter concert and Oliver internally groaned, forgetting about it. He always knew that a concert happened in December and April. A few students offered the classic Silver Bells and Rocked around the Christmas tree. All good choices, but predictable.
Oliver raised his hand. His nerd side would be coming about, but why not? When he was pointed to, Oliver blurted out, “The Imperial March from Star Wars.”
e was all for asking the opinion of his students, though from his experience it was hit or miss. After sliding the lid into the other pocket of his pants, he wrote the words song suggestions on the top. Aaron also added a P.L.O on the top corner to advise the cleaning staff to leave it on overnight.
As the suggestions started coming in, he started writing away. Aaron had a few ideas himself but his students often groaned at them. There were songs that were suggested by the curriculum, but after years of teaching under his belt he knew better than to suggest those. The song suggestions were something he saved for the younger students as they tended to have more goofy or odd sounding suggestions.
"Star Wars? I'll have to admit that's the last thing I expected. Any reason why it reminds you of Christmas?" He had heard other music teachers doing more of a movie themed concert for the Holidays. It was something he considered doing, though he knew how much some of the parents relied on tradition. Aaron turned and added it to the list, not wanting to be discriminatory. "Any other non traditional songs? We'll take a vote once we have a few more suggestions."
“Not everyone celebrates Christmas, Mr. Stonehouse,” a student called out. Oliver agreed.
“It should be a holiday concert or the winter concert,” Oliver agreed. Maybe it was something silly to implement, but it was like Easter. It was a wildly spread holiday, but the other folks had to ask off for their religious holidays. At least they got it off, but having to ask was a bit weird.
“We could do the soundtrack of Die Hard, that’s a holiday movie,” another student said. The others couldn’t help but snicker.
aron turned from the whiteboard, starting to feel dumb for remembering not everyone celebrated Christmas. "Right, yes. We can call it a Winter concert if that makes people more comfortable." He picked up the nearby eraser and cleaned off the portion of the board - writing the word winter instead. It made sense as they called their other most important concerts of the year after the season, rather than the Holiday associated with it.
He quietly laughed at the next student, shaking his head. "Do you all really think Die Hard is a holiday movie? I know it takes place during the season and all but...what would your parents seriously think if I allowed that?" Some parents were very strict on what they allowed their children to play in music class.
"How about we compromise and maybe do a movie score theme for the whole evening? Does anyone disagree with that?" He put the marker back down on the ledge of the board. It wasn't a theme they had done in the past and he was always a fan of mixing in something new every once and awhile. There was only so much classical music all of their brains could handle, though it was always good to go back to the regular program.
“No one will know unless they know the movie,” the students replied. Oliver himself didn’t know why Die Hard was a holiday movie either, but he liked the idea of playing some random movie score.
When Mr. Stonehouse offered to do the concert as a movie score one, that made the classroom pick up – something that wasn’t expected. Despite how long it took, the teacher did manage to get the class riled up. In a good way. Music class wasn’t for everyone. Plus, there was only so much Mozart kids their age could be into at the moment. “I mean, do you want us to play some kind of holiday music?” Oliver asked. “We could do a score from the Peanuts Christmas Movie…or the Grinch, obviously.”
aron could tell his students were getting tired of Mozart - though as some classical pieces were required by the curriculum, there wasn't much wiggle room. He did try his best to add more modern music into their concerts. "True, and it does take place during Christmas. Alright, I'll add it to the list of potentials." He saw the bored faces in front of him, until he mentioned the possibility of doing a movie score theme. Aaron smiled, glad the boredom was starting to go away.
"Those are two great options. Now, not to burst anyone's bubble but we do have to have one classical piece as part of everyone's grade." The principle would have his head if they didn't - it seemed to be a true tradition now. Thankfully, he had his options. "There are a few songs we can choose from. But yes, we can do a vote on which one later in class." He turned back to the whiteboard, writing down the three suggestions.
"What does everyone think if we put the classical piece at the front of the show as a warm up? or at the end for the big finale?" He found each class wanted something different. Most of the time he found the vote at the beginning as the students wanted to get it over with.
The mention of a classical piece made everyone groan and roll their eyes. Oliver was different, as he enjoyed them. Most of the class didn’t mind them, it was when the pieces got a bit too long and boring – could it be hard? They weren’t professional musicians, except for a few who wanted to do this professionally later.
“We could do Vivaldi’s Winter, but condensed somehow?” Oliver offered. It was fast-paced enough in some areas that could be the finale. It was a bit of a tougher piece, but everyone here could play it.
“Would anything from the Nutcracker count?” The easy answer would probably be yes, but it was up to Aaron what he wanted. There were plenty of options. Sugar plum was always a favorite.
“What piece would you like us to play?” Another student asked.
aron nodded, of course most of his students were dreading the classical pieces. This year's students seemed to be more for the modern songs. "I know, I know. Most of you are dreading this but it's only one song. It's part of the curriculum of marking from the government and there isn't anything I can do about it." He really didn't enjoy it either, but it was also part of music. It was all part of a broader musical education - or that's how they put it to him when he raised his complaints about it.
"That's a great suggestion, it's something upbeat and hopefully less boring for everyone." Aaron knew some of the parents would be excited about their children playing classical music - though he didn't also want his audience falling asleep. "Maybe the Linus and Lucy score from Peanuts? I can look and see if that counts." It would work with their potential movie music score theme too - if that's what the class decided on. He moved and wrote down the options on the board - glad that there were quite a few options for people to choose from. "Yes, Nutcracker would work. There are many pieces to choose from though, any in particular?" He didn't know if the class thought that Sugar Plum Fairies was too much associated with Christmas, rather than Winter.
