Shay Education

Magical Education
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
 * March 17: Shay brews a potion for the first time with his grandfather; once his grandfather checks the potion he speaks to Shay's parents (and Shay) and arranges for Shay to start brewing with him regularly (March 28).
 * April through summer: Shay begins to obsessively self-study potions, materials and methods and quickly begins to build a strong and varied foundation.
 * June 13: Shay brews a potion for the first time by himself (supervised).
 * August 4: Sebastian contacts the Potions Board to request application information for Shay; after explaining the situation, he's told that an applicant must be eight years old, and though the standard application process takes six to eight weeks, given Shay's age it would take ten. Sebastian gathers the necessary information and submits the application (August 20). With the application he also submits a letter accounting for all of the time Shay has already spent learning material and the breadth and depth of material he has learned. He requests that they consider letting Shay test and apply some of his knowledge towards his license.
 * November 1: Shay receives his Right to Brew certificate and officially becomes a General Potions Apprentice. Along with his certificate, he's granted an interview date (November 8) and scheduled to take assessment tests (November 12, 13, 14) in Boston in order to evaluate his actual state of knowledge. After reviewing his scores, the Potions Board rules that he can be granted 32 weeks of practical and instruction, but he can't begin logging new hours until January 1st (1994).
 * December 3: Sebastian (with Shay's parents and Shay's leave) submits an application for Shay to earn his Combined Enchantment license.
 * January 10: Shay begins logging his potion hours, achieving the maximum allowed per week. Shay receives his Right to Craft certificate and officially becomes a General Combined Enchantment Apprentice (January 31). Due to his intense focus on potions, Shay does not log his maximum hours per week studying Enchantments; on average he is achieving the maximum one week logging time over a period of three weeks.
 * April 24: Shay takes his Potion Brewer's License Test in Boston.
 * May 3: Shay is granted his Potion Brewer's License.
 * July: As summer begins, Sebastian's knowledge base for teaching potions is effectively exhausted and he recruits some local colleagues (Kimberly Marks, Jessup Crowne, Reynold Carab and Italy Arquil) to begin working with Shay. While initially amused or reluctant to work with a child, Shay's new teachers quickly realize that he's just as serious about the craft as they are.
 * Summer: While the local brewer's still have things they can teach Shay, they also feel like they aren't collectively challenging him in quite the way he needs. Jessup Crowne (with The Potionery Store) contacts a colleague (Lloyd Hamish) in Boston and arranges for Shay to work with him for a period of the summer. A couple of days here and there when Hamish can be free quickly turns into a couple of days every week after he works with Shay a couple of times. Through Hamish, Shay also briefly works with two more Boston-based brewers (Cherice Martin and Eric Richards). By the end of the summer he is working with the Boston brewers more than the local brewers.
 * December: Over Shay's winter break, Eric Richards introduces him to Kyla Ivans, a well known Potion Mistress visiting from Eastern Europe on a book tour. She hits it off immediately with Shay and loads him down with copies of several of her books. They begin to write each other, discussing theory and current events in the potions world.
 * April 19: Shay takes his Combined Enchantment Maker License test in Boston. Afterwards he meets a Foci Crafter (Jason Hart) friend of Lloyd Hamish and they exchange information, promising to keep in touch. At the end of the month, Shay is granted his Combined Enchantment Maker License (April 29).
 * July 8: Shay takes his Potions Journeyman Test. Towards the end of the month he's granted his Potions Journeyman license (July 24). His grandfather arranges for them to stay in Boston for several days (26, 27, 28, 29) after he receives the test results so that Shay can spend some celebratory potions time with Eric Richards. Towards the end of his four days in Boston, Richards introduces him to a very well known Potion Master/Mistress, Indigo Gray-Haas. After spending just a few days with Shay, Gray-Haas decides to visit him regularly in Lynn, coming in from New York for a weekend roughly once a month. Gray-Hass works with Shay at some of the other Potion workshops, but the work soon moves into the potion space at Sebastian's store and Gray-Haas starts the ball rolling on bringing the potion workspace more up to date.
 * December: Shay begins to heavily read, study and break down potion journal articles and discuss them with the various Masters he's working with.
 * February: Shay begins writing potion journal articles for his instructors to show mastery of concepts and to begin to explore his ideas for potion modification, improvement, and ultimately creation.
 * March: Shay begins to actively work on research with Eric Richards in Boston for a class of potions that Shay has proven particularly well suited to brewing.  More informally, Shay also begins to exchange research-oriented letters with Kyla Ivans with an eye towards expanding some of her current work in new directions.
 * June: Ivans travels to Boston to meet with Shay in order to work with him in person on a specific chapter in her new research book.
 * July: Shay's name (S.S. Courin) is included on a peer reviewed journal article primarily written by Eric Richards - Allergy Reduction Through Temperature Reversal.
 * August: Shays' name appears on another peer reviewed journal article primarily written by Reynold Carab - Sugar as a Potion Process Ingredient (the surprising use of sugar in every step of the pre-potion to post-potion process).
 * November:
 * Shay's name appears as a co-author in a chapter (on the effectiveness and use of frozen potion ingredients) in Ivans' new book: Standard Alterations on (Ususally) Steadfast Principles
 * Shay meets Abigail Johnson and Henderson Roads during a weekend in Boston and begins to closely study enchantment journals and explore his own ideas in creation and modification.
 * December: Shay's name appears on another peer reviewed journal article mostly written by Cherice Martin and Astor Nimph - Secondary Brewing as a First Process (brewing a step potion (a potion with no other purpose than to be used as an ingredient in another potion) before the start of the target potion regardless of when it becomes relevant to the brewing process).
 * February: Shay's name appears as the first author on a peer reviewed journal article with Kimberly Marks - Ingredient Preparation: the Pro/Con Relationships in Specialized Preparation Tools.
 * March: Shay's name is included on a peer reviewed foci object crafting journal article primarily written by Sui Tan - The Benefits of Blended Small Object Foci Ingredients (on blending various ingredients together in a processor or with a mortar and pestle and using it instead of using ingredients as combined but separate)
 * April:
 * Shay's name appears as the first author on two peer reviewed journal articles with:
 * Eric Richards (and two others) - Temperature and Alterable Factors
 * Italy Arquil (and one other) - The Impact of Environmental Factors on Long Term Storage
 * June:
 * Shay's name appears as the only author on a peer reviewed potion journal - Variations in Separation Techniques (separating elements of potions after the fact).
 * Shay submits his first modified potion to the Potions Board for review and approval - an ingredient substitution and two preparation technique changes to shorten the time a headache potion takes to take effect
 * Summer:
 * Shay publishes in potions:
 * The Benefits of Potion Specific Ingredient Storage with Lloyd Hamish (storing potion ingredients that commonly go together in potions in close proximity to each other in order to increase potion effectiveness)
 * Environmental Factors Not Usually Accounted For When Assessing Potion Effectiveness with Indigo Gray-Haas and visiting Potion Mistress Katalin Kabdebo.
 * A Study of 21 Common Symbols Across 8 Brewers: symbolic brewing in a scientifically driven field with Gray-Bird Mourhing and Sanjay Hari
 * A Critique of Terminology: a literature review
 * Reconsidering Brewing Terminology Use for More Effective Brewing
 * Shay publishes in enchantment:
 * Enchanting Foci and Foci Enchantments: a study of compounded work in the field of enchantments distinguishing a set of core differences with Abigail Johnson and Laurence Freedan
 * An examination of foci jewelry: a literature review
 * August: Shay submits two more modified potions to the potion board for review and approval:
 * A non-reactive enhancement that can be added to certain classes of potions in order to make them bubble to appeal to children

first new potion: a non-reactive flavor additive and dilutive to change a common class of potions from an adult to children formula

Magical Education

 * Summer 1999: ; Shay submits two more modified potions to the Potions Board for review and approval; Additionally, Shay's name included on two more peer reviewed foci object journal articles
 * January 2000: Shay is sole author on a peer reviewed potion's journal article
 * February 2000: June 1999 article reprinted in a Potions Quarterly magazine highlighting Future Leaders in the Field
 * April 2000: Shay is sole author on a peer reviewed foci maker journal article
 * May 2000: Shay is first author on a peer reviewed potion's journal article
 * July 2000: Shay submits a significantly modified potion to the Potions Board for review and approval
 * Summer 2000: Shay published additional articles with several well respected Potions Masters; Shay submits his first original potion to the Potions Board for review and approval; Additionally, Shay is first author on two more peer reviewed foci object journal articles and is sole author on one peer reviewed foci object journal article; Shay submits a thesis paper on intermarried foci objects
 * August 2000: Shay granted his Combined Enchantment Crafter License
 * September 2000: Shay granted his Potion Adept License