Wizard Training, a.k.a The School of Classical Chinese Medicine at NCNM

It's official.  I go to school at Hogwarts.

Brandt Stickley

Seriously.  Today I had my first broomstick lesson (though I've maintained unofficial witch status for a while now, according to Bobby the Rooster)--levitation is one possible outcome of Jin Jing style Qi Gong.  There's actually a potions class (Herbs Lab with Eric Grey).  And clinical observation with Brandt Stickley--who bears a superficial resemblance to a certain Professor Snape--might as well be called shamanic training.

Fittingly, we Classical Chinese Medicine wizards-to-be are surrounded by Muggles: NCNM's  naturopathic students, a bunch largely steeped in scientific materialism.  Whereas we CCMers largely eschew quantitative methods and aspire to the level of the "superior physician," one able to diagnose through pure intuition and a quick glance at the patient.  We are leg in this lofty goal by an often Dumbledorean cast of characters, each with his/her own wisdom to offer.  And naturally, few of our head mages sing the same tune, or even seem to speak the same language sometimes.  We don't quite have four separate sub-teams, as per Ravenclaw, Griffindor, etc., but already in the second year we seem to be breaking into partisans of this or that teacher: the clan of Givens, the Heinerian order, and so forth.  We are distinguished as well by area of interest: acupuncture, bodywork, herbs and...let's just say 'other.'  Hey, Hogwarts had its partisans of Madame whats-her-name's crystal ball scrying class, and we have our fringe element as well.  (Though, ironically enough, Chinese divination and the I Ching is a relatively mainstream and undisputed topic for us.)

A fully trained acupuncturist

As of yet we haven't had much contact with the forces of darkness; I haven't even heard much in the way ominous rumblings from the OHSU medical campus on its stern, indomitable hill.  We do take our lives into our hands every day when crossing the "chicken run" at the corner of SW Kelly and Corbett, though, and we brave the hazards of the neighborhood food desert--a desert only in comparison to the absurdly gourmet bounty that is the rest of central Portland.  Still, a time will surely come when we will arm ourselves with 34-gauge, 2 cun stainless steel needles, high-grade Japanese golden moxa, and bulk (never granulated!) herbs and make a stand against the legion of doom clammering at the gates.

Until such a day should arrive, we bide our time, memorizing the esoteric significance of ancient Chinese anatomy and learning to recognize the 25 herbs of the Tang Ye Jing by taste alone.  Muggles, take heed; one day the fully-trained denizens world you never imagined will materialize in your midst to dazzle you with seemingly impossible feats of pattern recognition and symbol interpretation.

Don't say you haven't been warned!